Just In Time for Christmas

Wouldn't it be nice if all the on-line shopping tools were available on one easy-to-use page? All the price comparison sites, product reviews, classifieds, etc in one place? FaganFinder.com has put together a wonderful collection of product-related search engines. The 70 web sites are arranged under the categories of Price Comparison Searches, Retail Companies (only 4, thank goodness), Marketplaces and Auctions, Handmade Goods, Product Reviews, Products in Local Stores, Local Classifieds, Product Manuals, Product Code Searches, Green Shopping, and Renting and Borrowing. Included of course are several sites facilitating giving stuff away. (Thanks to Phil Bradley for the tip.)
--RL

Anyone hungry?

With the current media obsession about food and cooking, there has been an explosion of websites to guide you and, certainly, overwhelm you. Below are a sampling of some popular ones.

All Recipes (www.allrecipes.com) offers recipe collections (desserts, breakfasts, etc.), a recipe exchange, holiday recipes and more.

America the Bountiful (http://digital.lib.ucdavis.edu/projects/food/index.html) is a library exhibit about 10 classic American food groups and a historical perspective for each including recipes.

Cookstr (www.cookstr.com) has recipes by well-known chefs and authors from accalimed cookbooks. You may sign up for a weekly newsletter with 10 recipes.

Episurious (www.epicurious.com) was one of the first food sites. It has recipes from Bon Appetit and Gourmet. It includes cooking videos and information on wine pairings.

Sustainable Table (www.sustainabletable.org) encourages visitors to "eat local and buy local." The site links to the Meatrix http://www.themeatrix.com/ which explains the difference between factory farms and locally raised meat. Also included is an "Eat Well Guide" for finding local, organic food. Resources for teachers are also included.

-DB

New Books for December and January

What's coming out in December and January? Here are a few fiction titles:

Dead or Alive by Tom Clancy

Gryphon: New and Selected Stories by Charles Baxter

What the Night Knows by Dean Koontz

The Inner Circle by Brad Meltzer

maf

Interlibrary Loan's Top 10 Libraries Borrowing From and Lending to Us

Last year the Interlibrary Loan Department tweeted the Top 10 Libraries that we borrow material from and the Top 10 Libraries that we lend material to. You can find that on the official Wellesley Free Library Twitter feed.

This time around we thought we'd list the Top 10's on the blog for your reading pleasure.

Top 10 Libraries Lending Us Materials

1. Boston College
2. UMASS Amherst
3. Brandeis University
4. Wellesley College
5. Tufts University
6. Northeastern University
7. Smith College
8. Williams College
9. Amherst College
10. Mount Holyoke College

Top 10 Libraries Borrowing Materials From Us

1. Quincy Public Library (on behalf of the former Central, Western, and Southern regions)
2. Stonehill College
3. UMASS Boston
4. Mid-Continent Public Library (Missouri)
5. Tufts University
6. Worcester Polytechnic Institute
7. Boston College
8. Boston Public Library
   
9. Simmons College
10. UMASS Amherst

If you followed this last year you'll notice that there are some changes to the list. Brandeis University, Harvard University, Holy Cross, and Denver Public have all fallen off the above list of top 10 libraries borrowing material from us. They still borrow materials from us but not enough to warrant a place in the top 10.

Both lists also show that most of the items borrowed for patrons here and lent to patrons elsewhere are loans between Massachusetts libraries outside of the Minuteman Library Network. Most of those loans are also between libraries that use the state funded library delivery system.

JR

2010 National Book Award Winners Announces

The 2010 National Book Award Winners were announced last night, November 17--More titles for your Holiday Gift List! Check out the website to enjoy interviews with the winners as well as a video of the ceremonies.


Fiction Winner

Lord of Misrule--Jaimy Gordon
Lord of Misrule is a darkly realistic novel about a young woman living through a year of horse racing at a half-mile track in West Virginia, while everyone's best laid schemes keep going brutally wrong.

Nonfiction Winner

Just Kids--Patti Smith
In this memoir, singer-songwriter Patti Smith shares tales of New York City : the denizens of Max's Kansas City, the Hotel Chelsea, Scribner's, Brentano's and Strand bookstores and her new life in Brooklyn with a young man named Robert Mapplethorpe--the man who changed her life with his love, friendship, and genius.

Poetry

Lighthead--Terrance Hayes
From an award-winning poet, a new collection in which the political and the personal converge in innovative and beautiful ways.



Young People's Literature

Mockingbird--Kathryn Erskine
Ten-year-old Caitlin, who has Asperger's Syndrome, struggles to understand emotions, show empathy, and make friends at school, while at home she seeks closure by working on a project with her father.

