Research Blog : evansville

Beat the Heat by Coming to EVPL!

PotionsMaster@evpl — Tue, 23 Jun 2009 15:26:00 GMT

This is the second day of a Heat Advisory for this area. Sure, we all feel drained and listless, not to mention that any kind of physical movement makes a person break out into sweat. But especially in the Ohio River Valley heat can cause more problems than sticky underarms. People especially at risk are the elderly, young children, and anybody who must work outside. Check the Weather Channel and weather.com for updates and further information. Here's what to watch for:

Severe Sunburns: It might not seem like a major heat related health issue, but it is. When the skin is reddened and burned, it loses the ability to drain heat away from the core of the body; blood that runs close to the surface in order to cool down isn't able to because the skin itself is overheated! Have you ever seen some poor fellow who looks like a boiled lobster after a day on the beach? That's a severe sunburn. The peeling that will happen will be spectacular. Hope that poor person doesn't wind up with sun poisoning and blisters from the burn.

How to Treat: Their best bet is to stay out of the sun in a cool spot, keep applying that aloe vera gel, and to keep hydrated. (Keeping hydrated will be a theme.)

Heat Exhaustion: This term gets bandied around alot with 'Heat Stroke', but they are not interchangable words for the same thing. Symptoms of heat exhaustion are weakness, nausea, heavy sweating, fainting, clammy and cold skin (do not be fooled! Cold skin does NOT mean cool internal temperatures!), and for those who are medically inclined to check the pulse, it will be weak and thready. This is actually a mild form of shock. Heat exhaustion can occur when working outside for extended periods of time when the weather is hot and humid. If not recognized and treated appropriately, it can and probably will lead up to heat stroke.

How to Treat: Get out of the sun, drink cool water (not ice cold), loosen clothing, rest for the remainder of the day, and stay away from protein-heavy foods. Ice water will feel like a kick in the gut and might cause cramping, while foods laden with protein (cheese, meat, milk, the like) will cause blood to flow to the intestinal tract and kick up the core body temperature in order to digest. High internal temperatures are what we are trying to avoid. Call the doctor if vomitting happens.

Heat Stroke: It's no joke. Seriously. The body shuts down your internal air conditioning unit, in short. The body ceases to sweat, and that can cause the internal temperature to skyrocket to deadly temperatures. The heat can rise so high, it is possible to cause brain damage. (If you think a sunburn feels like you're cooking, be thankful you have not experienced this kind of heat.) Look for red, hot and dry skin, throbbing headache, strong, fast pulse, dizziness, confusion, nausea, and worst: unconsciousness. If not treated immediately, death can occur within 10-15 minutes.

How to Treat: Call 911. Then try to cool the body any way possible, as fast as possible: strip the clothing, give a sponge bath with cool water, run a fan on the person's body. If outdoors, move victim to shade, strip clothing, and run water from a hose on the body. DO NOT GIVE FLUIDS.

So what can a person do to avoid these terrible health risks? First step is come to the library! Two words: Air Conditioning. This is especially helpful if you do not have air conditioning in your own home. Even if you only come for a few hours, when you go back out into the heat, your body will be able to handle the stress of it a bit better.

Second step: Hydrate yourself. If your body does not have enough moisture for it to sweat, you are on the fast track for heat stroke. Sweating cools the body by evaporating beads of moisture off of the skin. This is the first air conditioning the world knew about, and one of the most effective and environmentally safe ones, too. (Some people's noses might disagree, though!) After air wicks away the sweat, the skin is cooled, which cools the blood in the vessels close to the skin. The cooled blood then circulates around the body, cooling the internal temperatures, and then bringing more hot blood back to the skin in order to become cooler again. It's a beautiful system. The more water you drink, the easier it is for your blood to flow, as well. And it all relates back to making your sweating system more efficient.

Step three: whether you have electric air conditioning or not, keep those electric fans on and that air moving. Moving air evaporates water faster than stagnant air. This is why if you are sweating profusely it feels so good to stand in front of a fan. It's ok to talk into the fan, too, if you're alone...it distorts your voice and you can pretend to be an alien or an announcer. Other tips are to keep your front door and drapes closed; sun coming in through a window can increase the temperature in your house, wilt your plants, and make your AC and fans work harder. Closing the drapes will help your electric bill stay somewhat lower.

