Summer is winding down. At least that seems to be the way it feels when August comes. Days get shorter, crickets begin their nightly songs, and back-to-school sales are competing for attention. Before that last bit of summer slips through your fingers, give some thought to getting to know New Hampshire better, and having some fun at the same time!

New Hampshire has many interesting and exciting places to go and attractions to see. Some are free and some do charge. All can enjoyed as day trips. The state of New Hampshire maintains a website for visitors. Information found on this website can help you plan some fun family day trips. The family attractions page has a list of great places to visit which can be sorted by region, by attraction type or even alphabetically.

New Hampshire State Parks have their own website as well. Here you can find a list of closing dates for the parks as well as a chart which displays all of the parks and indicates what is available at each park - for example, swimming, biking, fishing, pet policy. Natural areas and wayside parks are also listed and described.

New Hampshire, Maine and Massachusetts are all noted for their agricultural fairs. These are great entertainment, and, at least one takes place every weekend in August and September. There is a webpage for these fairs which gives the dates for each fair and provides a link to it's webpage. Here you will find fair hours, directions, events, admission fees and a contact number for any other questions which you might have.

The library also has guidebooks to New Hampshire which will help you to plan family day trips.

Fun with the family - Vermont and New Hampshire
New Hampshire - Off the beaten path
New Hampshire Curiosities
Natural wonders of New Hampshire
and if your dog loves family travels : Best hikes with dogs: New Hampshire and Vermont

So go ahead, ignore those crickets and plan a family day trip or two. What do they know anyway? It's still summer - just ask your kids!

After running errands during my lunch break I can't stop thinking about how hot it is outside and how thankful I am that my job is in an air conditioned building. So I started to think about what one could do to make this heat bearable for those without air conditioning.

Here's a few thoughts...

*Take a dip in one of the neighborhood pools brought to you by the Nashua Parks and Recreation Department.

*Drink a nice tall glass of lavender lemonade.

*Come read a book or magazine at the air conditioned Nashua Public Library

*Find a tree to lay in the shade at a New Hampshire state park.

*Head to a matinée at Nashua's newest cinema, Chunky's Cinema.

Anyone have any other ideas??? Leave a comment below and share it with the rest of us.

Lizzie Borden took an axe
And gave her mother forty whacks.
And when she saw what she had done
She gave her father forty-one.

On this date (August 4) in 1892 Lizzie Borden's father and her step-mother were murdered in the family home in Fall River, Massachusetts. Lizzie Andrew Borden, 32 years old at that time, became the central figure in these axe murders. The slayings, the trial, and the ensuing trial by media aroused widespread controversy. The incident has endured to this day in American pop culture and criminology. Although Lizzie Borden was acquitted, no one else was ever tried and she has remained notorious in American folklore. Dispute over the identity of the killer or killers still continues.

Those with cravings for Lizzie Borden information and paraphernalia are known as "Bordenphiles". The Nashua Public Library has several items you could begin with:

The Borden tragedy : a memoir of the infamous double murder at Fall River, Mass., 1892 / adapted and illustrated by Rick Geary.

Lizzie Borden : the hands of time by Muriel Arnold.

The Fall River tragedy : a history of the Borden murders / by Edwin H. Porter
a facsimile of the 1893 book with a foreword by Robert A. Flynn .

Murder, culture, and injustice : four sensational cases in American history by Walter L. Hixson.

The ability to kill : true tales of bloody murder by Ambler, Eric.

On the Internet, you can take a look at The Lizzie Andrew Borden Virtual Museum and Library to search for information about researchers, read Lizzie's Blog, discuss the case with other Bordenphiles, and even shop for Lizzie Borden gifts and books. You can subscribe to The Hatchet: Journal of Lizzie Borden Studies or take a look at ten years of resources in the Lizzie Borden Quarterly. Other sites of interest are Lizzie Borden Unlocked providing a good deal of infomation about the legend, trial and investigation and the Lizzie Borden Exhibit which includes a RealAudio rendition of the above nursery rhyme and a tour of the museum. And if you would like to see the entire lyrics of the Chad Mitchell satirical song popularized in the 1960's by the Chad Mitchell Trio go to the International Lyrics Playground.

