Let�s talk about books, baby…or…summertime, and the reading is E-asy!

This week the BRAIN_blog celebrates summer with some tools and sites to get your summer groove on! If you�re like me, you just can�t wait to download a couple of e-books to your Palm, grab your shades and hit the beach. What? You�re not?? Oh I know, I know…much has been written about the lack of personality of e-book reading devices, how no one wants to curl up (or lie out in the sun) with their handheld computer…but I for one am just geek enough to say to those of you enslaved by paper tomes, �Hey, I�ll try anything once!� So watch this space � I�ll keep you posted on how I make out (or don�t!) with my �have Palm books will travel� project this summer � who knows, I may even convert a few others to the e-side!

1) Loadsa books? …it�s Manybooks!

Let�s first take a look at a great site that really lives up to its name, Manybooks.net. Manybooks is the place to go to download FREE ebooks for your Palm or other handheld ebook reading device. A large number of these books are available from that wonderful Project Gutenberg. Jenn blogged about this back in March �04 ( Frankenstein or Moll Flanders! Getting started is easy, as the Help page provides excellent detailed instructions on how to download the books to your reader. I also love that Manybooks encourages authors to contact them to have their book distributed on the site. There are criteria to follow of course (for example you must be willing to offer your book for free) but here once again we see the whole social interaction that sites like this can offer � very, very cool. Manybooks has hundreds and hundreds of books, with more being added all the time. How do I know this? Well, Manybooks offers an RSS feed, so you can keep up with what�s new and exciting in the world of downloadable books � very handy indeed!

2) For every ebook page, turn turn turn!

Okay, so maybe you�re not yet convinced that reading books on a handheld device is for you, but you might be willing to agree that ebooks have potential. Well, to get your virtual feet wet, take a look at some digitized books, thanks to state-of-the-art technology called Turning the Pages. It�s really one of the most exciting tools you�ll ever see (I hope you agree) and one that changes the way we view books on the web � or even view books at all. Developed at the British Library, Turning the Pages(TTP) is a fantastic application that allows users via their computer to actually touch and turn the pages of ancient, rare and fragile books, manuscripts and other documents. Other libraries and organizations have adopted the TTP technology and adapted it for their unique collections. The results are simply astounding. We�ll start with the British Library�s Online Gallery, Turning the Pages, as it is the original and the collection, as you can imagine, is staggering. Just the captions alone can cause even the most passive booklover to palpitate with excitement. Imagine � �Sketches by Leonardo� � see and turn the pages of Da Vinci�s personal notebook; �Glorious Hebrew Prayer Book� � The Golden Haggadah with its incredible illustrations; �The Oldest Printed �Book�� � the Diamond Sutra, an unbelievable scroll printed in 868 in China. Use the Audio feature to hear commentary on the selection you are viewing; grab the magnifying glass to zoom in on specific text or illustrations; click on �T� (text) to highlight text and learn more about the publication. This is truly a remarkable collection, not to be missed! Following in the footsteps of the British Library is the American Red Cross World War II Scrapbook. The website encourages readers to �Experience the activities of American Red Cross Recreation Workers overseas, during World War II, through the pages of this scrapbook. The story is told by images and memorabilia gathered from World War II era scrapbooks and personal papers in the Red Cross archival collection.� The scrapbook isn�t quite as sophisticated as the British Library�s � there are no audio or zoom features, but most of the text is legible, even on the handwritten documents and there is just so much interesting information, it�s definitely worth a visit. Finally, the National Library of Medicine in the United States has jumped into the Turning the Pages forum as well. Not an extensive collection as of yet, but no doubt they have big plans for this project. The NLM site offers zoom, audio and text selection, giving you the total Turning the Pages experience.

3) Listen up!

