AccuWeather.com has announced the launch of the new AccuWeather.com Forecast Snapshot. The tool integrates with Google Maps and provides current conditions, 3-day forecasts, weather news headlines, and radar or satellite images for every location on Earth.

The AccuWeather.com Forecast Snapshot is unique because it combines the most popular weather information in one interface, the announcement states. Other tools provide forecasts, current conditions, or radar; AccuWeather.com Forecast Snapshot provides all of them for both domestic and international locations, selected by ZIP code or city and country search.

AccuWeather.com offers a range of downloads for all types of online users. The site offers mini-applications that can be used on Yahoo!, Google, Mac OS X, Windows Vista, Web sites or blogs, Internet Explorer, Firefox, Opera, and the iPhone. All downloads are simple, free, and available through the AccuWeather.com Download Center.

Source: AccuWeather, Inc., www.accuweather.com.

EduHound and TIME For Kids have partnered to provide free, effective tools to help elementary school teachers enhance their classroom learning experience.  EduHound Site Sets provide topic-based online resources to supplement classroom instruction.  Time for Kids Mini-Lessons cover a wide range of real-world topics kids love to learn about. http://www.eduhound.com/SiteSets/

DOC Cop is a free plagiarism detection tool that creates reports displaying the correlation and matches between documents or a document and the web. DOC Cop does not take ownership or copyright of your material. It does not retain material beyond the time it takes to generate its report. For more information visit: http://www.doccop.com/

Give this a try. Thesis Builder and Online Outliner.   http://www.ozline.com/electraguide/thesis.html  Pretty amazing. Is it cheating or just a helpful tool? Does it focus the kids on the task or inhibit higher order thinking? 

Children of Prisoners Library (CPL)

“More than one in forty children in the United States has a parent in prison. … [This site] provides free information sheets designed for people serving children of prisoners and their caregivers.” Features pamphlets on topics such as visiting mom or dad, jail and prison procedures, common stress points, and tips for fostering trust and safety. Also includes a glossary and links to related material. From the Family and Corrections Network.
URL: http://www.fcnetwork.org/cpl/cplindex.html
LII Item: http://lii.org/cs/lii/view/item/24490 

Working With Children With Parents in Prison

Tips from 2002 for those who work with children who have incarcerated parents. Topics include child reactions to parental incarceration, prison visitation basics, reunifying families after parental incarceration, and understanding and supporting foster children with incarcerated parents. A few of the links to related sites are broken. From the North Carolina Division of Social Services and the Family and Children’s Resource Program of the University of North Carolina Chapel Hill School of Social Work.
URL: http://ssw.unc.edu/fcrp/cspn/vol7_no1.htm
LII Item: http://lii.org/cs/lii/view/item/24489

Source: Librarian’s Internet Index http://www.lii.net

The Internet Public Library (IPL), an online resource site aimed at students of all ages, is getting an overhaul meant to broaden its current services into a virtual learning lab for both media specialists and scholars.

Drexel University, the University of Michigan, and Florida State University will oversee IPL’s upgrade aided by $600,000 in grant funding from the U.S. Institute of Museum and Library Services’ Laura Bush 21st Century Librarian Program, which will continue through June 2010. New features are to include digital reference courses, an online learning community, and other resources.

IPL, which launched in 1995, has been hosted by Drexel University’s College of
Information Science and Technology since January 2007. While its home page is a fairly simple site offering access to online collections, almanacs, and other straightforward resources, K–12 students can click through to IPL’s KidSpace and TeenSpace. There they’ll find a treasure trove of links from a Teen Poetry Wiki to the Everyday Mysteries page created by the Library of Congress, where children can learn why their parents’ hair is turning grey. (And no, it’s not because of the cell phone bill.)

“The IPL is a valuable public resource and teaching tool,” says Eileen Abels, a professor at Drexel’s College of Information Science and Technology who will work on the project. “The IMLS grant means that more library and information science students will receive hands-on digital library experience and more faculty members will be able to collaborate on new projects in the area of digital reference.”

Source: School Library Journal. http://www.schoollibraryjournal.com/article/CA6479138.html <posted 09/19/2007 by Lauren Barak>

The New York Times will stop charging for access to parts of its Web site, effective at midnight tonight. The move comes two years to the day after The Times began the subscription program, TimesSelect, which has charged $49.95 a year, or $7.95 a month, for online access to the work of its columnists and to the newspaper’s archives. TimesSelect has been free to print subscribers to The Times and to some students and educators.

In addition to opening the entire site to all readers, The Times will also make available its archives from 1987 to the present without charge, as well as those from 1851 to 1922, which are in the public domain. There will be charges for some material from the period 1923 to 1986, and some will be free.

Source: Librarian’s Rant http://lblog.jalcorn.net/  <posted 09/18/2007>

As you get started on all of your school assignments, I am sure the question of plagiarism comes to mind. Do you know a good definition of plagiarism? How can you prevent it? These are just some of the questions that can be answered on this site http://www.plagiarism.org/.  

Source: The Cross Connection http://www.glnd.k12.va.us/weblog/dcross/ <posted on 09/10/2007>

“…get all your public service desks to keep a “No List” — a list of all the times they say “no” to a patron. At the end of the month, collect the lists, figure out the policies that required the staff member to say “no”, and review those policies.Seems to me that “we’ve always done it that way” might come into play without ever saying those words, so perhaps we need to start by asking ourselves why we say “no” to our patrons.

Source: Blog without a Library http://www.blogwithoutalibrary.net <posted on 07/03/2007)