Guidelines for Medical, Legal, and Business Responses

Library Bill of Rights from The American Library Association

Interpretations of the Library Bill of Rights

RUSA Guidelines for Behavioral Performance of Reference and Information Service Providers

Guidelines for Library Services to Teens, Ages 12-18 pdf
Serving Seniors, A Resource Manual for Missouri Libraries pdf
Creating Lifelong Readers: Serving Young Adults with Literacy in Mind pdf
Library Usage Will Go Up During a Recession – Management Are You Really Prepared?

Training

WebJunction – free webinars

Challenged Materials

Uncle Bobby’s Wedding by Jamie LaRue
About Banned Books, ALA
Essential Preparation, ALA
Challenge Support, ALA

• Genealogy – Free Family Tree – Geni
• Cyndi’s List of Genealogy Sites on the Internet
• National Society of the Daughters of the American Revolution Library
• Resources for Genealogists and Family Historians
• Social Security Death Index Interactive Search
• USA QuickFacts from the US Census Bureau
• What Passenger Lists Are Online?
• Family Genealogy and History Internet Education Directory

History

• Flags of all Countries
• Flags of the World
• Presidents
• Rulers
• The Original Farmer’s Almanac since 1792 – The Old Farmer’s Almanac

Government

• Federal Citizen Information Center: Home Page
• GovSpeak: A Guide to Government Acronyms & Abbreviations

Medical

• American Academy of Pediatrics
• Bad Bug Book – FDA guide to food-borne bacteria.
• Diabetes Dictionary – 300 entries and illustrations from the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases.
• Diagnostic Tests– from the Havard Medical School, this site delineates what a test helps diagnose, what will happen during medical testing and any attendant risks.
• Health Related Hoaxes and Rumors – from the Center for Disease Control.
• Healthcare.gov
• Interactive Healthy Eating Index — an online dietary assessment tool that provides information on your diet quality, related nutrition messages and links to nutrient information. System requirements are listed as well.
• Living Wills: Forms — also has downloadable ‘Power of Attorney for Health Care Decisions’ forms
• Mayo Clinic Health Information
• Medical Reference Tools — acronym finders, dictionaries, calculators, etc..
• MedlinePlus® – brings together authoritative information from NLM, the National Institutes of Health (NIH), and other government agencies and health-related organizations. Preformulated MEDLINE searches are included in MedlinePlus and give easy access to medical journal articles. MedlinePlus also has extensive information about drugs, an illustrated medical encyclopedia, interactive patient tutorials, and latest health news.
• Merck Manual - includes full-text version and a new interactive version. Explains disorders, who is likely to get them, their symptoms, how they’re diagnosed, how they might be prevented, and how they can be treated; also provides information about prognosis.

Business

• Dun and Bradstreet – basic information available for free
• FDIC (Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation)
• Federal Reserve Board data releases
• FRED II (Federal Reserve Economic Data)
• Globaledge – International Business Resource Desk
• Hoover’s online basic information available for free
• ThomasNet (Thomas Register)
• USA.gov Business and Nonprofit Gateway

Technology

• Basics of Buying a Personal Computer System-
• Dave’s Guide to Buying a Home Computer
• Internet Beginner’s Guides Tutorials refdesk.com
• Internet 101 - source for the basics of internet us. It includes illustrations.

Reference

• American FactFinder
• A Basic Guide to ASL
• Abbreviations and acronyms dictionary: Find definitions for over 4,219,000 abbreviations, acronyms, and initialisms
• Art cyclopedia: The Fine Art Search Engine
• Farmers’ Almanac – Farmers’ Almanac TV: Your Guide to Resourceful Living
• FactCheck.org
• ThomasNet® – CNC Machining, Metal Stamping, Gaskets, Fasteners and other industrial products and services.

Books and Reading

• What Should I Read Next?
• Literature-Map – The tourist map of literature
• LibraryThing
• Goodreads

Even More Resources

• Best Information on the Net O’Keefe Library, St. Ambrose University
• Internet Public Library subject collections and ready reference sites online
• Librarians’ Internet Index a searchable, browsable collection of over 16,000 high-quality Websites
• MeL Internet Reference Michigan eLibrary list of online reference sources
• Virtual Learning Resources Center a searchable, browsable collection of over 50,000 academic information pages recommended by teachers, librarians and educational and library consortia
• MARS Best Free Websites for 2009 is the latest update to the Reference and User Services Association (RUSA) Machine Assisted Reference Section selections for best free Reference Websites.
• Best Free Reference Web Sites Combined Index, 1999-2008 “an index of the web sites included in the 1999-2008 annual lists issued by the Mars Best of Free Reference Web Sites Committee of the Machine-Assisted Reference Section(MARS) of the Reference and User Services Association(RUSA) of ALA to recognize outstanding reference sites on the World Wide Web.”

