Research Blog : useful web sites

"The original guide to living wisely"

googler@evpl — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 20:38:00 GMT

At least, that's how Mother Earth News describes itself, and they might not be too far off the mark. The magazine got its start in 1970, and you may think of it as something the hippies used to read. But these days, their focus on green living, sustainability, and saving money seems pretty much relevent to everyone. At least, I think there's something for everyone here, with a website packed full of free content.

Recent articles include "Cough into Your Sleeve! .. and Other Strategies to Fight the Flu"; "How to Make Your Fireplace More Efficient" ("an open masonry fireplace seems cozy, but it's not efficient for home heating," they say, and give cost estimates for various ways to keep more of the heat in your house instead of up the chimney); "Making Jerky," with recipes and procedures that they say are efficient and almost effortless; and a link to the Department of Energy's 2010 fuel economy guide for new cars.

They have a section for shopping, where you can order books, garden products, housewares, and much more (Christmas gift ideas, maybe?). They have a weekly radio show you can listen to. There are blogs and free newsletters. And currently they're still publishing the magazine in paper, if you it that way.

And, of course, the Library subscribes to the magazine, too. It's held at Central and three branches.

What are the odds?

googler@evpl — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 16:15:00 GMT

Ever wonder what the odds are that an adult planning a Halloween costume will be a cat? How about the odds of being killed by a shark? There's a new website, The Book of Odds, that does just that — it gives you odds.

You can do a simple keyword search, an odds search (finding anything that has a 1 in 100 chance of occurring by entering the number 100), or click on "advanced search" to look for additional content (articles and blog posts). Searching all content can be pretty interesting, particularly if you're looking to spice up a speech or a research paper, but there's not a huge amount of that kind of content.

The data comes from a lot of demographic studies, much of it market-based or governmental, and because of that, you tend to see age, gender, income, and location breakdowns that many people won't find that useful and tend to pad the result list.. (They're not consistent breakdowns though, so no comparison of shark attack odds between Indiana and Florida.)

If you see something in the result list that you want to know more about or want to use in some way, click on the odds for an item and you’ll get a visual representing those odds and a list of unrelated odds that are close or exactly the same as the one you’re looking at. The detail page also has a button marked "Sources & Definitions." Click it and you’ll get information on the source, rounding information, and even an appropriate way to cite the data presented. If you don't find odds for something you think should be there, click on "suggest odds" at the bottom of the page, and they may be able to research it and add it.

If you register and create an account (it’s free) you can start your own book of odds, which allows you to track odds, send odds information to a friend, mark those that you like or those that apply to you, etc. Worth a visit! Oh, and before you leave the Book of Odds site be sure to visit the "About Us" page. I got a chuckle out of this : "Book of Odds is not a search-engine, decision-engine, knowledge-engine, or any other kind of engine…so please don’t compare us to Google(tm). We did consider the term 'probability engine' for about 25 seconds, before coming to our senses."

Learn to find Government Information on the Web

Bufkinite@evpl — Sat, 10 Oct 2009 19:53:00 GMT

Interested in finding out about govenment jobs? Wonder where you can find the latest consumer product safety information? Ever wanted to look at surplus government property, and maybe bid on some of it? Want to get information on financial planning? On October 21st there will be a free workshop on how to access all of this information and more through the premier government web portal - USA.gov.

Led by Government Documents Librarian Teresa Loeffler, this workshop will help you search and find the specific information you want, by showing you some concrete examples, and then letting you search the web site yourself, with supervision and assistance.

The workshop takes place at Central Library's Tech Center, and is limited to 15 people, so that everyone will have their own computer for searching for the information that interests them. Call the library Reference Desk at 428-8218 to sign up, or IM us via the AskEVPL page and let us know that you'd like to sign up for the Finding Government Information workshop.

Do you stand in front of your closet every morning wondering what will fit, not what do I want to wear?

