Most Popular Passwords

With the ability to manage banking, pay bills, apply for jobs, and network online, internet users these days have a lot of user-ids and passwords to remember. These passwords are intended to provide a level of safety not guaranteed with online transactions. Passwords should be unique to you, not something generic. Passwords are best with 8 or more characters, capitalization, and numerials. Do you have any passwords that appear on this list? Make sure you change those passwords to something more challenging to guess! Check out Mashable's post on the Top 25 Passwords for more ideas on how to best protect your identity on the internet http://mashable.com/2012/10/23/worst-passwords/


Top 25 List -
1. password

2, 123456
3. 12345678
4. abc123
5. qwerty
6. monkey
7. letmein
8. dragon
9. 111111
10. baseball
11. iloveyou
12. trustno1
13. 1234567
14. sunshine
15. master
16. 123123
17. welcome
18. shadow
19. ashley
20. football
21. jesus
22. michael
23. ninja
24. mustang
25. password1

~JH

The Future of E-Readers and Tablets is E-Paper

UC research is bringing closer the e-sheet, shown here in a photo illustration, e-Devices will one day be as thin and as rollable as a rubber mat.

The screens on today's e-devices are made of glass.  But what if you had a device like an IPad with a plastic screen that you could roll up or fold.  A breakthrough in electrofluidic imaging at the University of Cincinnati may make e-paper a reality soon.

In 10 to 20 years, consumers will see foldable/rollable e-Devices with magazine-quality color, viewable in bright sunlight but requiring low power, as shown in this photo illustration.  UC research is bringing these devices closer.

      A paper thin plastic film coated with a thin layer of electronics uses fluid mechanics to transport colored ink and clear fluids for the screen.  The e-paper uses ambient light and little power to operate.  The first devices will be monochrome with color to come within 10 to 20 years.
See the complete article at e! science news.

Tyson

Durable Values

Wellesley resident Cynthia Wight Rossano is a writer and editor who for nearly thirty years was sole editor to the late Reverend Peter J. Gomes, Plummer Professor of Christian Morals and Minister in The Memorial Church, Harvard University. 

Together, Gomes and Rossano published numerous articles, papers and books, including the New York Times and national best-sellers, The Good Book: Reading the Bible with Mind and Heart, and The Good Life: Truths That Last in Times of Need. 

Next Thursday, December 6th at 7:00 P.M., Rossano will read excerpts from Durable Values: Selected Writings of Peter J. Gomes, and take questions. As Rossano explains in the introduction, Gomes had planned to write a memoir of his life in the ministry and at Harvard before he died. This collection of writings is Rossano's best guess at what that memoir might have been. 

Free and open to the public, sponsored by the Friends of the Wellesley Free Libraries. Copies of Durable Values will be available for sale and signing.

ecm

What defines a library?

Though the traditional and obviously simplistic definition of a public library is  a collection of information sources, resources, books, and services, the wider meaning is certainly a sanctuary of community and healing for those in need. Rarely was this more apparent than after Hurricane Sandy when the New York and New Jersey public libraries became a refuge for the those without power, heat and in many cases, a home. The fact that the libraries themselves were damaged in the storm was more of a back story but unfortunately, a real one.  As they continue to reel from the effects of the storm, the staff are often struggling to provide essential library services.

New York Library Disaster Relief Fund 

Rebuilding New Jersey's Libraries

-DB

What's new in mystery and fiction?

Notorious Nineteen by Janet Evanovich
We can't get enough of these Stephanie Plum novels.

Shadow Creek by Joy Fielding
Crazed killers wreak havoc in the Adirondacks.
 
Two Graves by Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child
FBI Agent Aloysius Pendergast discovers that his wife Helen -- who he thought was dead -- is alive.  Then she's kidnapped and he must go looking for her.
maf

Densho Encyclopedia

In February 1944, President Franklin Roosevelt issued Executive Order 9066 authorizing the military to evacuate all people of Japanese ancestry from the west coast of the United States. Over 100,000 Japanese and Japanese-Americans were forcibly relocated to a handful of detention centers, until their release in 1945. Of course the Library has a wealth of materials (including the classic Farewell to Manzanar) on the relocation, but now there is a free online encyclopedia devoted entirely to the subject. Denshon includes images, videos, documents and interviews and is intended for high school and college students.
--RL

November Featured Online Resource is CQ Researcher

The place to turn for clear information on hot topics and issues is CQResearcher.  Each topic, whether political, economic or social, provides in depth research, statistics and charts, and a pro/con feature to illustrate positions on an issue.   

