Next time you are out and about by the West Branch Library in Davis Square - since we can't yet go in - take a moment to appreciate the details of the entrance to the building that has welcomed readers for more than 100 years. Lamps are positioned on either side of the staircase, and on the landing at the top of the stairs, two columns frame the doorway, supporting a triangular pediment over the door. Look up above the pediment, and you’ll see another pair of lamps on either side, though... Read Post
Online Resources
April 23rd 2020
April 23 is the day observed as Shakespeare’s birthday throughout the world. Normally the occasion would be marked by live play performances, open-air celebrations, sonnet slams and Shakespeareaoke. Due to COVID-19, events have been postponed, or cancelled altogether, and others have moved online. So this year (or this month at least), celebrations of the bard’s birth will be more virtual and, sadly, solitary.
Fortunately during this time of quarantine, various... Read Post
March 26th 2020
We are missing our patrons and we hope you haven’t forgotten what we look like! Maybe you are one of our patrons who would come in and head to the third floor balcony to find a cozy spot to do your work. Here’s a fun library fact for you, there wasn’t always a third floor balcony! That’s right, the Central Library went through a major renovation in its past. The renovation began in June 1975 and the library was reopened July 1, 1976.
Some of the new features of the... Read Post
March 24th 2020
Use this step-by-step guide to access the OverDrive digital collections on your computer, phone, tablet, or Kindle.
To get started, you'll need your library card number and your PIN/password. Your PIN was created when you applied for your library card.
If you don’t know your PIN, email spl@minlib.net to request a new PIN. Be sure to include your library card number in the email—we can't reset your PIN without it—and a staff member will create and send a new PIN to you.
You can... Read Post February 25th 2020
As Black History Month draws to a close, we wanted to share recommendations for a few of the African-American history resources available online.
Last year was the 100th anniversary of the official end of World War I. The National Museum of African-American History and Culture marked the occasion with an exhibit on African-Americans in World War I, “We Return Fighting,” that will run through June 14, 2020. View the online version of the exhibit here.
The Library of... Read Post
August 3rd 2018
...to cook. In New England many of us spend half the year longing for summer, but once it's actually here we realize that hot weather makes certain basic life-maintenance tasks (such as cooking) unappealling. However, we still have to eat, even when the thermometer goes way up and the weather is sizzlin' hot. Some of SPL's books on seasonal cooking and main dish salads can help you find dinners to prepare without turning your kitchen into a furnace. When Mark Bittman was still writing his "... Read Post
May 25th 2018
We at the library recently created a Flickr page for sharing photos and images from our local history collection. So far, we've scanned and uploaded photos of Somerville kids dating back to the 1920s; the city's centennial celebration in 1972; Davis Square landmarks from the 1960s, before the Red Line; Somerville High School, and advertising from 19th- and 20th century Somerville businesses, like the Metropolitan Ice Company card featured with this post. We'll be adding more images regularly... Read Post
February 8th 2018
African-American history is endlessly fascinating: it's the troubling, complex counterpoint to the sanitized, triumphalist version of American history so many of us were taught in school and that still appears in popular historical works. The Internet is a trove of riches on the black American experience. Below are links to a small, eclectic sample of what's available online.
At the Library of Congress you can listen to, or read transcripts of, interviews conducted with former... Read Post
June 6th 2016
The Library of America is a nonprofit publisher dedicated to producing durable high-quality editions of the best of American writing. And it's not just fiction: their nonfiction volumes include the World War II reporting of A.J. Liebling, the movie reviews of James Agee, and the four-volume collection of diaries and letters, The Civil War Told by Those Who Lived It. If you want to get exposure to a range of American writing but are daunted by the size and number of LOA books, sign up for "... Read Post
April 1st 2016
One of my favorite websites for online learning (or amusment) is FutureLearn.com. It offers short and free introductions to a variety of subjects. Courses are usually 3 to 5 weeks and average about 3 hours a week of work. You can learn about everything from mobile programming to introductory Italian. Or you could inform yourself about nuclear energy, Japanese philosophy, cardiovascular disease, or Roman archaeology.
Check it out.
March 3rd 2016
A few weeks ago I posted about resources to help you determine the truth of what you see, hear or read in the media.
Here are 3 more fact-checking resources to consider: Media Matters for America, Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting, and The Washington Post's Fact Checker.
January 15th 2016
It's an election year. Candidates are saying a lot of things to get people's votes, which means many of them are, to be blunt, lying.
How do you know what to believe? How do you sort fact from fabrication? Surprisingly, the Internet can actually help if you go to the right places.
Factcheck.org is just what it sounds like: a website devoted to finding the truth behind politician's statements, misleading headlines, and viral rumors. Factcheck is published by the Annenberg Public Policy Center... Read Post
October 6th 2015
Remember Mark Watney in The Martian modifying the astronaut habitat to grow potatoes? Over at Quirk Books Danielle Mohlman has posted some potato recipes from various online sources.
And if you're interested in food real-life astronauts would eat, Tara Ziegmont of Feels Like Home has instructions for making astronaut pudding. The post includes a video of an astronaut on the International Space Station demonstrating how he and his co-workers make dinner.
Yum.
August 26th 2015
The hot, muggy weather last week prompted a patron to call the library with questions about the Boston Heat Wave of July 1911. I was able to answer her questions (some of which were quite detailed) using our historic Boston Globe database, which provides every single page of the Globe from 1872 to 1981. Using historic newspaper databases is not only a good way to locate facts, it's also a way to get a feel for the past often lacking in history textbooks. For example, scanning the headlines for... Read Post
August 6th 2015
A recent issue of American Libraries featured an article called "Going Beyond Google Again," a sequel to an earlier article exploring the uses of alternatives to general-purpose search engines (e.g., Google and Bing). The more recent article gives urls and descriptions of various free online databases that give you more focused search results than you would get from simply typing keywords into the open maw of Google.
One of the databases profiled, Voice of the Shuttle, is a... Read Post