SuDocQueen@evpl — Thu, 10 Sep 2009 14:55:00 GMT

Here's my dirty little secret; I've been doing that all summer. To look at me no one would say I have a weight problem, but thanks to sports injuries and other medical issues this summer, I've been sidelined from my normal active lifestyle. Sprawling on the chaise lounge and reading instead of chasing a fuzzy green ball across the tennis court and doing yard work has been a surprisingly enjoyable change. Unfortunately, I didn't change my eating habits along with my reduction in activity and the inches have been creeping on. Every morning when I reach for the elastic waist pants I tell myself 'this is it, gotta cut back', but each night I eat my healthy, delicious, home-grown cherry tomatoes, and still reach for the French Fried Onion rings (ever get one of those big bags from one of the warehouse stores?). Since even my "fat cloths" are getting tight, it's time to get serious.

Counting calories and making a point of skipping the junk food is the best way to do that, but that can be boring (yeah, like that's an excuse -- but what can I say). Doing the right thing can be easier when it's also fun, and I know just the place to go www.mypyramid.gov. Be prepared for a near information overload. Designed and run by the U.S. Department of Agriculture, the site's main page has so many links to useful information that you hardly know where to start. There are waaay too many of them for me to go through here, but I do want to tell you about my favorite, www.mypyramidtracker.gov.

You start out by telling the Tracker your age, weight, and height (why fudge? No one but the computer will know and if you don't tell the truth, later you won't get an accurate breakdown of what nutrition you need). Next you're asked to list all the foods you ate for the day, then the number of servings. After that the Tracker will analyze your intake for the day and shoot you to a page where you can choice to see if you met the 2005 Dietary Guidelines -- they use cute little emoticons as well as showing you the amount you actually ate and the amount that is recommended; you can see your nutrient breakdown for the day -- you get your total calories consumed along with a breakdown of your fats, proteins, and vitamins; you get "Pyramid stats" which show you graphically whether you got your recommended daily amount of milk, meat, veggies, grains, etc; and lastly you can view your "healthy eating history by day, month, up to a year -- this is assuming you've registered and have faithfully input your eating habits for a while.

Registration is free or you can use "check it out" daily without registering. I think the benefit of registering is that you can save your information for at least a year in order to track how well you're doing. Plus, you won't be able to access your "check it out" information from the whole day if you don't use the same computer all day -- no adding breakfast and lunch at your work computer then going home and adding dinner. You'd have to start from scratch adding your entire food intake for the whole day. Frankly, I think the benefits of seeing how your eating habits change over time is well worth the registration.

Plusses and minuses of the Tracker...well, today I couldn't find Velveeta sliced cheese, so I had to compensate with the next best thing (American/cheddar cheese, processed), but I could choose one slice as my serving size. Plus, I could add plain M&M's and select as few as 10 pieces as my serving size! The Tracker strives to offer a huge range of foods to choose from, from simple foods like bananas to restaurant food like McD's Big Mac. And they have very flexible serving sizes, from a whole apple (and you can even choose large or medium) to a slice as a serving size. My only real quibble is that they don't show you the calories for your individual foods. I like to know how many calories those 10 M&Ms are verses one (or two) Hershey's Kisses so I know which food choice will be cheaper calorie-wise when I'm limiting my sweets intake.

I won't bore you with the anal way I figure that out on my own, but I will tell you about a book that I absolutely love "The Calorie King Calorie Fat and Carbohydrate Counter" (613.23 CALOR 2009). I looked up M&Ms in the book, and it actually told me how many calories there were in one M&M! Okay, okay it only told me the calories for the plain M&M. It didn't go on and do the same for the peanut, almond, or peanut butter, but I was still impressed. Plus, it not only tells you the calories, it also gives the fat and carbohydrate counts. The book covers the normal basic foods -- like meat, breads, fruits veggies, etc -- and an amazing array of sweets (like M&Ms) as well as a huge section on restaurant foods. I found the Outback, O-Charley's, Sizzler, Red Lobster along with the usual suspects like McDonalds, Pizza Hut, Taco Bell. Starbucks was even in there. Do you really want to know how many calories your favorite frappuccino are costing you?

If all our copies of Calorie King are checked out, there's always the Reference copy you can use here, or you can try any of these other calorie counting books.