Topics recently covered include Mormonism, the new Health Care Law, the Euro Crisis and Supreme Court Controversies. Take advantage of this unique tool and stay up to date with the important issues of our time!  SH

Happy Birthday Bram Stoker!

Check out the Google Doodle for today:

Today is Bram Stoker's 165th birthday! Celebrate his birthday by sinking your teeth into his most famous work, Dracula.

Dracula is one of my 'all-time' favorite novels, and if you have not read it, I suggest giving it a try. While popular culture seems to spit out a new vampire novel every month, none of them have the depth that this novel possesses. It was not the first vampire novel, however it remains the foundation for a great deal of vampyric myth. Beyond the monster legend, Dracula is a book about colonialism, post-colonialism, immigration, and the role of women in Victorian Society. It is interesting to think about the fact that Stoker, an Irishman, wrote Dracula, a book about an outside force invading England and literally bleeding it dry, shortly after the Irish Potato famine. There was an immense amount of hostility toward England, as they continued to export goods out of Ireland during the worst times of the potato blight, essentially bleeding Ireland dry. Much of Irish literature has been explained as pre or post famine, and this novel is very interesting to read knowing it is post-famine.
In the novel Dracula starts out as the colonized when an Englishman named Jonathan Harker travels to his home in the Carpathian Mountains to purchase the estate. While Harker is trapped in the estate of Dracula, Dracula travels to England and preys upon the Victorian women. The colonizer (England), becomes the colonized when Dracula turns a few of the English characters in the book into vampires. I have a great deal more to say about this book, but I am afraid I have already given so much of the plot away! Check out the book youself and stop by the Reference Desk sometime and let me (Jason) know what you thought!

Books on Stoker and Dracula
The new annotated Dracula
The essential Dracula

Further Information:
Dracula : between tradition and modernism by Senf, Carol

Potato Famine:
The great Irish potato famine by Donnelly, James S. Jr



The United States of YA

Created with the contributions of readers, EpicReads has made a fairly awesome map of YA books.

You can see the full post here

I am looking forward to tackling this list. I have read a number already, but now that I see this list I cannot resist reading them all. How many of these have you read? What do you think about the full list?

~jh

And God Spoke to Abraham Lincoln

Disunion Blog

The New York Times DISUNION Blog follows the Civil War as it happened 150 years ago.  In a recent post by by EDWARD J. BLUM and PAUL HARVEY which talks about how President Lincoln received a letter from God.  

“I am your Heavenly Father and the God of all Nations,” it began. God had particular explanations and instructions for the president, whose entire term of office had been defined by war. “I am the cause for the disruption between the North and the South,” he continued, and the point was to destroy the “horrible state of affairs” that man’s “selfish nature” had brought. “I am not partial and have no respect of persons.” Coming just weeks after the preliminary Emancipation Proclamation, the letter made it clear that God wanted to destroy slavery. For further instructions, God told Lincoln to gather six of his best men and meet in person “my instrument the Messenger of Peace the Christ of this day.”  Lincoln did not believe the letter was from God, of course; as he suspected, it came from a local religious devotee named Lydia Smith, who believed herself to be God’s medium.

To read the entire post click HERE.
 
Today a President has staff to go through his mail and is less accessible then he was 150 years ago.  Still I picture Lincoln writing at his desk or reading about military strategy not answering "crank" letters or being influenced by the great awakening.

Tyson

 

Classic foreign film on DVD

Many of our classic films on VHS have now been replaced on DVD format. Come in and browse this new collection of older titles.  A sampling:

 

Which are your favorites? Any suggestions for purchase? We would love to hear from you!

-DB