If you absolutely must go out, here are a few tips. Wear light colored, light fabric, loose clothing. Light colors in the spectrum bounce sun rays off and away, as opposed to dark colors, which absorb. This is why people with black, dark brown, and navy blue colored cars always have every window and door open in the parking lot when they first open them up in the summer. (I am one of those silly people...my car is black.) Central Library does have an underground parking level to for those who don't want to bake their car seats.

Slow down and don't over exert yourself, particularly in the middle of the day. This is a great excuse to anybody: "I must slow down and not exert myself, especially in the middle of the day, on a day like today; the heat index is says it feels like blah blah degrees, and I don't want to risk getting heat exhaustion. Let's go to the Library and get out of this heat." This next tip should be a no-brainer, but people do forget: wear sunscreen. Preferably with a high SPF. Getting a sunburn is uncomfortable and we've already been over why else it is bad.

Last tip; no prizes for those who can guess what it is: HYDRATE. Drink cool water, or Gatorade/Powerade/Vitamin Water, but especially WATER. This cannot be stressed enough. The body is 70% water and most Americans are chronically dehydrated. People find that if they take a sip or two of water during the day instead of reaching for a snack, that water is what their body wanted in the first place anyway. People confuse 'thirst' with 'hunger', mainly because you feel 'empty' with both.

The Cup and Chaucer here at Central has a cooler full of drinks for those who would like a refreshing thirst-quencher while they are enjoying the comfortable chairs and cool air when in the stacks. Who knows? By the time you finish your book, the heat advisory might be over. And you'll know exactly where to go when the next one pops up.

New Webzine Looks at Area Lifestyle Trends

potentate@evpl — Tue, 12 May 2009 14:55:00 GMT

Evansville Intelligencer is a new webzine launched in April 2009 with content on area health, dining, society, natural and architectural sites, and politics. It's free, easy to use, and readers may comment on the posts.

Mayor Announces New Web Site for Arena Project

potentate@evpl — Mon, 11 May 2009 22:00:00 GMT

In a press conference this afternoon at the Centre, Mayor Weinzapfel announced the creation of a web site for the arena project. Here you'll find all sorts of information about the project, including plans for the building, news reports, and information about the project's financing. I've already had a few calls this afternoon from people wanting to know where they can see renderings of what the arena will look like.

Do Not Flush!

wag.mado@evpl — Tue, 21 Apr 2009 00:28:00 GMT

You may remember a time when it was common practice to flush outdated/unused medications down the toilet. Well, that practice has caused some disturbing consequences resulting in the FDA promoting guidelines on proper disposal of drugs. There are still a few drugs that should be flushed, but the majority are to be disposed of following specific guidelines in order to safeguard life and protect the envioronment.

If you want to dispose of things once a year, you can always take your unused meds and other toxic substances to "Tox Away Day" at Robert's Stadium on September 12, 2009. A list of environmental pollutants can be found on the City of Evansville's website along with the hours they will be accepting materials for disposal. Tox Away Day is for Vanderburgh and Posey County residents only.

Maybe you are interested in learning more about what type of pollutants are making their way into our water. If so, you can listen to NPR's Fresh Air for April 20, 2009 where Pulitzer Prize winning journalist, Hendrick Smith reports that disturbing chemicals from our everyday activities are showing up in water supplies around the globe. He is interviewed by Terry Gross to promote PBS's Frontline - Poisoned Waters, which airs on Tuesday April 21, 2009.

Since protecting our environment can seem like a monumental task, many people decide to start with small basic steps and gradually add something new each year. As Earth Day approaches this week, maybe each of us can add one thing to our daily routine which would help lessen the burden on our beautiful planet. And, what a better time to do it than now.