Let us know of any other interesting sites you may find.

I have become quite familiar with this rhyme over the past week. Last Saturday, I was overly aggressive when doing yard work at my sister's house. I pulled vines and ivy from a stone wall and around a tree. Unfortunately, I did not pay close enough attention. Some of that ivy was of the poisonous variety. I discovered this later that night when a red blotch appeared on my arm. The next day, more red blotches and blisters appeared. By Tuesday, my forearms and right hand were covered, and I had blisters on my fingers, legs, and feet. (I did wear gloves, so go figure!) I've been itchy and uncomfortable and wrapped in gauze, so I'm writing a public service announcement to warn you about this plant.

I am not alone. Poison ivy is one of three plants that causes an allergic reaction in 60-85% (statistics vary) of the population. The Boston Globe featured an article about this pesky plant in the Northwest section of yesterday's paper. It appears that poison ivy plants are more potent and larger now than they were 50 years ago. You can read an article in today's Globe on Boston.com about Jon Sachs, the creator of poison-ivy.org. On this website, you can look at pictures of plants, order identification posters, read stories from the afflicted, and even see some nasty poison ivy rashes.

The first key to avoidance is recognizing poison ivy, oak, and sumac. Poison ivy may grow as a bush, plant or vine, and will often wrap itself around trees. Poison oak, which is especially common in the west, can grow as a low plant or bush, and its leaves resemble oak leaves. Both poison ivy and poison oak typically grow three leaflets to a stem. Poison sumac grows as a bush or a tree looks different than the other two. It has two rows of 7-13 smooth leaflets on each stem and a leaflet at the tip. All three plants contain urushiol, which causes the reaction. If you are exposed to poison ivy or its kin, wash immediately. If you are quick enough, you may prevent the oil from penetrating your skin. However, it may only take minutes to do its damage. The rash may appear 12 to 48 hours after exposure and last from one to three weeks.

It is important to remember a few things:
-You must have direct contact with the urushiol to contract the rash. This includes touching the plant itself or any objects and clothing that touched the plant. These objects likely have the oil on them. For example, if you walk through poison ivy, you can spread the rash by touching your shoes. The oil can stay active on objects for years, so it is important to wash them, as well as your skin.

-The rash is not contagious. As mentioned above, it can only be spread through contact with the oil. Of course, if someone touches an exposed item before it is washed, that person may be affected.

-Contrary to popular belief, the rash does not spread when the blisters break becuase the blisters do not contain urushiol. It may appear that the poison ivy is spreading because the rash and blisters may not appear all at once.

-Scratching is not advised because dirty fingernails can cause infection; however, doing so will not spread the rash for the same reasons as above.

-If the rash is serious, see a doctor.

For more information about poison ivy, its causes, symptoms, and treatment, take a look at the FDA website or MedlinePlus.gov. Type poison ivy in the search box at the top of the page, and click on "Poison ivy, oak, and sumac." The site will will list information from various reliable sources such as the National Library of Medicine, The American Academy of Family Physicians, and the Mayo Clinic.

Have you been afflicted? Do you have a particularly helpful relief method? Leave a comment below.

I'd be remiss if I didn't acknowledge Garrison Keillor's birthday today. He has been a source of inspiration for me for many blog entries. He is also an ardent supporter of public libraries, as evidenced in a wonderful speech he made at the American Library Association annual conference this year. (It was broadcast on C-SPAN a couple of weeks ago and is still available online for viewing.) Snippets of his speech were repeated in his June 27 article on Salon.com, "The Library Fix," in which he referred to the public library as "one of the nobler expressions of democracy."

Keillor is best known for his radio show, A Prairie Home Companion, which is broadcast on National Public Radio. The show features live music, plus skits such as Guy Noir, Private Eye (and, of course, the adventures of Ruth Harrison, Reference Librarian). One of the mainstays of the show is the news from Lake Wobegon, a fictional Minnesota town. Keillor has written a number of books based on his Lake Wobegon radio characters. Among these are:

Lake Wobegon Summer 1956
Wobegon Boy
Mother, father, uncle, aunt: stories from Lake Wobegon (audiocassette)

A new Lake Wobegon title, Pontoon, is due out in September.

