How about this for a personal library?

Just for fun - you've got to check out Jay Walker's personal, 3,600 sq foot library.

http://www.wired.com/techbiz/people/magazine/16-10/ff_walker?currentPage=all

Beyond Google

American Libraries Direct featured the search engine Hakia that uses semantic searches to find "credibility stamped" search results. They've already partnered with the Medical Library Association to index vetted websites in that field, and are now seeking librarian input for credible and reliable websites in other topic areas. This may be a good search tool to keep in mind for those nursing students! To view their approved websites and selection processes, and to contribute websites, visit http://club.hakia.com/lib/. They're also giving away monthly prizes to contributors! :o)

Fun election website!

The Museum of the Moving Image has a website called The Living Room Candidate, which features campaign television ads throughout history. There are more than 300 ads dating back to the first election to air tv campaign ads, 1952. The website is also being updated throughout this year's election to include Obama's and McCain's ads. You can search by type of ad, election year, or issue. There are also commentaries, historical backgrounds, and election results. Almost makes me wish I was teaching middle school social studies! (Almost....)

ProQuest teams with Google

Google's done it again! They are now partnering with ProQuest to digitize newspapers from ProQuest's print archives. Read the full article from LJ Academic Newswire. When completed, this will be an interesting - and hopefully useful - resource to find articles in smaller newspapers that are not available in electronic databases elsewhere. ProQuest plans to maintain a strong distinction between its Historical Newspapers database, which includes the NY Times, and this free, web-based digital archive. Hopefully Google won't pull out of this one like it's been doing with a lot of the book-digitization partners...

-Megan

CQ Researcher explores Internet Accuracy

Have you been on CQ Researcher lately? While exploring the site for some lesson planning ideas I noticed the August 1st article is titled "Internet Accuracy." It explores topics like the authenticity of Wikipedia, how information literacy is important in today's world, and the future of information control (and cataloging) regarding the Internet. The Short Features sections provides some interesting tips for Google and alternative search engines to try. Ever heard of Bananaslug.com? This search engine claims to promote "serendipitous surfing" by pairing your search term with a randomly generated word (from a category you select) to lead you to sites that would be overlooked by Google. Practical? Not sure yet. Fun? Yup! A search for "librarian" and a random word from the "urban dictionary" category (word generated: Song Binging) brought me to the Rabid Librarian's Ravings in the Wind blog. Interesting.....

-Megan