Audiobooks as medicine?
Posted by: Mary Burkey

Scientific research on recovery after a stroke showed that audiobooks significantly improved sensory memory and resulted in higher cognitive function. I’d be interested to see this University of Helsinki study replicated with Alzheimer’s patients. The findings mirror much of the research done on the positive impact of audiobooks in literacy development of students. I know I remember specific details more clearly when I listen to a book than when reading. I’d also like to see more research on this concept of focused attention – how audiobooks train the reader to “stay in the now” – no skimming, speed reading, or flipping ahead. It would interesting to compare the retention of details by those who gulped down Mockingjay at midnight and those who will listen to the audiobook!

Read entire story here.

August 20, 2010

Marylaine runs a website for “Neat New Stuff” that she finds on the Internet.

10 Must-Read Books for Geeks
http://www.geeksaresexy.net/2008/04/01/10-must-read-books-for-geeks-part-i/
Patrick Biz recommends the best books on a wide range of technology topics. Some of them will appeal to non-geeks as well.

15 On the Go Breakfast Recipes – Parenting.com
http://www.parenting.com/recipes-gallery/Recipes/On-the-Go-Breakfast-Recipes
“Quick, handheld snacks that your kids can eat on the way to school,” including dressed-up yogurt, crepes on the run, Greek omelette in a pita, homemade granola bars, and more.

Arago: People, Postage & the Past
http://arago.si.edu/
You can tell a lot about America’s history, art and culture by examining its stamps. Don’t believe me? Just check out the slideshows of exhibits from the US Postal Museum. My favorite is the Alphabetilately, an alphabetical topical traipse through our stamps, but there are plenty of other intriguing topics, including American military history, American sports and athletes, celebrating Hispanic heritage, the art of Christmas stamps, women on stamps, etc. Search or browse by broad categories (America’s History, People and Culture, Just for Fun, etc.).

Bird Checklists of the United States
http://www.npwrc.usgs.gov/resource/birds/chekbird/
“Here we offer bird checklists developed by others that indicate the seasonal occurrence of birds in state, federal, and private management areas, nature preserves, and other areas of special interest in the United States.”

Case Study Collection – National Center for Case Study Teaching in Science
http://ublib.buffalo.edu/libraries/projects/cases/ubcase.htm
Covering all science disciplines, case topics include the impact of a meteor shower, chemical detection of cocaine-contaminated currency, using irradiated beef to protect restaurant customers from e.coli, exploring the Gulf of Mexico’s dead zone, managing urban deer populations, the medicinal use of marijuana, the ethics of embryo design, the loss of the Mars Climate Orbiter, and lots more. Each case study includes teaching notes.

Consumer Health Ratings
http://consumerhealthratings.com/
This site, provided by a former hospital CEO, aims to guide you to otherwise hard-to-find evaluations of health care providers – “the most comprehensive listing of organizations that rate or report performance on specific hospitals, health plans, physicians, nursing homes, home health agencies and other health care providers in the United States.”

Fastcase Public Library of Law
http://www.plol.org
“one of the largest free law libraries in the world, because we assemble law available for free scattered across many different sites,” including federal statutory law and codes for all 50 states, regulations, court rules, constitutions, cases from the Supreme court, federal appeals courts, and state courts back through 1997. Tutorials explain how to search for specific kinds of sources.

Free wi-fi hotspots, wi-fi cafes, coffeeshops, hotels, airports, RV parks
http://wififreespot.com/index.html
Just what you need if you’re traveling and can’t live without wi-fi access. Browse by state and city, or by continent, country, and city.

Seafood Selector – Environmental Defense Fund
http://www.edf.org/page.cfm?tagID=1521
The Environmental Defense Fund’s guide to fish that are “good for you and the ocean.” You can print a Pocket Seafood Selector or Pocket Sushi Guide, find out about the best and worst choices, see health alerts, and get advice on fish you can substitute for fish on the Eco-Worst list

Top 10 Things You Didn’t Know Google Maps Could Do – Lifehacker
http://lifehacker.com/5525758/top-10-things-you-didnt-know-google-maps-could-do?skyline=true&s=i
How Google Maps can help you plot walking tours and bike tours, find places nearby any point on your map, show photos taken nearby, provide GPS coordinates, and more.

