Friday, April 30, 2010

Today is Arbor Day. Take a look at the many ways trees benefit the earth



About trees:
1. Trees receive an estimated 90% of their nutrition from the atmosphere and only 10% from the soil.
2. Trees grow from the top, not from the bottom as is commonly believed. A branch's location on a tree will only move up the trunk a few inches in 1000 years.
3. There are about 20,000 tree species in the world.
4. The largest area of forest in the tropics remains the Amazon Basin, amounting to 81.5 million acres.
5. Arbor Day was first observed in Nebraska in 1872. That state is now home to one of the world's largest forests planted by people - over 200,000 acres of trees.
6. Some trees can "talk" to each other. When willows are attacked by webworms and caterpillars, they emit a chemical that alerts nearby willow of the danger. The neighboring trees then respond by pumping more tannin into their leaves making it difficult for the insects to digest the leaves.
7. The most massive living thing on earth is the Giant Sequoia in the Redwood Forest of California. It stands nearly 30 stories tall and 82.3 feet in circumference. Its weight is estimated at 2,756 tons.
8. The averaged size tree can provide enough wood to make 170,000 pencils.
9. A single tree produces up to 260 pounds of oxygen a year. That is more than enough to supply oxygen to a family of four people.
10. A tree can absorb as much carbon in a year as a car produces, driven over 8 500 miles.
11. Trees planted in and around property can raise that piece of land’s value by up to 20%.
12. An acre of trees can produce up to 4000 pounds of wood every year.
13. Trees can bring down your air conditioning costs by up to 20 percent.

Tree trivia from: http://www.weekendgardener.net/tree-information/facts-about-trees-80608.htm and
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Now figure how much your trees are helping the environment. Go to National Tree Benefit calculator
and according to area and species of tree, results will be figured in terms of stormwater, electricity, air quality, property value, natural gas, & CO2.

Friday, April 23, 2010

Spring forward with DIY Resources at PCL

DIY and Home Improvement web sites recommended by PCL:

Acme How To
www.acmehowto.com/home.php
Acme How To is an excellent site for step-by-step troubleshooting and repair of common household problems, from plumbing to insect control. The simple format allows you to click on the problem and find a series of simple solutions with instructions for testing them. This web site also has suggestions and tips for basic home maintenance that are terrific for those who just don’t know where to begin. This site works with www.acmehowto.com/home.php, where parts can be purchased and more fixes are offered. Diagrams and photos of the parts are especially useful.

DIY Network
www.diynetwork.com
The DIY Network is an entire cable channel dedicated to home repair. Shows like Sweat Equity and Bathroom Renovations teach homeowners to complete both simple and complex repairs on their own. Often the amateurs make the repairs, so everyday problems are addressed through the guidance of the hosts. Shows like Cool Tools give reviews of new products and guide purchase decisions. Hundreds of video downloads are available free. Designed to promote the network, the site does appear somewhat cluttered, but a little exploration proves worthwhile.

HGTV
www.hgtv.com
HGTV’s web site includes not only information on its many do-it-yourself and home design programs such as Over Your Head and Divine Design but also tools and social networking features that will appeal to many users.

Renovation Nation
www.planetgreen.discovery.com/tv/renovation-nation
This show from the Planet Green channel teaches viewers to repair and renovate their home using environmentally friendly products and methods. It's an excellent resource for finding green companies and products nationwide. The episode guide includes a recap of completed repairs along with photos and video for additional reference. There's also a database of green building materials.

This Old House
www.thisoldhouse.com
With thousands of videos available demonstrating repair, remodeling, and design, this web site is a smorgasbord of DIY detail. The information contained herein is reliable and thorough. Each video has textual instructions and a shopping and tool requirement list. Difficulty level and average times for completing projects are also included.

Resources compiled by Library Journal, April 1, 2010

Wednesday, April 14, 2010

Holocaust Days of Remembrance

are this week, April 11 - 18. The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum site is a good initial starting point for information. See their video Why we remember the Holocaust which describes the Holocaust, Days of Remembrance, and why we as a nation remember these events.

Tuesday, April 13, 2010

Earth's changing climate



I recently watched the documentary An inconvenient truth presented by Al Gore (available on DVD at PCL; also in print and audiobook editions) which shows dramatic photos and charted examples of the changes to the environment since Industrialization at the beginning of the 20th century. I would recommend this film to share with your family and friends in commemoration of Earth Day on April 22nd. For a preview of what kinds of evidence is shown in the film, see these photos of diminishing glaciers in our National Parks.

Friday, April 9, 2010

C-SPAN: American History TV
http://c-span.org/Series/American-History-TV.aspx
C-SPAN’s American History TV runs every weekend. The programs offer up conversations with authors and historians, along with first person accounts of American history. The homepage includes a complete schedule of past and upcoming programs, along with featured interviews. Some of the recent features have included interviews with former Representative Dan Rostenkowski, Senator Bob Dole, and Frank Yamasaki, a Japanese-American who was interned at the Minidoka Relocation Center in Idaho during World War II. Moving on, visitors can also take advantage of the "Web Resources" area, which includes links to the U.S. Congress homepage, the Supreme Court, and legislative bodies around the world.

Nettleton Civil War Letters at the Electronic Text Center
http://etext.virginia.edu/civilwar/nettleton/
These rather fascinating letters were given to the University of Virginia in 2000 by Corrine Carr Nettleton, and they were subsequently digitized and placed online here. The correspondence is between Charles N. Tenney, a Union soldier from Ohio, and Adelaide E. Case, a friend from the small town of Mecca, Ohio. The collection offers some rather intriguing insights into the lives of both individuals, and the broader social and historical context of this period of American history. The entire collection is searchable by word, phrase, or date.

>From The Scout Report, Copyright Internet Scout Project 1994-2010. http://scout.wisc.edu/

ProQuest Will Provide Free Access to Six Databases for National Library Week

ProQuest is offering “free, open access,” to a number of databases from their National Library Week webpage from April 12 – April 18.

Thursday, April 8, 2010

USG Consumer Information Catalog...

Spring 2010 has arrived at the library. It lists publications (some free) from the GSA Federal Citizen Information Center in Pueblo, CO. Pick up a catalog or request publications online (with no service charge) http://pueblo.gsa.gov.

Friday, April 2, 2010

Weekly Web Sites

FedFlix
http://www.archive.org/details/FedFlix
As part of a joint venture between the National Technical Information Service and Public.Resource.Org, the Internet Archive has created this excellent archive of government training films from the past six decades. Browse the collection by title or subject to find films from a wide variety of government agencies, including the U.S. Army, the U.S. Information Agency, and NASA.

Eric A. Hegg Photographs
http://content.lib.washington.edu/heggweb/index.html
Eric Hegg documented the Klondike and Alaska gold rushes, and the digital collection of his photographs held by the University of Washington Libraries numbers 730 images, out of over 2100 in the entire physical Hegg collection. The collection can be browsed in its entirety, or by subject.

40 Years Later, Looking Back At the Internet's Birth
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=114376728

>From The Scout Report, Copyright Internet Scout Project 1994-2010. http://scout.wisc.edu/