Keillor is also behind a little project called the Writer's Almanac. The Writer's Almanac is a short daily broadcast on National Public Radio. It usually follows the format of discussing the major literary landmarks of the day--authors' birthdays, anniversaries of publications, and so on--followed by a reading of a poem. Many's the commute that was made more pleasant by a few minutes of the Writer's Almanac. Archives of the program are available online at http://writersalmanac.publicradio.org. Along those lines, Keillor has published a couple of poetry anthologies, consisting of poems that he selected: Good Poems for Hard Times (large print) and Good Poems.

You can read more about Garrison Keillor in the Literature Resource Center database, found on our web site at http://www.nashua.lib.nh.us/IbrowseAdultAlpha.htm.

In a previous blog I discussed Baseball reference.com as an excellent source of baseball statistics. It is an excellent source, but a coworker pointed out to me that it can be much more. There are numerous links down the left-hand side of the webpage. You can view MVP and Cy Young award winners from 1911 to today; you can see a play-by-play writeup of any All-star game and all the Home Run Derby contestants and their scores. Baseball-reference.com can help you to use up a lot of your spare time in many interesting ways.

The most fun can be had with a section called Frivolities. Oracle of Baseball will allow you to take two random baseball players and create a chain of connection between them. This is sort of a baseball version of the idea behind Six degrees of separation. I put in Barry Bonds and Ted Williams. The link between them needed four players. The real fun starts when you exclude a player from the chain. I excluded every player in the chain and Oracle established a new four player chain with completely different players.

Another interesting section was Non-pitchers who pitched. I was curious to find out what a non-pitcher was doing pitching in the first place, but I never did find this answer. Why would you ask the left fielder to pitch?! But anyway, in the lists, I noticed the name Terry Francona. I selected him and was taken to a page about him which included all of his statistics, but also, similar batters, similar players by age, and a breakdown of all the teams that he played for and how much he earned. There was also a connection to the Dressed to the nines online exhibit from the Baseball Hall of Fame. Here you could see what the uniforms looked like, both home and away, that were worn by each team during the time that he played there.

You can find players who were born on your birthday, players who died on your birthday and players who were born in any state or country. Did you know that 4 baseball players were born in Nashua NH? This is a fascinating way to spend a rainy day or one of those really hot days. If you love baseball and everything about it, this is the place for you!

As we approach the end of the summer we conclude another successful teen summer reading program. Thirty three teens read 256 books and magazines between June 19th and August 1st of this year. This year's program, "You Never Know @ Your Library" attracted both repeat readers and as well as many newbies.

In addition to earning raffle entries through writing reviews, the teens also raised $128.50 for Habitat for Humanity. Just by reading a book a participant can earn $.50 or $.75 (if its on a school reading list) for a charity selected by the Teen Advisory Group. The Friends of the Nashua Public Library sponsored this endeavor.

Even more middle and high school students joined us for a variety of programs during this 6-week time period. For the second year in a row, the outdoor kick-off concert featuring local teen musicians proved to be the most popular program. Hundreds of students littered the library plaza to watch and listen to their friends. If you're lucky you can catch a replay of this event on Nashua's Channel 99.

To all those teens that read til their eyes crossed, I hope you had fun. To all of our community sponsors (Hayward's Ice Cream, Texas Roadhouse, Leda Lanes, NH Fisher Cats, Chunky's Cinema, and Friends of the Nashua Public Library) I would like to express my appreciation for your support in this program.

(By the way, just because the summer is over, doesn't mean you have to stop reading for fun!)

Recently I've been listening to the book The Omnivore's Dilemma on CD. In it, the author offers a somewhat disturbing description of the industrial form of agriculture our society depends upon these days. I never knew how dependent our food supply is upon corn and soy beans, and I had no idea how dependent these two crops are upon large amounts of petroleum-based synthetic fertilizers. Between the oil that is used to create the fertilizers and to transport foods to destinations around the planet, one fifth of the oil imported into the US is used for agricultural purposes. Pretty incredible!

