Posted by eileen on March 11, 2010
Who Do You Think You Are? premiered last Friday on NBC. According to the show’s
About page, “Viewers are invited to take an up-close and personal look inside the family history of some of today’s most beloved and iconic celebrities with NBC’s
Who Do You Think You Are? Starring in the new alternative series are Matthew Broderick, Lisa Kudrow, Spike Lee, Sarah Jessica Parker, Susan Sarandon, Brooke Shields and Emmitt Smith. Ancestry.com is NBC’s official partner on the series.”
After (and prior to) the first episode, which featured Sarah Jessica Parker, one can find many
reviews through a simple Google search. Some of these reviews are less than favorable. For example,
Mary McNamara of the LA Times says, “And though Parker does her best to appear moved and humbled by the difficult and even tragic lives of her ancestors, the show is all about her, after all, forcing the uncomfortable question: If everything happens for a reason, did all this American drama occur to ensure the existence of ‘Sex and the City,’ or even worse, ‘Did You Hear About the Morgans?’” Ha!
Other mentions of the show are positive.
Paula Stuart-Warren, author of the blog
Paula’s Genealogical Eclectica focuses on the good things about the show. She says, “While they can’t show each step of the research I am thrilled that they are showing a variety of records, both online and off. Visits to libraries, specific localities, historical societies, museums are shown. The starting point of talking with family and looking at home sources is represented in the visit with her mother. The audience gets to see Ancestry.com, census, newspaper articles, maps, old letters, original court records, and that not all is online.”
In many cases, the search for one’s ancestors is not an easy one. It can be time-consuming and at times addicting (at least for me). Whether
Who Do You Think You Are? is a successful endeavor for NBC or not, I hope it brings to light the fact there are many
tools to help find one’s roots as close as his/her public library.
WPL happens to have a
Genealogy Collection with many many sources. Our
Reference Desk is staffed with degreed librarians who are more than happy to help you get started on the search for your ancestors. As noted above, Ancestry.com has partnered with NBC to create the series. WPL (and many other libraries, for those of you outside the area) subscribes to the full Ancestry.com database. This means the census records, local histories, draft records, and indexes one would pay for through Ancestry.com are available for FREE if you use
Ancestry inside the library. Stop in and take a look. Representatives from the
DuPage Genealogical Society are available to answer questions every Thursday night from 7-9pm at the library.
Posted by eileen on March 1, 2010
A quick search in Biography Resource Center can answer that question! See a brief biography below, but search the database for more details.
1747-1779. Polish nobleman. Involved in rebellion in Poland (1768-72); fled to Turkey (1772), France (1775). To America with letter of introduction from Franklin to Washington (1777); served as volunteer at Brandywine and Germantown; made general and commissioned by Congress to organize independent cavalry corps (1778); ordered (1779) to support Gen. Lincoln in South Carolina; defended Charleston (May 1779); mortally wounded at siege of Savannah. - from Merriam-Webster’s Biographical Dictionary. Merriam-Webster Incorporated, 1995.
Biography Resource Center is available from home with a WPL card and PIN. Are you an iPhone user? Download the free AML iPhone App and you can view Biography Resource Center right from your phone! For more information on the AML app, see my 1/29 post about it.
More on Pulaski: Polish American Center
Google News results for Pulaski Day
Posted by eileen on January 29, 2010
If you need to do some research and can’t make it to the library, WPL is proud to announce we can now bring the library to you – whether you are in the doctor’s office, at your kitchen table or under the hood of your car.
By taking advantage of the Gale AccessMyLibrary (AML) mobile application for the iPhone, research is as simple as an Internet search on a mobile phone. Gale, part of Cengage Learning, has developed an iPhone application allowing you to access library information wherever you are. This service helps people retrieve quick, authoritative answers — while raising awareness about the rich resources available in the library.
The AML app finds your global position and locates libraries within a ten mile radius, giving you access to electronic resources at any time. With AccessMyLibrary, the iPhone becomes a valuable research tool. The iPhone application is free and the content has been paid for by the library being accessed, bringing a library’s electronic collection of Gale resources to you wherever you are.
If you are within ten miles of WPL, you can connect to our Gale resources:
- General OneFile – A one-stop source for news and periodical articles on a wide range of topics: business, computers, current events, economics, education, environmental issues, health care, hobbies, humanities, law, literature and art, politics, science, social science, sports, technology, and many general interest topics. Millions of full-text articles, many with images. Updated daily.
- Biography Resource Center – This database integrates award-winning biographies from respected Gale sources with related full-text articles from hundreds of magazines and newspapers, as well as tens of thousands of images and links to vetted websites. Search for people—both current and historic from all eras and fields of endeavor—based on name, occupation, nationality, ethnicity, birth/death dates and places, or gender, as well as keyword and full text. Or, combine search criteria to create a highly-targeted custom search.
- Gale LegalForms – Provides a wide selection of state-specific (and multi-state) legal forms across the most popular legal areas. Includes real estate contracts, wills, pre-marital agreements, bankruptcy, divorce, landlord tenant and many others. Also included is a comprehensive attorney state directory and a dictionary of legal definitions explained in laymen’s language.
The Gale iPhone application can be downloaded at the iTunes store today or by visiting http://www.gale.cengage.com/apps/.
Not sure why you should use a database instead of a website? Check this out: http://www.wheatonlibrary.org/refdb/main_dbvsweb.html.