Another great way to get your �ebooks to go� is to download them not to �read� but to listen! Check out Audible.com, a site with a huge selection of books that can be downloaded to your iPod, mp3 player or to your computer to then be burned to CD. Audible.com also has radio programs, and audio magazines & newspapers available from the site, so there�s always lots to listen to! Get started by setting up an account at Audible.com, ensure you have the software you need for downloading and you�re set! Books and other items are purchased on a per item basis (yes, this is a paid service) or you can join AudibleListener for a monthly membership fee. For those of you looking for a bargain (and frankly, who isn�t??) Audible.com does have a small selection of free audio books (as of now, they all seem to be US Presidential inauguration speeches or 9/11 commission hearings � but I�m sure they�re working to expand!) and also some for under $10 (a much larger collection with a better variety of genres!) so you can definitely bargain hunt at Audible.com!

4) Let�s go back, let�s go back, let�s go on, go way back when…

A couple of final notes about ebooks � at the beginning of this entry I briefly mentioned Jenn�s post from last year where she looked at Project Gutenberg and all the great things that were being done with that. Also mentioned in the same entry were the Online Books Page from the University of Pennsylvania, the University of California Press eScholarship web site and the Baen Free Library. Do check out the post >here to revisit these fantastic resources! And lastly � remember faithful BRAIN_blog readers, the Library @ Mohawk also subscribes to a few great ebook databases for your reading pleasure � absolutely free! Be sure to take advantage of such fantastic resources as netLibrary and Safari Tech Books Online, accessible from �Databases� on The BRAIN.

Life, the universe and a few search tools

The search tool world is just buzzing with excitement and new stuff lately. So we don�t all spontaneously combust from the sheer thrill of it all, I�ve organized this issue into two sections: 1) scholarly resources to jump up and down about and 2) search tools that will knock your proverbial socks off.

1) Scholarly Resources To Jump Up and Down About
a) You�d better sit down for this
I know, I know…first I tell you to jump up and down and now I tell you to sit down! For your own good, I recommend you sit down for this one. We have some gargantuan news about online journals and magazines at the Library @ Mohawk! By the end of this week you�ll be able to access EVEN MORE magazines and journals through TheBRAIN than ever before! You may be familiar with the EBSCOhost suite of databases�.these databases provide access to thousands of online magazines and journals that you can search, save, print or email. Popular titles such as Time, Maclean�s and The Economist are included as are scholarly research titles such as Lancet, The Chronicle of Higher Education, the Journal of Advanced Nursing, and my personal favourite The Journal of Aerospace Engineering. Literally thousands of articles at your fingertips I tell you! By the end of this week, the number of titles to which you will have access will double! That�s because we have acquired several new databases! Watch this space for these new database titles: Academic Search Premier (access to 4681 full text titles!), Healthsource Nursing Academic, American Humanities Index, Healthsource Consumer edition and Clinical Pharmacology. These complement our current suite of titles (such as the ERIC educational database, Business Source Elite, MEDLINE and more.) Not sure which database to choose? Go to this page on TheBRAIN for help with selecting a database to search. As usual, when you log in from home or anywhere off campus, you will need to log in with your staff (or student) number and a PIN. Not sure what these are? We�re here to help!

b) How to become an astronaut in 10 easy lessons (and also get great ideas for your course development!):
OpenCourseWare at MIT
MIT OCW has been around for a while but it demands to be featured in case anyone hasn�t heard about this fantastic resource! The web site says it all when it describes MIT OCW as �a free and open educational resource for faculty, students, and self-learners around the world.” Here you�ll find course materials organized by subject area�everything from lecture notes to course outlines to reading lists. Choose a subject area from the left sidebar and see a list of courses taught at MIT in that subject area. Choose a course and then view loads of material for that course. Here�s an example. Having always really wanted to be an astronaut (rather than a librarian), I selected the topic �aeronautics and astronautics� as maybe there is hope for me yet. There are course materials available for courses in the undergraduate and graduate streams. After choosing �undergraduate�, I see 18 courses listed. Aerospace Dynamics is as good a place to start as any in my new career so I select this link. Below the rather intimidating diagram of a gyroscope are links to the lecture notes and assignments. (NASA here I come!) In the �lecture notes� section there are many PDF documents organized by lecture number. Some courses also have a related resources listing, sample projects, and downloadable textbooks. The site has a clear, usable design and a search feature so that you can search the whole site or within courses. Not interested in astronautics? There is a full range of courses available from anthropology to engineering to history to music to urban studies. Whether you are taking up a new career or looking for ideas from other instructors when developing your own courses, MIT OCW is definitely a stellar resource! (MIT OCW is also featured in the facultyspace under �Class Corner/Lesson Plans and Curriculum Resources�.) Now I�m off to master my Axisymmetric Rotations and the making of Tang instant beverage drink!

