New Trier Library

Friday, August 07, 2009

Google quadruples archives of news articles

About one year ago, Google launched an initiative to digitize newspapers and make them accessible and searchable online.

Now they have updated their news index with 4 times the number of articles included in News Archive Search. In addition, articles from more publications have been added, including the Halifax Gazette, Sydney Morning Herald, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, and the Village Voice.

Explore this newly available primary source material by searching on Google News Archive Search or by using the timeline feature after searching on Google News. Many articles with free abstracts require a subscription or a fee per article. A handy feature of the advanced search shows links to related web information.

Thursday, July 30, 2009

Wikipedia for Schools

The 2008/09 Wikipedia for Schools is a recent initiative which offers free, hand-checked, non-commercial selections from the regular Wikipedia which are useful for English speaking students because articles are targeted around the UK National Curriculum.

The project is designed to help the education of poor and rural communities in India and Africa. SOS Children UK, in coordination with the Wikimedia Foundation wanted to make the content free for those areas which lack Internet access. SOS Children, a British charity allows for downloading onto a DVD which can store the 5500 articles; it is equivalent to a twenty volume encyclopaedia and has 34,000 images.

Unfortunately, due to the size and scope of the project it was not possible to check the reference and external links for each article, so they are not included. As a librarian, that makes me a bit dubious of the whole thing since we teach our students to always look at the references and external links.

Readability statistics are for articles is another area for concern when using this in an educational setting. In the few articles I checked for readability, the average reading score was grade 11. As an educational tool, this would limit the use to high school students. In an effort to make the articles uniform, the editors did not seem to be thinking about low reading levels in high poverty areas.

That being said, it's a noble effort with good intent.

Monday, July 27, 2009

Digital Textbooks are Coming to School

California is the first state to offer high school students free, open-source digital textbooks for high school math and science. Will we see other states follow California’s lead in digital textbooks? As California goes, so goes the nation. Does that mean we'll all be bankrupt eventually?

As usual, the devil is in the details. Read more about the California open-source digital textbook initiative.

Wednesday, July 22, 2009

Learn How TweetGrid Powers Up Your Twitter Search

TweetGrid - A Quick "How To" from Jeff Turner on Vimeo.

I am following 9 live Twitter search feeds simultaneously on Twitter: http://is.gd/1I2hJ
It's worthwhile for breaking news.

Tuesday, July 21, 2009

What I am Learning about Social Media

Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.

Will Barnes and Noble eReaders unseat Amazon's market position?

Barnes and Noble is promoting new, freely downloadable e-reader software for ebooks which works on iphones, Blackberrys, MACs and PCs.

* Automatic downloads of your latest Barnes & Noble eBook purchases and samples
* Access to download eBooks from your Online Library anytime
* Bookmarks, note taking & highlight functionality
* Lookup function for dictionary, Wikipedia or Google
* Portrait or landscape display modes
* Customizable font, margins and page gestures

The B&N eReader comes with some free reads:

* The Last of the Mohicans
* Sense and Sensibility
* Dracula
* Pride and Prejudice
* Little Women
* Merriam-Webster's Pocket Dictionary

The recent bad press on Kindle erasing titles from customer's individual readers, such as 1984 and the large cost of the Kindle may make the new offerings from Barnes & Noble seem attractive.

According to a WSJ article today, the maker of the Plastic Logic eReader device due in early 2010 is partnering with B & N and it will offer more than 700,000 titles, including more than 500,000 public domain books from Google Inc. and will continue to expand its offerings. Depending on the price point of the new ereader, they could make serious inroads to Amazon's market share.

Thursday, July 16, 2009

Internet Safety Recommendations

Earlier this month, members of an internet safety task force released these recommendations to improve cyber safety. Additional information and links regarding Online Connections can be found at this page, compiled by New Trier librarians in support of a parent program held earlier this year.