Ask a Librarian: Limited service until Wed., 1/9/08

The Ask a Librarian reference service will only be available by phone (580-774-7082) and in person during the holiday break. The library will be closed during the holiday break, please check the library hours here. Ask a Librarian via IM will be closed until Thursday, January 10, 2008. We'll respond to questions received through the Ask a Librarian web form during the break. Thank you, and have a great holiday break!

USGS Maps for Sale Online

Click on the blue title above to see the extensive list of maps for sale by the United States government. You can find everything from maps of the world, countries, states, satellite images to maps of national parks. There are also some foreign maps and reproductions of antique maps. One of the most striking maps you can order is "This Dynamic Planet" which displays: volcanoes, earthquakes, impact craters, and plate tectonics. Check out the website and be amazed.

Live Holiday Concerts and CD Recommendations

Celebrate the spirit of the season with live holiday concerts and CD recommendations from NPR

Mitchell Report

This is an electronic copy of the 400+ page report submitted to the Commissioner of Baseball regarding the independent investigation into the illegal use of steriods and other performance enhancing substances by players in Major League Baseball.

101 Best Web Freebies

BusinessWeek.com set out to find the most useful products and services available for free on the Web. Some things like e-mail, search engines, social networks, and mainstream news sites—no doubt cherished online freebies—were eliminated from consideration because they're widely known to be free and Business Week wanted to surprise readers with what they may not know is there for the taking—at no charge. Read on for BusinessWeek.com's list of the 101 Best Free Things on the web.

Social Explorer: Demographics made easy.

Social Explorer is a U.S. demographics website. Their online tools can help you visually analyze and understand the demography of the United States through the use of interactive maps and data reports. Their primary product is a web-based application that creates fast, intuitive, and visually appealing maps and reports. Their software gives anyone with an Internet connection access to census data that was previously the domain of social science experts. Social Explorer comes in a public and subscription format.

SpiralFrogs adds 1 millionth song

SpiralFrog, a web service that offers free (ad supported) music from major labels has announced that they now have 1 million songs available for download. The service launched in September with nearly 800,000 songs and has been adding music steadily ever since.
“We are constantly adding new content and features to the site,” said Joe Mohen, founder and chairman of SpiralFrog. “Music fans want to be able to update and expand their music library on a continual basis and with our ever-expanding library and popular site features such as ‘Buzz of the Day’ and ‘New Releases,’ we’re making it easier than ever to discover and catalog new music.”

SpiralFrog, which is available to internet users in both the U.S. and Canada, provides downloadable songs from many major label artists, allowing you to either play them on a PC with Windows Media Player 10 or 11 and copy them to up to 2 devices supporting Microsoft's PlaysForSure DRM technology.

In addition to music, SpiralFrog also features 3,500 videos some of which must be streamed live from their site, while others may be downloaded like the songs.

Holiday Books: In the Winter Cold, Warmth and Light on the Page

"Winter is icummen in," wrote Ezra Pound in a comical little poem — and winter is coming in, indeed. Its advent means shorter days and longer nights, with less natural light. So as darkness falls readers switch on a lamp or pull a chair close to a fireplace and pick up a book.

For a list of great winter reading go to NPR

For Struggling Black College, Hopes of a Revival

On Dec. 25 The Great Debaters will appear in theaters with Denzel Washington as its director and star, and Oprah Winfrey as producer. The film depicts the triumph of Wiley College, a small black liberal arts college in Marshall, Texas, where in 1935 the black poet and professor Melvin B. Tolson coached his debating team to a national championship in the face of Academic Racism.

See: New York Times December 5, 2007

DOAJ

While most academic libraries have a really good selection of journals, it's kind of fun to look at an open access journal. One of these is called DOAJ, which stands for Directory of Open Access Journals. Click on the blue title above and see what's available. You don't need any type of ID number and it's free (unless you feel you just need to make a contribution and become a member.) There are almost 3,000 titles available currently.

Empowering Oklahoma Women

The Oklahoma Women's Network Blog is run by Jean Warner who has a PhD in Political Science from OU and works to protect and empower Oklahoma women and girls. She is a member of Nichols Hills United Methodist Church and occasionally posts about Africa and the children's library she helped build in Kenya. She lives in Oklahoma City with her husband, Larkin, a retired OSU economics professor.