I'd like to talk more about www.mypyramid.gov but if I do that, this'll become a novel rather than a blog -- it's already leaning in that direction -- so just check it out on your own. If you have any questions on using it, pipe up here or give us a call at Reference!

Would you like to work for the federal government?

SuDocQueen@evpl — Tue, 25 Aug 2009 17:04:00 GMT

If so, take a look at www.usajobs.gov.

This is a great resource for people interested in working for our federal government. On their main page this morning they showed 33,530 jobs available worldwide with the United States government. Now before your jaw hits the floor and you start drooling on your keyboard, let's do a reality check and remember that none of us are qualified for all 33,000 jobs. They're sure not going to hire me as a NASA engineer. And, I don't think I want to fill a librarian position in Timbuktu - okay, when I did a search for librarian positions, I didn't see any in Timbuktu, but you get the picture. :-)

The search was easy as pie. I just typed librarian into the search box right under "Search Jobs" on the main page and hit "Run Search." 14 positions popped up. With the exception of a couple all were positions looking for actual librarians, and even the two that weren't were for positions with the Library of Congress. For example, one was for a General Engineer working out of the Office of the Librarian; maybe a position similar to EVPL's building manager?

That was the simplest search. You can customize your search by clicking on the "Search Jobs" tab on the main page. From there, you can narrow your search by choices like agency, occupation, and location, to name a few.

Say you'd like a job with the government, but you don't know what job you'd enjoy. They have an area to help you with that as well. I couldn't find a direct link from the main page, but I saw links to it from the Search page and the Information Center page. Once you're on either page, look for the Career Interest Center and click on the "learn more." From there you'll find a list of subjects that lead to interactive questionnaires that will help you figure out what job would be right for you.

What else? Too much to go over everything in what's supposed to be a "short" blog. :-) But, two last things I've got to mention before I go. Be sure to check out the "My USAJOBS" tab. You'll be able to create your own account which will allow you to post your resume (I thought I read somewhere on the site you could post even more than one), apply for the jobs online, and receive email updates tailored to jobs that you're interested in.

And the other "thing," be sure to play around with the "Information Center" page. Among the many services it offers, it provides help in understanding the convoluted federal hiring process. You can get help creating your resume. There's also an area where you can find out about the top agencies hiring, the most popular jobs, the areas in the country looking for the most jobs, etc.

The Health Care Reform Act turmoil

SuDocQueen@evpl — Tue, 18 Aug 2009 17:33:00 GMT

Opinions and concerns abound about this issue, sometimes to the point that the facts get obscured. Can I separate all the facts from the fiction? Nope, I can be duped and sucked in as easily as the next person. But I can tell you where to go to form your own opinions undiluted by anyone else with an agenda. Thomas from the Library of Congress is an excellent site for following legislation and the workings of Congress. As a matter of fact, Thomas has made it easy for people right now. You don't even have to search for the House's health care bill. They've put up a direct link on the very front of their website. From that link, you can then read a summary of the bill, see what Committees it's been referred to, see who is sponsoring it, and read the bill word for word yourself. Be warned, the bill's over 1,000 pages long and very dense to read! That doesn't mean I think it's not worth reading; I'm just saying don't expect to skim through it on your lunch hour unless you belong to Mensa. :)

You can also get some very useful links from Congressman Brad Ellsworth's "Online Office." He has the PDF of the full bill, just as Thomas does, but he additionally has links to the committee work being done on the bill.

And while we're talking Congressmen, if you want to share your opinion, do you know who to share yours with? Indiana's Senators are Evan Bayh and Richard Lugar, while Evansville's Congressman is Brad Ellsworth.

Lastly, here's on other place I like to go when I'm inundated with opinions, http://factcheck.org/. They appear non-partisan to me. They've debunked pro and con statements surrounding the health care debate. And, their website/services don't exist solely for the health care debate (it just looks that way right now :). Take a look at their Archives or Ask Factcheck to see some of the other political issues they address.

Is There a Web Site with Local Job Information? Indeed, There IS!