Tools:

These are a just a few of the tools out there. I’ve tried to limit the list to free tools.

Open Office

Word Processing

Spreadsheets

Personalized homepages

Music

• Project Playlist – create and share music play lists
• mixpod – create a music play list
• JamStudio – has a free school program

Books and reading

• LibraryThing – create books lists, write reviews, share with your friends
• Goodreads
• Book Bundlz
• Scribd

Quizzes

• Polldaddy
• Quizzilla
• Survey Monkey

Resources:

• Twitter 101: How should I get started using Twitter?
• Twitter basics
• The Twitter Glossary
• Newbie’s guide to Twitter
• What the Hashtag
• Twapper Keeper

Many sites ask you for a lot of information but don’t actually require you provide it all.  Don’t fill in information automatically think about what the site is asking for and why they might need it.

• Name – probably ok, do  you want to just use your first name, first name and last initial, pseudonym
• Email address - probably ok, which one should you use (see 2)
• Physical address – why does the site need this? Can you use your work address? Can you use a fake one? Make it clear it is fake something like 1234 Nowhere Street, Nowhere USA
• Birth date – why? Just to confirm age? Consider using a fake one. I use the same fake one everywhere. Sharing it with your friends? Consider just using the month and day and leave off the year
• Social Security Number – the site better have a darn good reason for asking for this
• Credit Card number – unless your buying something
• Mothers maiden name, first pets name, first car model etc.  - these are often answer to security questions, think three times before revealing them
• Password for another site or account – never give this out

2. Get a second email address

Actually get a third.

Stop using your work email address for anything other than work.  Your employer has the right to read anything you’re sending through their system.  The first account should be a professional one like bobbi.newman@gmail.com.  You can use this to correspond with family and friends, apply for jobs etc.  I also recommend using a gmail account for your professional listservs, it will help you stop getting that annoying ‘your inbox is full’ message at work, the threading is awesome and list members wont be bombarded by your away messages.

Get a disposable email address, something you can give out to all those sites that demand an email address.  It can be whatever you want – crazycatladychopsticks@gmail.com (I don’t actually have this email address or know if its real or not)

3. Know Your Settings

Know the privacy and security settings for any site you use.  Don’t just accept the default, they are usually the most open, explore your options and choose what is best for you.

Learn the security settings and options your browser offers.

4. Keep Your Software Up to date

Make sure your browser, operating system and security software are always up to date.

5. Learn to detect phishing and other Scams and how to react accordingly

Do not click on popups.

Know how your antivirus software works and what notifications from it look like.

6. Control Access

• Clear the cache on your browser regularly
• Lock your computer when you step away
• If you write your password down who has access to that space? Clean crew? Family members? Friends?

7. Create a Complex Password

First watch this great video Secure Passwords Explained by Common Craft

Do not use any of the follow for your password (from Lifehacker article How I’d Hack Your Weak Passwords)

1. Your partner, child or pet’s name, possibly followed by a 0 or 1 (because they’re always making you use a number, aren’t they?)
2. The last 4 digits of your social security number.
3. 123 or 1234 or 123456.
4. “password”
5. Your city, or college, football team name.
6. Date of birth – yours, your partner’s or your child’s.
7. “god”
8. “letmein”
9. “money”
10. “love”

Bonus Points

Learn about https

Learn more

• Privacy Tips
• Online security
• Protecting your privacy on the internet
• EFF’s Top 12 Ways to Protect Your Online Privacy
• Keep it to yourself – Protect your Personal Information
• CDT’s Guide to Online Privacy: Tips
• Phishing Tips

• everything you’ve ever wanted to know about library blogs and blogging!
• Introduction to Blogging from wordpress.org
• How to Choose a Niche Topic for your Blog
• Choosing a Blog Platform
• An Introduction to Using Images on Blogs
• Introduction to Trackbacks
• The 7 Deadly Sins of Blogging | Copyblogger
• Blog With Integrity
• Why Doesn’t Anyone Comment on Your Blog? – Associations Now Magazine – Publications and Resources – ASAE & The Center for Association Leadership

Styleguides

• Yahoo! Style Guide: writing, editing and creating content for the digital world.
• BBC New Style Guide (pdf)
• Hampshire College Web Writing Style Guide
• Web Copy Style

