Connecticut State Historian's Website and Blog

If you're interested in Connecticut history, you'll want to know about Walt Woodward's blog. As the State Historian for Connecticut, Mr. Woodward is very much involved with the myriad of events going on around the state that are dedicated to Connecticut's history. A good way for you to keep informed is by visiting his website and reading his blog. His website and blog are available at: http://www.cthistory.org/.

I've had the wonderful opportunity of meeting Mr. Woodward and he's a very kind, gregarious and inviting fellow. If anyone can make you care about history, it's Mr. Woodward and his site is definitely worth a look (or two)!

More on Ask.com

Yesterday at the SNRG (Sirsi Northeast Region users Group) conference I learned more neat stuff about Ask.com.

Ask.com now helps you narrow your search and gives you it's best result right on the top of the screen.

You can read Ask.com:The Other Search Engine by Kevin Newcomb for ClickZ News or go directly to Ask.com and try it yourself.

have fun.

-vicky

Sites I found this week.

The staff at the library are learning about Web 2.0 and Library 2.0. Sue Schneider and I are writing lessons in a blog. One reason I love training library staff is that I learn so much in preparation for the lessons I teach. So today I thought I would share with the readers of this blog some neat sites I found this week while preparing my lesson.

AskCity: Ask.com has created an interactive map where you can locate businesses, movies and events in a city. You can drill down to the street level with this search. The items you searched for are pinned on the street. When you click on the pin the phone number, address, email and directions pop up. You can click pin it and customize the pin to include your own notes about the item you can even include a photo.

And best of all once you have created these searches and customized them you can save a snapshot and return to it the next time you visit the site.

You can display the map only or a side by side map and a text list of your results.

LivePlasma: A visual search engine to recommend music or movies similar to one you enter in the search. I searched Amy Grant and right away it selected 4 or 5 other artists I like to listen to. So it will encourage me to listen to others in the results map. I circled the results I already like listening too.

On the left are links to albums or movies for your original search. If you want albums or movies for any of the search results just click on the circle. You can also add the search results to your favorites.

-vicky