Bufkinite@evpl — Sat, 01 Aug 2009 22:47:00 GMT

Some of the most popular workshops being offered at the library recently have involved how to polish your resume, or sharpen you interview skills. With the tight job market, even highly skilled and trained people are getting all of their job-hunting tools sharpened, and are ready to take the next step. Now, where can they go to find information on local job opportunities?

Indeed.com, the second largest employment web site in the world, has a website about Evansville area employment opportunities, which aggregates all the information they have about employers, companies, jobs, and employment resources in one easy-to-navigate interface. The top section, "Popular Jobs and Salaries," provides a bar-graph style comparison of different jobs based on how much they pay, while lower sections list links to Evansville companies that are currently hiring, as well as links to pre-selected searches, such as production jobs, or clerical jobs.

Once you have performed a search for jobs, and have a list of jobs, you can limit it further in a number of ways. You can limit it to within 5 miles of your location, by salary range, by company, or by any combination of these and many other criteria.

This site is listed on our Useful Websites web page, where a huge variety of resources, selected by librarians for accuracy, timeliness, and dependability, are sorted and classified for your convenience. For instance. the Indeed.com web site is listed under both "Job Search" and "Employment Information and Services."

Check it out!

United Way offers valuable information

googler@evpl — Fri, 31 Jul 2009 15:24:00 GMT

The United Way of Southwestern Indiana maintains a very valuable "Community Resource Guide" on their website. This guide lists services and programs offered by hundreds of nonprofit agencies around southwestern Indiana, from tutoring (for both adults and students) to child care provider training to support groups -- the list is extensive.

Just chose your category, and then look through the descriptions of the agencies, programs, and services that are listed. The listings tell you what each program offers, and who's eligible. Complete contact information is given.

The United Way also maintains the 2-1-1 Call Center, an information and referral service. Simply dial 2-1-1 if you need help in finding social services of any kind.

You might also be interested in their Day of Caring, coming up in September. This is a community-wide event in which United Way connects businesses and volunteers with nonprofit agencies in need of help.

$8,000 Homebuyer Tax Credit…

SuDocQueen@evpl — Thu, 23 Jul 2009 01:33:00 GMT

There’s a lot of information out there about this credit, but I always like to get my information straight from the horse’s mouth, so I went to www.usa.gov and found this nifty little question and answer page from www.irs.gov. It does a great job of explaining the current $8,000 credit and the previous $7,500 credit and includes additional links for people who want to know even more.

Www.usa.gov also offers a great page for homeowners and prospective homeowners that’s full of helpful links, from how to avoid foreclosure to useful tips for current homeowners and how to protect yourself and your belongings when hiring movers.

If you checkout the RESOURCES FOR HOMEOWNERS or MORTGAGES – FEDERAL PROGRAMS, ETC be prepared to be taken to new pages with tons more helpful links!

User manuals online

googler@evpl — Mon, 20 Jul 2009 18:22:00 GMT

It's actually not that hard to find recent user manuals online, using Google. But the MakeUseOf blog has linked to a site that not only provides access to a bunch of manuals in one convenient place, but also allows you to register and then store all of your virtual manuals in a "filing cabinet."

And, like many websites these days, the The User Manual Site is social and interactive, maintaining a community message board where you can ask for help and tips from other consumers who are using the same product that you are.

These features make it worth checking out, and as you acquire new devices, adding those manuals to your online file. If they don't have a manual you need, you might be able to find it elsewhere. There are other user manuals sites, like http://www.usersmanualguide.com/ and http://www.user-manual-search.com/default2.aspx, but when you're looking for manuals, the best way to find them is often to simply Google the name of the manufacture, the model number, and the word "manual."