Posted by eileen on January 18, 2010
from Biography Resource Center
Today we remember Martin Luther King, Jr. For those of you who need a refresher on his life, check out this summary from Merriam-Webster’s Biographical Dictionary. Merriam-Webster Incorporated, 1995:
1929-1968. American clergyman and reformer, b. Atlanta, Ga. Ordained Baptist minister (1954); led boycott of Montgomery, Ala., transit system to force desegregation of city’s buses (1956); founder (1957) and president of Southern Christian Leadership Conference; advocate of nonviolence and racial brotherhood; copastor with his father of Ebenezer Baptist Church, Atlanta (1960 ff.); major organizer of massive March on Washington where he delivered famous “I Have a Dream” speech (Aug. 1963); awarded Nobel peace prize (1964); assassinated at Memphis, Tenn.
For a more detailed biography of Martin Luther King, Jr., take a look at Biography Resource Center. This online bank of information is available to anyone from the computers in the library and anyone with a WPL card and PIN from home. Search by a person’s name, nationality, occupation, and many other qualities. Also, one can often find pictures of the person, websites about him/her, and news articles.
If you are planning on stopping by the library soon, try a catalog Subject search for King, Martin Luther Jr.
Posted by eileen on December 30, 2009
Such a lovely song, but where did it come from and why do we sing it on New Year’s Eve? I decided to do some quick database searching to get an answer. According to a 1998 article from The Christian Science Monitor, “Scottish poet Robert Burns is credited with writing the song, though it’s more likely he pieced the words and melody together from old Scottish folk songs. Translated, ‘auld lang syne’ means ‘old long since,’ or ‘days gone by’ in a Scottish dialect.” The words we sing today are slightly different from Burns’ original poem. Here are the first couple verses:
| SHOULD auld acquaintance be forgot, |
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| And never brought to min’? |
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| Should auld acquaintance be forgot, |
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| And days o’ lang syne? |
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| We twa hae rin about the braes, |
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| And pu’d the gowans fine; |
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| But we’ve wander’d monie a weary fit |
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| Sin’ auld lang syne. |
The entire text of Burns’ poem can be viewed at Bartleby.com.
Guy Lombardo and his band, The Royal Canadians, are credited with making the song a New Year’s standard, after playing it on the radio to millions of Americans on December 31, 1929. For more information about that historic performance, take a look at Sarah Burton’s Moment: December 31, 1929: The Roosevelt Grill, New York City, five minutes to midnight… This article and the earlier mentioned article can be found in InfoTrac General One File. WPL card holders can access this database from home and anyone can access it from inside the library.
More information:
Auld Lang Syne Lyrics from Wikipedia
History of Auld Lang Syne from About.com
Links to sheet music from About.com
Posted by eileen on October 8, 2009
Our library catalog now has some really great features. When you get to a book, it’ll not only tell you whether it’s in the library or not, but also help you find other books you’ll like! For example, I searched for Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice. I got a list of ten similar titles and eight similar authors! Also, it shows links to a Jane Austen biography you can read online, articles about the book and author, and book discussion guides. Sometimes these new features take a couple extra seconds to load, so be patient! From home, a couple of these features require a WPL card number and PIN.
These features are made possible by a service called NoveList Select. The library subscribes to an online database called NoveList Plus. NoveList Plus has all kinds of wonderful information for readers. You can even pick which specific topics or moods you like in a book and it’ll help you find one! Bringing this content into the library catalog is just one way of making things easier on you, our patron! If you have questions about NoveList, please contact a Reference librarian at askref@wheatonlibrary.org.
Posted by eileen on May 19, 2009
Today is Victoria Day, which is celebrated in Canada. It takes place each year on the Monday on or before May 24th. Although the holiday’s purpose is to celebrate Queen Victoria’s and the regining monarch’s birthdays, Canadians view it as the beginning of the summer season. It is quite similar to how Americans view Memorial Day, a day to open up your cottage or pool for Summer (or start wearing white shoes and pants).
Don’t know much about Canada? Check out Lands and Peoples, one of the great databases of information the library offers. Just type Canada in the Find it Fast search box. This database is a great jumping off point for research for adults, but can also be easily navigated by children. Is your child or younger sibling doing a country report? Show him/her Lands and Peoples! To access this from home, you will need your WPL card number and PIN.
Another great source is the CIA World Factbook, which is available online for FREE. Check out their entry on Canada!
Picture from http://www.flickr.com/photos/husseinabdallah/2082709783/
Posted by eileen on April 22, 2009
Why not celebrate Earth Day by learning something new about our amazing earth? A great place to start is Access Science. You can access this awesome database from WPL’s Science Research page. Access Science isn’t just encyclopedia articles. There are image galleries, news videos, animations, and a lot more awesome stuff. I just checked out a news article from earlier in the week: “Massive Solar Flares Captured in 3-D” and their image of the week (right).
Are you or someone you know taking a science class? Access Science also has a Study Center. The Study Center includes Topical Study Guides, AP Study Guides, suggested Essay Topics, and Bibliographies. What a great resource! There is a Q&A section where the editors answer your science questions. I just learned that tsunamis are most often caused by earthquakes, not the action of the tide.
If you want to access it from home, you’ll need a WPL card number and PIN. If you don’t have (or don’t remember) your PIN, look at the To Create a PIN instructions.
Posted by eileen on April 13, 2009
ProQuest is celebrating National Library Week by giving free access to a few of their most popular student resources. These are:
- eLibrary® high-quality, high-interest, and highly usable full text and multimedia aligned to over 20,000 most-studied topics.
- CultureGrams™ local experts document the culture and daily life of the world’s peoples—from Afghanistan to Zimbabwe.
- SIRS Discoverer® a safe, kid-friendly online discovery environment for young learners from elementary to middle school.
To check them out, just go to http://www.proquestk12.com/landings/celebrate.shtml