Tips for Better Blogging

• Useful and Unique Content
• Post Length
• Granular (One Topic) Posts
• Using Titles Effectively on Blogs
• Scannable Content
• Basic HTML Tags
• More on Writing Content for your Blog
• Get Off Your Computer and Become a Better Blogger
• How to Think Of Blog Posts
• If You Intend to Blog Seriously
• Ten Secrets to Better Blogging
• A Sample Blogging Workflow
• 10 Blogging Tips (very brief)
• Conquering Fear of Blogging
• Keeping the Blogging Fires Burning
• 40 Ways to Deliver Killer Blog Content
• 27 Blogging Secrets to Power Your Community
• How To Be Funny Without Even Trying
• How To Stop Procrastinating and Start Your Blog
• The Power of Being Personal on Your Blog
• SpeedBlogging: How To Write Better Posts In Less Time | Copyblogger

Sites

• WordPress
• Blogger
• TypePad
• Posterous
• Tumblr

Misc

• Wallwisher – online note board
• VoiceThread – share images, documents, and videos with added narration.
• Wordle -create word clouds
• Edmodo.com – free private, a social learning network for teachers, students and schools on the Web.

Gaming, animation and comics

• Sploder – game creation, no download required
• xtranormal – online creation of animated movie, download not required
• Scratch – Scratch is a programming language that makes it easy to create your own interactive stories, animations, games, music, and art — and share your creations on the web.
• gnomz – create your own comics
• Storybird – Storybirds are short, visual stories that you make with family and friends to share and (soon) print.
• Comic Sketch – create comics
• Zooburst – create their own customized 3D pop-up books
• GoAnimate

Pictures and images

• Slide.com – create slideshows using photos, includes music and effects
• Fotobabble – add your voice to your photo
• Photopeach – create slideshows of your pictures, add music and effects
• Picnik
• Splashup
• Photoshop Express
• flauntR
• Phoenix

Video

• Animoto – produces video pieces from your photos, video clips and music
• Our Story

Music

• Project Playlist – create and share music play lists
• mixpod – create a music play list
• JamStudio – has a free school program

Books and reading

• LibraryThing – create books lists, write reviews, share with your friends
• Goodreads
• Book Bundlz
• Scribd

Quizzes

• Polldaddy
• Quizzilla
• Survey Monkey

Presentation software alternatives

• Zoho Show
• Google Documents
• PreZentit
• BrinkPad
• SlideRocket
• Empressor
• Vcasmo
• Prezi

Wikis

• PBworks
• Wetpaint
• Wikispaces
• Zoho Wiki
• Wikidot
• Google Sites

Mindmapping

• Mindomo.com
• MindMeister
• Bubbl.us

VoiceThread for Education Wiki

New Canaan Public High School Voice Thread

Niki Lee’s soundtrack for Blood and Chocolate

Shelf Life – Livingston High School Reading Blog

Unquiet Library

Decatur High School Library Wiki

Isinglass Teen Read Award Booktalks Hopkinton High School & Hopkinton Middle School Library

• Wallwisher – online note board
• VoiceThread – share images, documents, and videos with added narration.
• Wordle -create word clouds
• Edmodo.com – free private, a social learning network for teachers, students and schools on the Web.

Gaming, animation and comics

• Sploder – game creation, no download required
• xtranormal – online creation of animated movie, download not required
• Scratch – Scratch is a programming language that makes it easy to create your own interactive stories, animations, games, music, and art — and share your creations on the web.
• gnomz – create your own comics
• Storybird – Storybirds are short, visual stories that you make with family and friends to share and (soon) print.
• Comic Sketch – create comics
• Zooburst – create their own customized 3D pop-up books
• GoAnimate

Pictures and images

• Slide.com – create slideshows using photos, includes music and effects
• Fotobabble – add your voice to your photo
• Photopeach – create slideshows of your pictures, add music and effects
• Picnik

Video

• Animoto – produces video pieces from your photos, video clips and music
• Our Story

Music

• Project Playlist – create and share music play lists
• mixpod – create a music play list
• JamStudio – has a free school program

Books and reading

• LibraryThing – create books lists, write reviews, share with your friends
• Goodreads
• Book Bundlz
• Scribd

Quizzes

• Polldaddy
• Quizzilla
• Survey Monkey

Video editing software

• VideoSpirit Pro 1.59
• Xilisoft Video Converter Ultimate 6.0.3.0416
• Avidemux 2.5.3
• Video Edit Magic 4.47
• Vegas Movie Studio 9.0b
• Windows Live Movie Maker 1.0
• AV Video Karaoke Maker 1.0.33