Evansville's rich sports history recounted

nblman@evpl — Mon, 30 Mar 2009 15:21:00 GMT

Ron Eaton, author of "Local Legends: The stories behind the headlines" will speak at Stringtown Branch Library on Tuesday, March 31, at 7:00 p.m. This is an occasion to share your memories and learn more about your favorite hometown atheletes. Eaton's book is filled will fascinating details about our local stars as well as the entire local sports enterprise, from famous arenas (Reitz Bowl, Bosse Field, Huntingburg's Field of Dreams) to sports announcers, famous fans, stirring triumphs and heartbreaking tragedies. Autographed copies of Eaton's book, a classic by which future local sports histories will be measured, will be available for sale.

Former Governor Kernan in town March 10 for Local Government Reform Workshop

MediaPhile@evpl — Thu, 05 Mar 2009 19:39:00 GMT

The 8:30 am - 3 pm event is at USI's Carter Hall. Registration is $10, which covers the cost of a box lunch.

Speakers and panelists include the following:

Former Indiana Governor Joseph Kernan
Indiana University Historian James H. Madison
Gibson County Council President Tony Wolfe
City Councilman Jeff Kniese
Township Trustee Mary Hart
City Councilman Joe Kiefer
Former County Commissioner Cheryl Musgrave

with Moderator Evansville Courier & Press Editor Mizell Stewart III

Go to USI extended services for more information or to register. You can also register that morning between 8:30 and 9 am.

This event is underwritten by the Indiana Center for the Humanities and the Ball State University Bowen Center for Public Affairs. Local partners include the League of Women Voters of Southwestern Indiana, Leadership Evansville, the Chamber of Commerce of Southwest Indiana, the Evansville Courier & Press, Growth Alliance for Greater Evansville, and USI.

Has the Boil Order ended?

kiya@evpl — Fri, 13 Feb 2009 20:08:00 GMT

What is the easy way to find out when a Boil Order has begun or ended? Or what exactly is the designated area?

Browsing on the City of Evansville webpage, I located the Water Department, and found they have an e-mail advisory list. Anytime an order is prepared, the exact announcement is e-mailed to anyone who has signed up for the list. The same for when the Boil Order expires.

This is what the Water Department's Page says:

Boil Advisory E-Mail Notification

E-mail marmacost@amwater.com to receive e-mail notification of boil advisory information

Southwest Indiana College Access Network (SICAN)

wag.mado@evpl — Mon, 26 Jan 2009 20:57:00 GMT

Today's Evansville Courier announced new and needed assistance for all middle school through high school students and their parents. The Southwest Indiana College Access Network (SICAN) has launched a wonderful website that has all kinds of useful information for college bound students. This website is currently under construction, however it already has an overabundance of help available. There are links to Pell Grants and Federal Student Aid (FASFA), explanation of basic types of student loans, registration deadlines and dates for the ACT, the SAT and the PSAT, a scholarship search page, helpful tips of all kinds and much more. If you are beginning to think about college, take a few minutes to look at this site. It will surely help you navigate the college test and financial world.

Early voting at libraries ended October 31 but you can still vote early at the Election Office (or go to your polling place on Election Day)

MediaPhile@evpl — Fri, 31 Oct 2008 14:18:00 GMT

Friday, October 31 was the last opportunity for early voting at the Vanderburgh County Libraries!

However, early voting for all Vanderburgh County residents continues at the Election Office in Room 214 of the City County Building through Monday, November 3. Hours at the Election Office are these:

Saturday, November 1, 8 am to 3 pm
Monday, November 3, 8 am to noon

A sample ballot is available on the Vanderburgh County Clerk website.

If you are unsure whether or not you are registered, go to the Indiana Statewide Voter Registration System website. Once there you can see the location of your polling place on Election Day as well as driving directions. On Election Day the polls are open from 6 am to 6 pm. You must go to your own polling place on Election Day!

Evansville Historical Records for Businesses and Immigrants

seeker@evpl — Thu, 30 Oct 2008 20:51:00 GMT

The people at the Browning Family Foundation, who brought you the Browning Genealogy Database (Evansville area newspaper obituaries) and contributed to the Local History Database, have constructed 3 more historical databases to help local history buffs!