The author also provides a review of the business of organic farming in the U.S. Suffice it to say that organic farming as it was understood in the 1970s isn't the same as it is in the current day. Many synthetic preservatives used in non-organic foods are also now used with organically grown foods. However, organic farming still doesn't use pesticides or as many of them as in mainstream farming.

If you'd like to learn more about organic farming and related topics, here are a few books to consider. I'll also list some electronic resources as well. Happy eating!

Library Books
Organic baby : simple steps for healthy living / by Kimberly Rider ; photograpghs by Thaya Allyson Gowdy. (Children's Room)
Grub : ideas for an urban organic kitchen / Anna Lappé and Bryant Terry.
The way we eat : why our food choices matter / Peter Singer, Jim Mason.
The organic cook's bible : how to select and cook the best ingredients on the market / Jeff Cox.

Articles Available in the EBSCO Database
"Organic Farming Can Feed the World… Can Conventional Farming?" Natural Life, Sep/Oct2007
"Flamboyant Farming" E Magazine: The Environmental Magazine, Jul/Aug2007
"Organic farming movement catching fire in Mississippi" by John J. Woods in Mississippi Business Journal, 6/4/2007

Most of us are familiar with the term Wiki, and some of us have even used Wikipedia and other Wikis, but what does Wiki mean? Well, wikiwiki is a Hawaiian work for “quick”. A wiki is an online site that anyone can access and edit, allowing users to freely create and edit Web page content using any Web browser. Wiki supports hyperlinks and has a simple text syntax for creating new pages and crosslinks between internal pages on the fly. Wiki is unusual among group communication mechanisms in that it allows the organization of the content to be edited in addition to the content itself.

Thus, Wikipedia is an online encyclopedia that anyone can edit. You may have noticed glaring mistakes in Wikipedia. Don’t be afraid to sign on and correct the mistakes! That’s the whole nature of Wikipedia. It’s an encyclopedia for all of us. By the same token, Wikipedia is not considered authoritative since anyone at all can edit it and is therefore not a good source for important research nor for citations.

There are many other wiki’s online. You can see a list of some of the largest wikis out there . You may wish to take a look at:

Wikitravel - a “project to create a free, complete, up-to-date, and reliable world-wide travel guide.”,

LyricWiki - where you can find song lyrics by artist, album, song, genre, hometown, label or language,

Wiktionary - a multilingual dictionary including definitions, etymologies, pronunciations, sample quotations, synonyms, antonyms and translations. As I write this blog, the site contains 491,731 entries in 389 languages,

TV IV - a “compendium of television knowledge where you can search by all programs or by your favorite type(s ) of program such as drama, comedyand reality. It also contains a glossary, ratings and DVD releases,

ArmchairGM - you can read, write and discuss sports and rate players, teams, and sporting events,

PortalNews - a sports news site.

Wikimovies - a totally free movie database that welcomes all users. Its aim is to collect as much information and as mamy facts about all movies as possible. The information may be actors with biographies and filmographies, soundtracks with information about the authors, lyrics and release dates and many more. In additional to all textual information, Wikimovies contains multimedia data like photos, galleries, trailers etc.

You can create your own Wiki too. You will need to use a Wiki engine. There are several places where you can do that including PeanutButterWiki (according to Google "as easy as a peanut butter sandwich", Socialtext, Wetpaint, and Wikia. See the Top Ten Wiki Engines. Try one out!

And take a look at our library's Wikinomics: how mass collaboration changes everything by Don Tapscott and Anthony D. Williams.

Where can you find a list of the top 10 news stories of the previous year, historical anniversaries, the consumer price index, general information about the 50 states and countries around the world, winners of the NCAA tournament, population statistics, metric conversions, a list of prime numbers, Nobel Prize winners, top-selling albums of all time, notable museums, health news, and passenger traffic at US airports all in one place? Your first thought is probably the Internet. This is true, but what if you lose your Internet connection or power? What if all of the library computers are in use? Where would you turn?

