AccuRadio is an Internet radio site definitely worth visiting. They not only have a wide variety of channels for rock, pop, jazz, classical, country, oldies, Latin, world music and more, but each channel is broken into even more specific channels. Even when you are listening to a channel, you can customize it and de-select artists you don’t want to listen to. This is one of the most intuitive and fun interfaces I have seen in awhile.
Maybe it is just the librarian in me, but when Sacred Stories pops onto my screen, I can almost smell the aged paper. The British Library has created this evocative collection of sacred Hindu, Buddhist, Sikh, Christian, Islamic, and Jewish stories. Just click a cover and select a story. Each book is read aloud with moving images and effective reading. This is a great example of what can be done with digitized books.
San Diego’s Union Tribune has an interesting piece on Movies Better Than the Books That Spawned Them. This could make great fodder for a blog post on your library site! Don’t be too worried about the list, the most recent film on it is Carrie which came out in 1976. This is one of those blog posts that could start a real discussion. Hopefully!
NPR has several great book pieces to point to on your library blog in their holiday section.
First is a nice list of coffee table books recommended for gift giving. Just looking at the covers and some of the images make you want to pore over them.
Second is a mouthwatering collection of new holiday cookbooks. Yum!
And then you have a list of holiday books for gifts from Karen Grigsby Bates where you will find books for all kinds of readers.
Way to push the book NPR!
Here is one to crow about on your library website! The Million Book Project has completed the digitization of more than 1.5 million books, all of which are now available online! (Right now the server is too busy for me to get into it and look around.)
It took us months to get our digitization project completed, and that was a few books and several hundred photos. Imagine the daunting task of 1.5 million books.
But even more important than that is what this says about OPEN access to library holdings with no fees, no teasers that lead to fees, nothing like that. This is the project librarians should be demoing and talking about to their patrons. This is what makes libraries and librarians cool. In a digital historical way of course.
Keep on learning by using the free university lectures at LectureFox. You will find lectures on physics, computer science, mathematics and other subjects from universities such as MIT, Vanderbilt and UC San Diego. The lectures come in several formats. Some are notes, others are audio and still more are video.
Cookthink is one of the more delectable-looking food sites online. Their images are consistently clear, clean and mouthwatering. The site appeals to many different types of cooks. If you are looking strictly for recipes, you can. Looking for advice, tips and beginner information, click on reference. Or you can read their blog which combines all of it in concise articles filled with images.
Travel into the Lord of the Rings with Planet-Tolkien, the largest JRR Tolkien site in the United Kingdom. You will find news, active fan forums, information on the author himself, movie reviews, and an image gallery.
Clipblast is the world’s largest search engine for online video. You will find television shows, travel, celebrity sightings, news, and much more. You can create your own account which will let you save clips and get alerts. This is definitely a site to be aware of and a nice complement to YouTube.
National Public Radio now has a music page where you can find all sorts of great music just waiting for discovery. Listen via live streams or select specific songs to hear. You can also listen to interviews, live concerts, and studio sessions. But perhaps best of all is that the NPR focus on learning and knowledge extends to their music site. Right now, I am listening to Modern Classical Music for Pop Fans.
