The Carnegie And Greenaway Medals

The Carnegie medal (named for Scottish-born Andrew Carnegie) is the British equivalent of our Newberry Award–given annually to the writer of an exceptional children’s book. The Greenaway Medal, named after Kate Greenaway, (a popular 19th century artist) is the British equivalent to our Caldecott Medal– for distinguished illustration of a children’s book. There are many fine books to be discovered on these winners lists.

http://www.carnegiegreenaway.org.uk/carnegie/list.html

Put The Library Elf To Work For You

The Essex Library is now offering patrons a FREE, easy way to keep track of their borrowed materials. The “Elf” allows you to sign up all your library cards (assuming they are from participating libraries) and your family’s cards as well–which means parents can link their children’s cards to their own and receive notifications when materials are due, overdue and for holds that are awaiting pick-up. Library Elf is a private service not associated with the Essex Library. Go to the website and navigate through the sign-up process yourself (you’ll need the barcode from your Library card) or go the The Short List Blog posting for December 21st and that will walk you through the process step-by-step.

http://www.libraryelf.com/

The Internet Tourbus

Bob Rankin and Patrick Crispin are two self-proclaimed Internet gurus who operate this website as an archive to their e-mail newsletters which are sent out twice a week. The newsletters are widely regarded as one of the best things going on the Internet. If you’re looking for information about computers, hardware, software, websites-both informative and interesting, and a little humor then subscribe to the emails. They are especially good about virus protection, anti-spam manoeuvers and updating software.

http://www.internettourbus.com/

Alpine Christmas Wreaths…not what you might think

Here is a website where you can order Christmas decorations of a wreath-like nature but more importantly you can get the lyrics to all kinds of Christmas carols. You can read a variety of Christmas stories and there are pages of fun facts about trees and greens. There are even recipes for cookies and other get-together eats.

http://www.alpinewreaths.com/

Talking About Books…

Did you ever turn on C-Span2-BookTV on the weekend only to find that you’ve missed half of the scintillating Niall Ferguson discussion on his newest book? Well, nevermore! Here is the site that provides a calendar and schedule of the programming–it even provides the past week’s schedule so you’ll know what you missed.

http://www.booktv.org/index.asp

You Talkin’ To Me???

Who is worse?–the salesman who calls at dinner or the person who conceived of those awful phone hierarchies that seem like an endless Disneyworld ride line? Here is a listing from GetHuman of formulas for bypassing those endless instructions so you can speak to a live, human, customer service representative immediately at a host of national companies.

http://www.gethuman.com/us/

Trivia Quiz

There’s nothing like a trivia quiz to help pass the time during a slow moment with Uncle Homer and Aunt Millie til the next wave of turkey gravy is ready. Here’s one ready made for you. The questions are true/false and you get to see the percentage of people who already answered incorrectly before you supply your answer.

http://www.blufr.com/

Best Toys

Aaaahhhhh! There’s less than two weeks til Christmas. Have you found the best toys for your gift recipients yet? Here’s a little help from the Family Fun people. They gather more than a thousand kids to test out toys during the year and the ones that survive and get picked as the kids’ favorites make the list. The lists are divided by age group and don’t miss the top 10 must-have list.

http://familyfun.go.com/parties/holiday-seasonal/specialfeature/famf0906-toy-main/

Business and Legal Information- A Selective Resource Guide

Competitive Intelligence, that’s the name of the game. Know what the other guy is up to and stay abreast of any new developments in your area of expertise. This site was developed by a librarian and a lawyer located in Washington, DC and offers enough links to various sources of information to keep one busy for weeks if you were so inclined.

http://www.llrx.com/features/ciguide.htm

Iraq Study Group

U.S. Institute of Peace ~ Iraq Study Group

The Group was formed in March2006 to conduct an assessment of the situation in Iraq, its impact on the surrounding region and the consequences for U.S.interests. The site features material about leaders, meetings and links to related documents.

http://www.usip.org/isg/