You can find all of the above information and much more in The World Almanac and Book of Facts. If you are looking for a British perspective, take a look at Whitaker's Almanack. This volume includes more detailed information about the UK, from Baronatage and Knightage to government departments. We also have The Time Almanac, which is published by the editors of TIME Magazine and Information Please, as well as more specialized almanacs, such as The Old Farmer's Almanack, The Nautical Almanac, and The World Almanac for Kids. Next time you need a quick fact but don't want to stare at a computer screen, take a look at an almanac--one stop shopping for your information needs.

I had a lovely day trip up to Maine this weekend; it was warm, dry, sunny, perfect. The air smelled sweet. We had planned to visit a friend and then stop for some seafood on the way home. Time got away from us, so we never got around to the seafood, and now I've got unfulfilled clam cravings! So, time for a little browse in the cookbook section.

Look up cookbooks in the catalog and you'll get a few dozen results. But we actually have a lot of cookbooks under the subject heading of "cookery," which is the official term. We have more than a thousand books under "cookery." We can narrow the search down for seafood by telling the computer to find cookery and seafood--that gives us about 20 books. Two very tempting books that come up are:

The New England clam shack cookbook : favorite recipes from clam shacks, lobster pounds, & chowder houses / Brooke Dojny ; foreword by Susan Herrmann Loomis.

The new Legal Sea Foods cookbook / Roger Berkowitz and Jane Doerfer ; illustrated by Edward Koren.

Since I'm a little wary of cooking fish, though, it might be more helpful to go straight to the travel books, which often contain restaurant reviews. A lot of people ask us where the travel books are kept. We have them in a couple of spots in the library. The newest books will be on display in the New Arrivals section, just to the right of the door to the children's department. For editions that are more than six months old, you'll want to check the adult nonfiction section in the 910-920 area. Books are shelved by travel destination. To pinpoint one in the catalog, search for the destination and the word "guidebook." For travel books on New England in general, I'd search for "New England guidebooks." This lets me know that we have the Mobil New England travel guide at 917.1 M. If I go more specific and search for "Maine guidebooks," I find that we have the latest Fodor's Guide to Maine, Vermont, and New Hampshire at 917.4 F. These should let me know what restaurants the experts recommend to satisfy my need for seafood.

Of course, word-of-mouth is a great way to find restaurants, too. Have a favorite clam shack you want us to know about? Leave us a comment!

September is my new time to start my yearly diet. The school year starts in September, perhaps the diet year should too. By then I will have consumed my weight in ice cream, and it will be time to lose the annual 20 pounds. For the past few years, I've had less and less success with that 20 pounds. Since I have to purchase that mother-of-the-bride dress soon, starting my new year in September could be the solution.

I've done a lot of experimenting with diets. Weight Watchers, Atkins, and South Beach are some of my recent attempts. I have made friends with fruits and veggies and enemies of carbohydrates and fats, all without success. I have counted calories and I have counted points. The only thing I haven't done is to give up ice cream. That's not likely to happen

All of this experimenting with diets has been aided and abetted by the Nashua Public Library! The library has sooo many diet books. A keyword search for reducing diets will bring up many of these titles. New diet books are rarely on the shelf, so be prepared to put a reserve on a book and wait for it. While you are waiting you can't be dieting. Do calories consumed while waiting for a diet book actually count?

I am not suggesting that I endorse any of these books or that only these books are the key to dieting success. I haven't decided which diet plan to follow yet, but then I still have at least 3 more weeks! If you are eager to begin, here are some books to get you started.

Structure House weight loss plan : achieve your ideal weight through a new relationship with food
The Duke diet : the world-renowned program for healthy and lasting weight loss
You on a diet: the owner's manual for waist management
Curves: permanent results without permanent dieting
The Sonoma diet : Trimmer waist, better health in just 10 days
Ultrametabolism: the simple plan for automatic weight loss
French women don't get fat: the secret of eating for pleasure
Suzanne Somers' eat, cheat and melt the fat away
The weight loss cure "they" don't want you to know about

For those of you with that "can do" attitude there's a trend in library world I'd like to introduce you to, self check out stations. They operate similar to the way the self check out systems at the grocery stores work, without the fruit and vegetable search. No more waiting in long lines just to borrow that one magazine you ran in to get. Just grab it and go.