Vaccines – Recs/Schedules/Immunization Schedules
http://www.cdc.gov/vaccines/recs/schedules/default.htm
School starts early these days, and parents are required to bring their children’s vaccinations up to date. Check out the schedules here.

Your Complete Guide to Cheap College Textbooks
http://www.couponsherpa.com/ask-coupon-sherpa/your-complete-guide-to-cheap-college-textbooks/
I raised a book-loving son who was turned off to buying books by the sky-high cost of college textbooks. See what alternatives are available to paying the (gulp) full price.

Building literacy around the world
Room to Read founder and Executive Chairman John Wood talks (4:51) with CNN Money about his organization, which has built more than 10,000 libraries around the world using big-business practices and social networking. “We opened our 10,000th library in Nepal a couple of months ago,” Wood said. “We were very psyched about that milestone and celebrated for about a nanosecond, then went right back to thinking about how we get to 20,000 libraries.”…
CNN Money, Aug. 6

Today on Fresh Air: Natasha Trethewey, author of Beyond Katrina: A Mediation on the Mississippi Gulf Coast (University of Georgia Press, $22.95, 9780820333816/0820333816).

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Today on the Diane Rehm Show: Jennifer Arnold, author of Through a Dog’s Eyes (Spiegel & Grau, $25, 9781400068883/1400068886).

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Tomorrow morning on NPR’s Morning Edition: Melanie Thernstrom, author of The Pain Chronicles: Cures, Myths, Mysteries, Prayers, Diaries, Brain Scans, Healing, and the Science of Suffering (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, $27, 9780865476813/0865476810).

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Tomorrow morning on Morning Joe: Manal Omar, author of Barefoot in Baghdad: A Story of Identity–My Own and What It Means to Be a Woman in Chaos (Sourcebooks, $14.99, 9781402237218/1402237219).

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Tomorrow on KCRW’s Bookworm: Martha McPhee, author of Dear Money (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, $25, 9780151011650/0151011656). As the show put it: “In Martha McPhee’s comic novel, a wizard of Wall Street promises he can change a novelist from a desperate bohemian into a ‘Master of the Universe,’ in a brief eighteen months. In this conversation, we explore the mis-marriage of aesthetics and greed. Can you make a silk purse out of a sow’s ear? And what is a silk purse, anyway? A thing of beauty or a costly accessory?”

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Tomorrow night on the Colbert Report: Jon Krakauer, author of Where Men Win Glory: The Odyssey of Pat Tillman (Anchor, $15.95, 9780307386045/030738604X).

As seen on Shelf Awareness.

Not enough time to get to the library?  Catching a ride on the metro?

Need to read and ride?

Picture courtesy of Kelly from Madrid.

Artist Jane Mount “taps into this emotional connection with her project Ideal Bookshelf, a series of paintings which capture the spines of peoples favorite books,” the National Post‘s Afterword blog reported.

“We show off our books on shelves like merit badges, because we’re proud of the ideas we’ve ingested to make us who we are, and we hope to connect with others based on that. I think this is endearing and charming,” Mount said. “When I paint someone else’s favorites and they have the same book I have in mine, I feel closer to them, like we must understand each other in some meaningful way.”

Mount even takes custom orders: Just “send in a photograph of your favorite books, in a row or in a pile, and Mount will lovingly render them in gouache and ink on paper. As of Monday, she’s posted 80 paintings on her website, Ideal Bookshelf,” the National Post wrote.

As seen on Shelf-awareness.com.

Celebrate!

Our Community of Readers!

End of the Adult Summer Reading Program

Saturday, August 14^th 12:00 – 2:00

Pizza, Pop and Prizes!

Adam Ranger The Magician Performing Astonishing and Amazing Tricks!

Why The Next Big Pop-Culture Wave After Cupcakes Might Be Libraries.
from NPR.

I realize we’re picking the bones from the Old Spice campaign at this point, but when I saw that the Brigham Young University parody of the Old Spice ads had gotten more than 1.2 million views (Old Spicy himself — that’s what I’m calling him — did a video for libraries), it got me thinking.

Read more here.