Online Resources!!

Did you know that you don't even have to come to the library to use our great resources? Visit our online resources from HOME! You can sit in your pajamas on the couch, use the library and get your projects done all at once. :) All you need is your precious LIBRARY CARD.

Resources for high school students
There is so much here! Biographies, articles about literature and authors, science experiments and much more.

Resources for middle school students
We have resources for country projects, mythology projects, science experiments, the entire World Book encyclopedia and much more. We pay for the resources, you use them!

Resources for elementary school students
(tell your little brothers and sisters! there's fun stuff here, too)

Or you can go to our website and click on Student Resources.

Happy searching!

Rock the vote!

I don't know how many of my readers are over 18, but even if you're not eligible to vote, you should encourage your older friends, siblings and others to do their part!

Here's a website with all the details on how to register to vote here in Massachusetts. Check out all the links down the right side of the page, too for more cool links related to voting.

Summer!

I don't know about the rest of you, but I'm starting to get sad about the approaching end of summer. :( Things have been crazy at the library all summer with the summer reading program, but I'd really like the summer to last a bit longer.

This week on Teen Tuesday we had our GAME DAY at the library, which was lots of fun. We played Guitar Hero on the big screen and had a few intense matches of Frogger, as well.

Next week is our last Teen Tuesday and we'll be making duct tape wallets or cell phone holders! I have all different colors of duct tape...should be fun!

Here are a few links on duct tape crafts:

http://www.ducttapecreations.com/

http://ducttapefashion.com/

And a YouTube video in case you can't make it next week:

Website of the Week: Wordle

Wordle is a pretty fun website where you can paste in any amount of text or a link (like our blog here) and it will come up with a word cloud. Here's a wordle for this blog below. The bigger words are the ones used a lot (like BOOK, duh) and the smaller ones are the ones I don't use as often. Go try your own!

Website(s) of the week

Think you have a pretty amazing life story? Why not write your story for all the world to see! Ourstory.com is a great service that makes your life story into a timeline complete with pictures, videos and more. You can even have your friends and family members help you tell your story. Check out my simple and short story below. If you're into it, try the delicious tags to the right to find more fun tools.



Start your own timeline at OurStory.com

You're invited!

I've sent some of you an invite to post to the teen blog. If you're having trouble figuring out how to do this, why not watch this first?

Video: How to post to the teen blog

Yum yum...Del.icio.us!

Have you noticed the new addition to the blog? The word cloud off to the right (crafts, recommendations, etc.) is a Del.icio.us tag cloud. Del.icio.us is a social bookmarking site...instead of hitting "Bookmark this page" in Internet Explorer or Firefox, you can add all the websites you want to go back to later using Del.icio.us. This is great, because you probably don't use the same computer every day. I know I love it...I can still find my bookmarks whether I'm using my home computer, my work computer or a computer at a friend's house.

I've created a Del.icio.us page for teens in this area...check out some of the links to the right! Try the word games to find links to fun online games. Check out recommendations for websites that will recommend new music, clothing, etc. for you. The words that are bigger are the ones that I've used most often to "tag" or describe the websites. For pandora, my favorite music website, I used these tags: music, recommendations, social, search. These are all words that I think describe the website.

You can help me add to this, too. Email me your favorite websites whether they're games, music sites or whatever. Feel free to tell me what to "tag" them, too.... Or you can make your own del.icio.us account and we can be in a "network" so we can see each other's tags.

Tell me what you think in the comments!!

Where did Ms. Sonya go?

So it's been 2 months since Sonya left the library. I'm sure many of you miss her as much as I do... So, where did she go? Well, besides to Boston, Sonya has moved on to LibraryThing where she is working on LibraryThing for Libraries, which is really pretty awesome.

For example, if you were to search for Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone in the Danbury, CT Library Catalog, which has LibraryThing for Libraries, here are the tags that would come up:

adventure boarding school british children children's children's fiction children's literature England fantasy favorite film friendship harry potter juvenile kids magic mystery rowling witches wizardry wizards young adult
You can then click on any of those tags and be directed to other books that have similar elements. Another cool feature is that you can get recommendations of similar books. Here is one recommendation for HP and the SS:
Charlie Bone and the castle of mirrors / Jenny Nimmo.

Pretty cool, huh? LibraryThing is something you can join (if you're over 13! and then w/parent permission), input your own books and then get great recommendations for similar books, meet other members who have similar books, write reviews and more. If you join, make me your friend. You can search for me on the Search tab under Members. I'm lalalibrarian.