This isn't a new concept for libraries in general, but the adoption of this practice in New Hampshire is a current trend gaining strength. The Portsmouth Public Library is one place that has adopted this method and considers it a successful venture, utilized by all ages.

Self check out is something the Nashua Public Library is also exploring. I for one am in favor of adding a few of these machines to our services. What about you? Tell me what you think by leaving a comment below.

For some additional reading on this topic, take a peak at the article below made available through the EBSCO, one of the library's magazine databases.

SELF-CHECK SUCCESS. By: Zeiher, Lynne. Library Journal, 12/1/2006 Supplement, Vol. 131, p6-8, 3p, 1 chart, 2c.

Have you ever heard of the Circumferential Highway or the Broad Street Parkway? If you are new to Nashua, you probably have no idea what I am talking about. Both are transportation projects in and around Nashua that have had long and not so successful histories.

The Circumferential Highway was originally planned to create a loop around Nashua extending from Exit 2 on the F.E. Everett Turnpike over to Hudson and up through Lichtfield before curving back to the Everett Turnpike near Merrimack to create what would have been exit 9. Mainly because of environmental concerns and some funding issues, the actual building of the Circumferential Highway was delayed for decades. Eventually, the first half of the Circumferential Highway was built, but the second half never was.

The plan for the Broad Street Parkway was also driven by the desire to alleviate traffic in and around Nashua and to facilitate the city's further growth. This project has been in the works for more than twenty years, and large parcels of land have been acquired by the City in order to make the road a reality. Yet no pavement has been put down, and stakeholders of various persuasions continue to hold conflicting views.

You can read more about these troubled projects in a new library publication that is planned to be made available in May 2008. The publication will serve as an addendum to The Nashua Experience : History in the Making which covers the history of Nashua from 1673-1978. More news on that later.

In my next blog entry, I will go into more detail about these two troubled transportation projects, and point you towards some electronic resources where you learn more about the projects' future.

Max Roach, a dazzling drummer who was a founder of modern jazz and rewrote the rules of drumming in the 1940’s, died this week at the age of 83. Mr. Roach was one of the founding architects of bebop, the harmonically advanced music of the 1940s that helped jazz change from dance-hall entertainment to a concert-stage art. He changed the drummer from a timekeeper and a supporting player into a full-fledged member of the front line.

In many recordings with such musical greats as Dizzy Gillespie, Charlie Parker and Thelonious Monk -- including a 1953 performance (we have it on CD at our library!) that has become known as "the greatest jazz concert ever" -- Mr. Roach pioneered an approach to jazz drumming that remains the standard to this day. Mr. Roach also incorporated elements of other artistic styles including African and Asian music, dance, poetry and hip-hop. His versatility extended from leading performances with as many as 100 percussion instruments on stage to playing solos using only the high-hat, a pair of cymbals mounted on a metal stand and worked with a pedal.

We have a multitude of jazz recordings at our library. Some recommendations on the era described in this blog are:

The bop session [sound recording] / Dizzy Gillespie ... [et. al.];

Dizzy's big 4 [sound recording] / Dizzy Gillespie ... [et al.];

Brilliant corners [sound recording] / Thelonious Monk.

You may also wish to take a look at some of the books about jazz at our library including:

Jazz : a history of America's music / by Geoffrey C. Ward ; based on a documentary film by Ken Burns written by Geoffrey C. Ward ; with a preface by Ken Burns;

Jazz on record : the first sixty years / by Scott Yarrow;

Classic jazz / Scott Yanow;

All music guide to jazz : the definitive guide to jazz music / edited by Vladimir Bogdanov, Chris Woodstra, and Stephen Thomas Erlewine;

The Penguin guide to jazz recordings / Richard Cook and Brian Morton.

And perhaps you would like to take a look at such websites as Jazz Greats, Drummerworld and The Jazz Files to read up on Max Roach and many other jazz greats.