SH

Calling All Late Library Items! Fine Free Weekend November 18-21

Did you forget to return Wellesley Free Library books, CDs, or movies or discover some library items when you were cleaning the house or car? Even George Washington found himself with late items.

The Wellesley Free Library Trustees are offering you this one time opportunity to return all past due Wellesley Free Library items with no fine this weekend--Thursday, November 18 through Sunday, November 21.

You may return the past due items to any Wellesley Library location with our appreciation and No Fine!

Image from CBS News

Keith Richards and Us

Just think what the world would have been like if Keith Richards had followed his dreams and become a librarian.
--RL

History Websites

A collection of useful history websites.

A Chronology of US Historical Documents

http://www.law.ou.edu/hist/

This site is a Chronology with links to U.S. Historical Documents.

American History and World History

http://www.historycentral.com/index.html

This site has 500 primary sources in American History.

Archival Sound Recordings

http://sounds.bl.uk/Default.aspx

The British Library's Archival Sound Recordings Online.

Atlas Obscura | Wondrous, curious, and bizarre locations around the world

http://atlasobscura.com/

The Atlas is a collaborative project whose purpose is to catalog all of the "wondrous, curious, and esoteric places" that get left out of traditional travel guidebooks.

Best of History Web Sites

http://www.besthistorysites.net/

Gives links to history websites by period.

Chronicling America - The Library of Congress

http://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/

This site allows you to search and view newspaper pages from 1880-1910 and

find information about American newspapers published between 1690-present.

CIA - The World Factbook

https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/index.html

The New CIA World Factbook updates its information every two weeks.

Documenting the American South homepage

http://docsouth.unc.edu/index.html

Documents the American South with material related to southern history, literature, and culture.

From Revolution to Reconstruction: Documents

http://www.let.rug.nl/usa/D/index.htm

This site links to Primary documents and State of the Union Speeches.

Galaxy of Images | Smithsonian Institution Libraries

http://www.sil.si.edu/ImageGalaxy/index.cfm

The thousands of images from the more than 1.5 million printed books and manuscripts in the collections of Smithsonian Institution Libraries.

Harvard Open Collections Program

http://ocp.hul.harvard.edu/

OCP offers new, virtual collections of thematically linked material selected from

numerous Harvard repositories.

HBO Archives: Archival Collection: The March of Time®

http://hboarchives.com/apps/searchlibrary/ctl/marchoftime

Episodes from The March of Time newsreel and documentary series, produced from 1935 to 1967.

The Living Room Candidate

http://www.livingroomcandidate.org/

Presidential Election Commercials Since 1952.

National Museum of the American Indian : Collections Search

http://www.nmai.si.edu/searchcollections/home.aspx

This site includes a sample of NMAI’s object and historic photo collections.

Newseum

http://www.newseum.org/

Newspaper Front Pages .

Our Documents - 100 Milestone Documents

http://www.ourdocuments.gov/content.php?flash=true&page=milestone

Primary Documents Selected by the National Archives and Records Administration.

POTUS -- Presidents of the United States

http://www.potus.com/

This site provides information on the Presidents of the United States.

Primary Documents in American History

http://www.loc.gov/rr/program/bib/ourdocs/PrimDocsHome.html

Library of Congress presents primary documents on American history.

Pritzker Podcasts

http://www.pritzkermilitarylibrary.org/podcasts/index.jsp

This site has podcasts of the best authors, historians, journalists, and members of the military discussing their latest books on military history and military fiction.

Railroads and the Making of Modern America

http://railroads.unl.edu/

This site has documentary materials on the railroads.

Roman Emperors

http://www.roman-emperors.org/

This site is an online encyclopedia of the rulers of the Roman Empire.

United States Digital Map Library.

http://www.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~usgenweb/maps/

This site had digitized historical maps of the United States.

TB

Online Resource for November--Credo Reference

Each month the WFL features a new online resource available to library cardholders. Credo Reference is November’s resource that features searchable online content from over 500 reference books in a broad range of subjects.

The topic page resulting from your subject search presents and organizes relevant results from these 500 plus resources, images, videos, Google Books, as well as relevant results from Wellesley’s other library resources including books, ebooks, ejournals, databases and more.

A Concept Map offers related and subtopics for a more directed search and narrowing a research paper topic.

Use your library card from home and try it out on our webpage OR the library catalog today! Then call 781-235-1610 or sign up for Introducing the New Credo Reference Online Resource class on December 7 from 2-3 p.m. SH

Library Journal's Top 10 Best Books for 2010

For the first time, Library Journal has selected the Top 10 Best Books from Fiction and Nonfiction publications for 2010. If you are looking for a great read during the holidays or to purchase for family and friends, try one of these!