c) Oxford opens up, comes out of shell, makes a few friends
The prestigious publisher Oxford University Press (OUP) recently announced a new project called Oxford Open. Oxford Open will provide free and open access to select scholarly journal titles owned by OUP. This is another great indication that the Open Access movement is gaining ground. See more information about the movement and a previous posting (April 5th, #3) about open access on the BRAIN_blog. For an example of open access in action, see the Public Library of Science.

2) Search Tools That Will Knock Your Proverbial Socks Off
a) Yummy morsels of knowledge at�Factbites
If you are a fan of Answers.com and Ask Jeeves then you may also like Factbites which was launched in March of this year. The Factbites web site proclaims �Other search engines spew out meaningless site-names and mangled phrases. Factbites offers you real, meaningful sentences and picture previews.� Like Answers.com, the factbites results list gives you links to encyclopedia articles about your topic rather than links to miscellaneous web sites. For example, I did a search on The Philippines and my result list contained links to encyclopedia articles, articles from Lonely Planet guidebooks, newspapers and some government sites. However, some of the sites were less than credible�some of the encyclopedias were not the most authoritative sources on the net, and some links were questionable. A good feature though is the long description of each search result that gives you an idea of the content on that site. Answers.com has it all over factbites at the moment but it will be interesting to see where this new tool goes in the coming months.

b) Another gift from the Google gods� Google Print
Yet another great gift from the Google gods, Google Print (currently in beta) allows you to search for books that Google has digitized. Google has agreements with publishers as well as libraries to digitize books so that they can be searched online. The complete full-text of public domain books and snippets (and sometimes only bibliographic information) from books under copyright are available. Some great features are: the nifty book cover images in the search results, the ability to search within a book, to view whole pages of a book, and to link directly to Amazon, Chapters.indigo and other booksellers to purchase the book, and the ability to link directly to a search of your local library catalogue (where the book is available in libraries). In some cases, the table of contents of a book is available which gives you a good idea of content before you buy or borrow. And no, you cannot download or read entire copyrighted books on Google Print (only public domain ones.) As Google says, �In general, Google Print is designed to help you discover books, not read them from start to finish. It’s like going to a bookstore and browsing � only with a Google twist.� Unfortunately, I couldn�t find any information on how many books are currently in Google Print �if you find out, let me know! Another easy way to access Google Print is to type �books about [topic]� (without quotes or brackets) in the regular Google search box. At the top of your search results will be a link to �book results for [your topic]�.

c) A9.com Revisited
Last September , we featured the new search engine a9.com. Last month, a new beta version of this tool was launched with some great new features. The biggest change is that there is now a list of checkboxes at the top of the screen (instead of buttons on the right) that allow you to narrow your search (to reference books, web sites, images, movies, etc.) To say that this is truly a great search engine would be an understatement. If I was on a desert island and could only have one search engine, this would be it. The results are nicely organized by format and for many of the searches I tried, contained authoritative sources (government sites, newspapers, reputable publishers.) You can also limit to sites you use most often such as PUBMED, the New York Times, Creative Commons, etc. The same great personalization tools are also still available (your history, your bookmarks, your diary, etc.) And to top it all off, a9.com uses the Google database in its search results. It�s got everything I tell you! Everything!

d) Dictionary in Limerick Form
Need I say more? What could be more fun and useful at the same time? The Omnificent English Dictionary in Limerick Form is currently in progress with definitions in limerick form complete up to “ba”. Worth a gander!