On Friday, August 17, hundreds of 10, 11 and 12-year-olds from around the world descended upon Williamsport, PA for the Little League World Series. As baseball fans, my husband and I make a point to watch this event every year. Even though the players are little kids, the excitement of this tournament captivates us, especially when we make a personal connection to a team. In 2001 and 2004, a team from my home state of Rhode Island played, and my college town of Worcester was represented in 2002. The following year we were on the edge of our seats when Saugus, MA won in dramatic fashion to advance to the United States Championship game. We lived in the adjacent town at the time, and quite a few of my friends are from Saugus. The final game of 2005 did not disappoint, as West Oahu Little League won on a walk-off home run. We had honeymooned in Hawaii a year before, so my husband and I rooted for them throughout the tournament. I'm sure many in New Hampshire felt pride last year when Portsmouth represented New England. Over the weekend, Walpole, MA played two close games. They are 1-1, and play tonight (Mon.) at 6 p.m.

This nationally televised, international tournament has a humble beginning. Although adult baseball clubs tried to organize teams for pre-teen boys as early as the 1880s, an extensive organized league did not exist for quite some time. American Legion ball, which began in the 1920s, was geared towards teen-agers, excluding the younger boys. In 1938, Carl Stotz, of Williamsport, PA, decided that he wanted to find a way to provide organized baseball for his nephews, with whom he often played. Carl aimed to "provide a wholesome program of baseball for the boys of Williamsport, as a way to teach them the ideals of sportsmanship, fair play, and teamwork." The following year, Stotz, George Bebble, and Bert Bebble formed and managed the first three Little Leage Teams, which were funded by $30 sponsorships. The first Little League game was played on June 6, 1939, with George's Lundy Lumber team defeating Carl's Lycoming Dairy team 23-8. (Jumbo Pretzel sponsored the third team.) The Little League Board of Directors included the men and their wives Grayce, Annabelle, and Eloise, respectively, with John and Peggy Lindemuth joining shortly thereafter.

Eight years later, the Board of Directors organized a tournament for the 17 known Little League programs. Eleven teams from Pennsylvania and New Jersey participated in what was then called the National Little League Tournament. More than 2,500 people watched the Maynard Midget League of Williamsport defeat the Lock Haven (PA) All Stars 16-7. With the results printed in newspapers around the country, interest in the Little League concept spread. The next year, the organization grew to 94 leagues, and in 1950 went international, with teams at each end of the Panama Canal. By 1955, Little League baseball was played in all 48 states. Monterrey, Mexico became the first team outside of the United States to win the Little League World Series in 1957. Through the years, Little League continued to grow exponentially. The organization now sponsors leagues for both boys and girls in various age groups. In 2001, the Little League World Series was expanded from 8 to 16 teams, and a second field, Little League Volunteer Stadium, was built just north of the existing Howard J. Lamade Stadium to accommodate the additional games.*

Baseball has been called the national pastime, and for many, Little League and other youth baseball programs are a big part of life. The whole family is often involved, whether as players, coaches, or fans. I remember watching my friends play softball when I was a kid, and now, I cheer for my nephews. My husband was a youth baseball coach and works and volunteers at the Reading (MA) Baseball School. If you want to learn more about Little League Baseball, take a look at the organization's website, or check out some of the books we have at the library about Little League itself, as well as coaching, instruction, and one about that thrilling 2005 Little League World Series. If you want to get involved with a Nashua team, you can visit the Nashua Little League website.

*Sources:
"History of Little League." Little League Online Baseball & Softball http://www.littleleague.org/about/history.asp (accessed August 20, 2007).

"Little League Chronology." Little League Online Baseball & Softball http://www.littleleague.org/about/chronology.asp (accessed August 20, 2007).

"Little League World Series History." Little League Online Baseball & Softball http://www.littleleague.org/about/worldserieshistory.asp (accessed August 20, 2007).

I love gadgets and computers. But given how fast things change in the tech world these days, it's hard to keep up sometimes. The amount and speed of the changes can be overwhelming. To stay on top of it all, I like to look at short reviews of the latest software and gadgets. For this, there are a couple of web sites and blogs I frequent because they break things down into manageable chunks.