Speak your mind…opinions welcome, wanted, and appreciated

SuDocQueen@evpl — Thu, 09 Jul 2009 15:11:00 GMT

Hello out there to everyone in EVPL blogland,

I have a dilemma that I could use your help with. Every year I sit down to plan a workshop on useful government documents and websites (more websites than actual documents now-a-days) and every year I get overwhelmed with the glut of information I could offer… Do I focus on how to find useful health and nutrition information? Or on how to find those interesting statistics you always hear quoted from the Census and Labor Departments? Or what about consumer safety information? Or how to navigate Social Security’s website? Or how about following legislation? The list can go on and on. So, I’m opening the floor to all of you, the people that the government is trying to reach with all of this information. What do you most want to know about? What do you need help discovering? Let me know how best to help you.

Hardship license information

googler@evpl — Wed, 08 Jul 2009 15:17:00 GMT

It often happens that customers are told to go to the library to get a legal form of some kind. Unfortunately, we often have to tell them that we don't have preprinted forms that can be filled out and filed. Today's question concerned the "hardship license form," which is not exactly a form, and not officially called a "hardship license." The Indiana Code says that an "individual may file a verified petition for a restricted driving permit for the sole purpose of driving to and from work and in the course of employment during the period of the driving license suspension." The Code also outlines the information that the petition needs to include, but doesn't show a form for the petition.

The places we check for things like this include legal forms books (these are useful for some types of forms, but not others), our database of legal forms (under "Law and legal sources" here) (which has a sort of guidebook on the hardship license, but no filing information), forms on the Indiana Courts website, and websites like FindLaw referenced here.

We also highly recommend the Indiana Justice Center, which we have used before for the many informational (and printable) PDFs on popular law topics. In their hardship license guide, there is no mention of a form. In fact, they say "Contact a private attorney or your local legal services provider if you want help in getting a hardship license...."

Could a person type up the petition himself, following the guidelines in the Code, and file it? As far as I know, that may well be possible. And the Library is happy to provide access to that section of the Code. But the answer to the question, "Do you have the hardship license form?" is, unfortunately, no.

Let your cursor do the walking

googler@evpl — Wed, 10 Jun 2009 13:55:00 GMT

Central Library discontinued its collection of most out-of-state phone books last year, because the Reference USA database contains more up-to-date information than the books did (mostly because we didn't always get the most recent phonebooks in a timely manner). And we still enthusiastically use and recommend the database for its highly versatile searching.

But people do miss the browsability of the actual books -- being able to see listings in an alphabetical sequence, being able to compare yellow page ads. So we were happy when a colleague in the Library's adminstrative offices pointed out an online version of all the AT&T phonebooks that allows users to do just that.

The "RealPages" at AT&T allow you to search by keyword and browse by category. They provide seperate tabs for the business, residence, yellow page, and government sections (and the community guide section). It's fast, easy to use, and actually kind of fun to navigate. They even show the cover of the phonebook so you can verify how recent the edition is.

The phone company is not known for giving stuff away for free -- take advantage of this resource!

Explore Issues of Global Importance with New Database

Bufkinite@evpl — Sat, 16 May 2009 16:56:00 GMT

Need up-to-the-minute information on child labor? Want to have an idea about current world opinion regarding the US military's use of torture? Are you concerned about nuclear weapons in failed states falling into the hands of international terrorist organizations? Are you confused by the proliferation of different and conflicting information about global climate change and sea-level rise?

Information on all of these issues and much more is available through a new database called Global Issues in Context. Available through the EVPL database page, this resource offers global news and perspectives on issues and events of international importance, like the ones outlined above, and provides background information on them, placing them in the proper sociopolitical, religious, and cultural context.

Searching Global Issues in Context can take place in a variety of ways, starting with simple keyword searching in a single search box. There is also a clickable world map, where choosing a particular country then links to issue portals where that country is mentioned.

Global Issues in Context has a great deal of multimedia components, including extensive audio and video clips from such places as NPR, PBS, CBC, and NBC news; interactive maps, and links to world newspapers.

TEACHERS AND EDUCATORS: Global Issues in Context's conten is aligned to state and national social studies and science standards and is up to date. Thus it can be used across the curriculum. It also encourages and develops critical-thinking skills by providing students a variety of pertinent global perspectives on the issues.

Check out this resource; it will broaden and deepen your understanding of current events and issues affecting countries and people around the world.

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.