If you're looking for an early business and want to know when it started or who started it, many businesses filed Articles of Association with the courts. The Browning Family Foundation volunteers and employees have indexed these records covering the 1850's up to the 1980's in the Evansville, IN Business Entity Database. The Simple Search allows you to search by the name of the business or by the names of the businessmen signing the Articles of Association, usually principal officers and major investors. The record you see will include the business name, type of business, and the names of associated businessmen. Advanced search can search on any portion or combination of business type (church, oil refinery, livestock), business name, individual's name or address.

If you're interested in early immigrants to this area, check out their 2nd database. The Evansville IN Immigration Database allows you to search the intentions to immigrate and naturalization papers from 1850's to 1920's filed in Vanderburgh and Warrick Counties. In Advanced search, you will be able to search by any combination of name (last or first), birth location or date, or country emigrated from. The records differ, but may give name, petition number & page & vol number, birth date & location, country emigrated from, arrival location or vessel or date, occupation, current address, names of family members, and notes the petitioner thought important to include. These books are old and fragile and are due to soon be sent to the Indiana State Archives. As time permits, photos of the original pages will be attached to the information already abstracted so that these important documents will still be available to genealogists.

The 3rd database, Browning Obituaries, is an ongoing work-in-progress to expand the information available in the Browning Genealogy Database with obituary information from 3 more counties: White County (IL), Gibson County, and Posey County. In some cases, this will include scans of the actual newspaper obituaries with photo. Additional information available includes records, photo, and biographical essays from the Browning Funeral Home.

I was delighted to try these databases out to see how much information is in them and how many different ways they are indexed. Genealogists and those interested in local history will be first in line, but they're rather intriguing just to poke around in. Kudos to the industrious people at Browning Family Foundation for their hard work in making these databases of valuable information available!

EVPL gives back to the community

RatherBeReading@evpl — Tue, 23 Sep 2008 14:39:00 GMT

Thoughts on a storm...

Wow! Sunday September 14, 2008 was a wild one. The remnants of Hurricane Ike blew through Evansville and the surrounding area like, well, the remnants of a hurricane. I heard the winds reached 60+ mph as they whipped trees around, tossed unsecured objects, and broke or uprooted many of the stately (and not so stately) trees in our fine city leaving a mess behind and many families without power.

Monday I reported to work as usual at East Branch Library located next to Bayard Park only to find the power out and the park a shambles. Power lines were down. Transformers lie in pieces on the ground. Trees were uprooted. Trees were snapped in two. Large branches were lying across the new playground equipment the city had just finished installing in the park last week. It was a mess. Vectren was saying it would be days, possibly up to a week before everyone's power was back on. My power was out at home, but I felt lucky- we have a gas water heater and stove, so really we just needed to relocate our food to friends with electricity and dust off our oil lamps. We could deal with it! However, many people in the city were not so fortunate. They had not only lost power, but also had damage to their homes and cars. Many had lost their frozen food supply before they could find someone with electricity and room in their refrigerator. Many people were in need of a helping hand.

I was extremely fortunate that EVPL offered me the opportunity to be one of those helping hands. I was given the chance to volunteer for the Red Cross until power was restored to the library. I wasn't sure what I was getting into when I arrived at the Red Cross that first day, but it turned out to be a bit of everything. I was put right to work picking chicken off the bone, then turning that chicken into over 200 sandwiches and assembling lunches for delivery into some of the hardest hit areas of the city. It didn't surprise me to find that our deliveries took us to the very neighborhood where the library is located. As we drove down the street in the Red Cross ERV (Emergency Response Vehicle) we would look for people and ask them if their power was out. If they said "yes" we would offer them food and cold drinks and ask if there was anything they needed. They were always thankful that we were out offering food and assistance. I felt fortunate that I was in "East's neighborhood". I saw and helped a number of our patrons. A few of our patrons said it was nice that they saw a familiar face helping out. (And most asked if the library was okay and when it would be reopening!) It amazed me how quickly we ran out of the food and drinks we had taken. We immediately returned to the Red Cross, assembled more lunches and refilled the drink coolers. Then it was back out to the neighborhoods. We ended the day cleaning out the ERV, wiping down the coolers, and taking stock of everything for the next day. I definitely went home tired, but felt good about what I had done. The next day I worked in the Red Cross shelter. I helped prepare and serve meals. It was different than working in the field, but the people who came in for the meals were just as thankful as those in the neighborhoods.

