Tuesday, November 30, 2010

Rupert Murdoch to publish i-pad newspaper

i-pad owners will now have their own newspaper, The Daily, published by Rupert Murdoch and available nowhere and no-how but via the i-pad. Mashable.com, in a news story with an editorial below, says the newspaper has a fledgling staff of a hundred journalists. It will cost users $0.99 per issue to download.

Friday, November 19, 2010

FOR for Nov. 22

Featured Online Resource for Nov. 22
WOLFRAMALPHA.com

Wolframalpha.com computes, compares, crunches, enlightens and astounds. Use it to find out how pears and bacon compare in terms of fiber, the gross domestic product of Finland in 2009, how many cubic decimeters in a Danish pot, and when the next solar eclipse will occur.

You may wish to use the "Examples of Topics" menu from the home page.

Every week, the Ort Library brings you a new and outstanding resource from the Web or from one of the library's databases. To get an archive of all FOR entries, click here. Also, you can suggest a website that provides well-organized access to useful info.

Thursday, November 18, 2010

Jaimy Gordon Heads Up National Book Award Winners


Jaimy Gordon's Lord of Misrule takes prize for fiction.


At Cipriani Wall Street in New York City, the National Book Awards were sprinkled upon the delighted recipients last night, including Jaimy Gordon, a professor at Western Michigan University, for her independently-published novel Lord of Misrule.


Other winners:

Poetry: Lighthead, Terrance Hayes, Penguin Books

Nonfiction: Patti Smith, Just Kids, Ecco

Young People's Literature: Kathryn Erskine, Mockingbrid, Philomel
Lord of Misrule is set at a West Virginia horse-racing track in the early 1970s. Newcomer Tommy Hansel attempts to win some quick cash with a few of his ponies and get out, but becomes entangled with local gangsters.
The book was hurried into publication by Bruce McPherson, owner and editor McPherson & Co., who wanted to nominate it for the NBA. Two days after making final corrections, Gordon learned that an earlier draft of the manuscript had won the nomination.
Please do not confuse the novel with Rachel Caine's vampire adventure of the same title: it did not win the national book award.




Friday, November 12, 2010

FOR for week of Nov. 15

Featured Online Resource
Nov 15, 2010

Every week, the Ort Library brings you a new and outstanding resource from the Web or from one of the library's databases. To get an archive of all FOR entries, click here. Also, you can suggest a website that provides well-organized access to useful info.

THIS WEEK'S Featured Online Resource
The Cassiopeia Project

The Cassiopeia Project is an effort to make intelligent but easily digestible videos on all manner of science topics. The project, operating under the slogan “No science teacher left behind,” is funded by an adamantly anonymous retired scientist. The project is named after the Cassiopeia Constellation at the edge of the Milky Way, known for its wayfinding capcaity; once you find Cassiopeia, you can easily locate all other constellations in the Northern hemisphere — a beautiful metaphor for the illuminating mission of the project

With more than 100 videos to date available on iTunesU, YouTube, and in the Video Library the project offers an invaluable resource on everything from quantum mechanics to evolution to the theory of relativity. Most videos also include a print transcript that is free to download as a .pdf file. All the content is open-source and educators and students are encouraged to edit, remix and otherwise customize the footage.



Thursday, November 4, 2010

FOR for week of Nov. 8

Featured Online Resource
Nov 8, 2010

Every week, the Ort Library brings you a new and outstanding resource from the Web or from one of the library's databases. To get an archive of all FOR entries, click here. Also, you can suggest a website that provides well-organized access to useful info.

THIS WEEK'S Featured Online Resource
Tin Eye Reverse Image Search Engine

Got a picture? Want to see where else it’s used on the web? Maybe you want to find similar images? Maybe you’re just trying to identify it? Well, TinEye can help you with that.

TinEye is a reverse image search engine. You search for images using images, not words to find out where the image came from, how it’s being used, if modified versions exist, or to find higher resolution copies.

It works by "creat[ing] a unique and compact digital signature or ‘fingerprint’ for each image that is added to the index. When you submit a search image to TinEye, its fingerprint is analyzed on-the-fly and compared to the fingerprint of every single image in the TinEye search index. The result is a detailed list of websites using that image, or modifications of that image."

Jump right in from their homepage. From there you can upload an image or insert a URL that contains the image you are using to search. Get to know all the details by watching this video from their About page or visiting the FAQ page.