Library Journal's Top 10 Best Books for 2010.


American Terroir by Rowan Jacobsen --"Terroir" is French for taste of place. In this book, a James Beard Award-winning author explores many of the North American foods that depend on place for their unique flavor, including salmon from Alaska's Yukon River and honey from the tupelo-lined banks of the Apalachicola River. (641.013 Jacobsen)

By Nightfall by Michael Cunningham--Peter and Rebecca Harris: mid-forties denizens of Manhattan's SoHo, are admirable, enviable contemporary urbanites with every reason, it seems, to be happy until her much-younger look-alike brother shows up for a visit. Like his legendary, Pulitzer Prize-winning novel, The Hours, Cunningham's masterly new novel is a heartbreaking look at the way we live now. (Fiction Cunningham M.)

Freedom by Jonathan Franzen--From the National Book Award-winning author of The Corrections comes a darkly comedic novel about family. Franzen's intensely realized characters struggle to learn how to live in an ever-confusing world--one with the temptations and burdens of liberty, the thrills of teenage lust, the shaken compromises of middle age, the wages of suburban sprawl, and the heavy weight of empire. (Fiction Franzen J.)

How To Live, Or, a Life of Montaigne in One Question and Twenty Attempts at an Answer by Sarah Bakewell--A spirited and singular biography (and the first full life of Michel Eyquen de Montaigne in English for nearly 50 years) that relates the story of his life by way of the questions he posed and the answers he explored. (Biography Montaigne, M.E. de)

Room by Emma Donoghue--Told entirely in the language of the energetic, pragmatic five-year-old Jack, "Room" is a celebration of resilience and the limitless bond between parent and child, a brilliantly executed novel about what it means to journey from one world to another. (Fiction Donoghue, E.)

The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot (Crown)--Skloot brilliantly weaves together the story of Henrietta Lacks--a woman whose cells have been unwittingly used for scientific research since the 1950s--with the birth of bioethics, and the dark history of experimentation on African Americans. (616.02774 Skloot)

The Passage by Justin Cronin--In just 32 minutes, a military experiment gone wrong would unleash a virus that would change the world forever as man fears darkness, death, or a life of the undead. A whole new approach to a post-apocalyptic world which taps into the frenzy of vampirism found in fiction. (Fiction Cronin, J.)

The Tiger by John Vaillant--A haunting, gripping exploration of predators and prey, and an intimate portrait of a remarkable animal increasingly threatened by interaction with humans, this work recreates the hunt for a man-eating tiger across the forbidding landscape of Russia's Far East. (599.756 Vaillant)

The Warmth of Other Suns: The Epic Story of America's Great Migration by Isabel Wilkerson--With stunning historical detail, Wilkerson tells the story of the decades-long migration of black citizens who fled the South for northern and western cities, from 1915 to 1970, through the lives of three unique individuals. (304.8 Wilkerson)

Walker Evans: Decade by Decade text by James Crump--Walker Evans is best known for his Depression era photos and his collaboration with James Agee to publish Let Us Now Praise Famous Men which portrays three white tenant farmers in Southern Alabama during the depression. This book presents all of Mr. Evans photos, mainly rarely seen. (779 Crump) SH

I google, you google, we google

OR NOT...
Believe it or not, there are people who use search engines other than Google! I mean don't they know that Google is a verb? While I admit I don't have the patience to compare the results of Google to other engines, I know that whenever I switch to say Bing, I've been perfectly satisfied with my results. And when I want to see my results in categories, Clusty (now called Yippy) does a great job. And when I need only quality sites, directories (like ipl2)work for me. And when I'm not getting what I want with what I think are good search words, sometimes using a meta-search engine works well. And when...well, you get the picture. The bottom line is, as I see it, for general web searches, you probably can't beat the Big Three (in the US): Google, Yahoo and Bing. For more focused research, you might save time by using a search engine fitted to your needs. Look at Phil Bradley's list to broaden your search horizons. Or noodletools, which has a nice what-search-engine-to-use-when page. Let us know if you find any good ones to recommend.
RL

Best Cookbooks of 2010

Publisher's Weekly's current issue shares their editor's choice for best books of the year including cookbooks. Several of of their picks are in our collection for you to peruse and enjoy.

Mark Bittman's The Food Matters Cookbook

Molly O'Neill's One Big Table : 600 Recipes from the Nation's Best Home Cooks, Farmers, Pit-Masters and Chefs

The Frankies Spuntino Kitchen Companion & Cooking Manual by Frank Falcinelli

In the Green Kitchen : Techniques to Learn by Heart by Alice Waters

Around My French Table : More than 300 Recipes from My Home to Yours by Dorie Greenspan.