It was a great feeling to know that I was able to provide some relief for families in need and I am thankful that EVPL permitted me to volunteer while East was without power.

Indiana Memory

lotech@evpl — Mon, 22 Sep 2008 19:42:00 GMT

Many books, manuscripts, photographs, newspapers, and maps have and are being digitized to make them viewable online on the relatively new website, Indiana Memory, http://www.in.gov/memories. You can search by broad topic or by keyword. The Indiana State Library coordinates this project, but the items are from library collections all over the state. This is Indiana's version of the on-going project of the Library of Congress, American Memory, http://memory.loc.gov.

The "It's Evansville" wiki

googler@evpl — Wed, 27 Aug 2008 19:53:00 GMT

The Evansville blog "It's Evansville" has announced the formation of an Evansville wiki. Their goal is to "build a smaller-scale Wikipedia that focuses on the Evansville area: history, local attractions, restaurants and more. Think of it as a mixture of a history book and a Frommer’s City Guide."

Neighborhood population statistics

googler@evpl — Thu, 31 Jul 2008 14:53:00 GMT

I had an interesting question a few weeks ago, about the population of Howell. The question is not as simple as it seems. First, Howell isn't incorporated (which is determined by checking both the census and the US Board on Geographic Names Information System). But not being an incorporated place doesn't in itself mean there are no population statistics for any particular geographic area. The census does population totals for areas like zip codes and precincts.

What it really comes down to is determining the boundaries of the Howell neighborhood, and then seeing if any of the geographic entities with population counts coincide with those boundaries.

So step one was consulting with the local history librarian, Sharon Olson, for hints in figuring out the neighborhood boundaries. She went straight to the website of an organization called United Neighborhoods of Evansville. The menu on the left of that page includes "member neighborhoods." There are a lot listed (check it out) and one of them is Howell. Voila, a map.

Next is figuring out if there are population figures for an area that coincides with the Howell neighborhood. Finding population data is always a bit of an adventure, although the Census Bureaus "American FactFinder" interface makes it easier than it might be. I decided to see if I could Google up a cheat sheet that would reassure me I was doing it right.

Whenever I look for tutorials, helpful hints on researching, etc., I always restrict my Google search to site:.edu. (This means that my results will exclusively be colleges and university websites -- usually, of course, their libraries.) After a minute of experimentation, my search was [neighborhoods "american factfinder" site:edu]. (I was still trying to make sure that the Census Bureau didn't use locally-defined neighborhoods as a geographic entity.)

What you'll see in that result list are some excellent examples of the type of help you can get from other libraries, just by using guides they've published online. Using the first one, I determined via American Factfinder that census tracts are the closest geographic entities to what a resident would call a neighborhood. (Actually, the "traffic analysis zone" came even closer -- a geographic entity I'd never heard of before -- but it doesn't have population totals.) The boundaries of the tract, however, aren't the boundaries of the neighborhood.

There are smaller geographic entities -- blocks (and block groups). The fun part was figuring out that I had to go into American FactFinder a different way to get the population totals by block (with the help of yet another group of cheat sheets Google found for me, after using Google to figure out I needed "detailed tables," not "quick tables").

Actually, I'd forgotten how complicated this question was. I probably shouldn't write blog posts about boring stuff like this, should I.

Never mind.

(Did anybody even make it to the end of the post? Heh.)

What's an "Ozone Alert" and how should you respond to one?

Bufkinite@evpl — Wed, 23 Jul 2008 17:49:00 GMT

A recent number of days where Evansville issued Ozone Alerts have resulted in questions about just what that means, what health risks there are, and how a person should take care of themselves during an Ozone Alert.

The city of Evansville has a page on its web site explaining what events will result in an Ozone Alert being issued, and other useful information in living through it.