Sites and Soundbytes, as I wrote earlier, is one of my favorite blogs for short, sweet tech info. Just this weekend, I stumbled upon Webware.com, a site that gives me the same sort of technology Cliff's Notes. Webware focuses on web-based applications and services. Among their recent articles you can find an overview of changes to Facebook's instant messaging system, an article about tools to help you manage your user names and passwords, and even a blurb about the iPhone's golf score tool (seriously!). The content is varied, it's updated regularly, and the site is affiliated with CNET. In fact, I found Webware by following a link on CNET's web site. (CNET is my go-to site for reasonably unbiased technology news and reviews. However, it's a rather vast web site, so not for the easily overwhelmed.)

So, what's your quick and painless method for staying current?

If you have watched TV, looked at a newspaper or even just listened to people talking, chances are that you have heard of Hurricane Dean. You would also find it next to impossible to avoid knowing about Hurricane Katrina and the damage that she caused. I used to think that hurricanes were interesting and very exciting and I was always disappointed when one came up the East Coast and missed New Hampshire and Maine. Over the years, there have been very few hurricanes of note to strike the New England area. The National Weather Service Forecast Office in Boston MA has historical statistics on New England hurricanes up to the year 1997. The site was last updated in 2005, so it is not useful for current information, but it does contain a section on disasterous New England hurricanes which describes the worst ones in detail.

I have a couple of vivid memories of hurricanes that occurred when I was younger. During one of them, we had no electricity for at least 3 days. It was so long that even for a kid, being without electricity had lost its charm long before the power came back on. Another time, my mother took my brother and I for a walk to the beach to look at the waves, unfortunately during the eye of the storm. She was quite surprised when the whole thing started up again. My hurricane memories are certainly nothing like the memories of survivors of Hurricane Katrina, who will definitely never find the thought of a hurricane interesting and exciting.

If you are one of those people fortunate enough never to have experienced the devastation that a hurricane can bring, you may find severe weather, like hurricanes, interesting enough to want to know more. There are websites which can provide you with up to date information on all hurricanes including information on how hurricanes are formed. Weather.com has Hurricane Central ; the National Oceanic & Atmospheric Administration or NOAA has a site called the National Hurricane Center. Channel nine in Manchester has a Hurricane Page where you can track storms, view current maps of areas where hurricanes form and download and print out a map of your own which will allow you to plot the path of every storm that forms.

People who would rather have a book in hand or watch a movie will be able to find many interesting books and DVDs on hurricanes here at the library. A portion of that collection is listed here.

Hurricane season : a coach, his team, and their triumph in the time of Katrina
Inside Hurricane Katrina
The great deluge : Hurricane Katrina, New Orleans, and the Mississippi Gulf Coast
When the levees broke a requiem in four acts
Divine wind : the history and science of hurricanes
Inside the hurricane : face to face with nature's deadliest storms
Isaac's storm : a man, a time, and the deadliest hurricane in history

I write this at the completion of the 4th annual Nashua Goes Back To School event held here at the library. Tonight's event was held from 5-6:30pm both inside and outside the library building. This year's event co-sponsored by the Nashua Chamber of Commerce and the City of Nashua was another success with roughly 1200 community members stepping through the library doors.

This event provides students the opportunity to meet their school principal, gather free school supplies, and learn about local community agencies and services. Of course, it's not all business, there was also a raffle, free food, and other sugar filled snacks (like the "Pop Your Tootsies into Your Library" lollipops).

So I guess this makes it official, summer is coming to an end with the start of the new school year next week.

The library would like to wish all Nashua students a safe and fun 2007-2008 school year.

Backed by popular demand, the reference department will soon be offering a computer class on advanced Excel. In order to take the class, customers will need to have taken our basic Excel class and also used Excel on their own on numerous occasions.

So what will the class cover? Here's a preview of some of the topics I'm considering:

• PivotTables and Pivot Charts
• Conditional Formatting
• Logic-based functions
• Cell footnotes
• Subtotaling data
• Linking Excel data to charts in Mircosoft Word documents

Look for the class to start in October, but I can't make any promises!

This Tuesday (August 28) in the wee hours of the morning we should be able to witness a total eclipse of the Moon (lunar eclipse). There can be at any given location up to three lunar eclipses per year, but some years there may be none. There was one other total lunar eclipse in 2007 on March 3.

A lunar eclipse can only occur at Full Moon, and only if the Moon passes through some portion of the Earth's shadow. The shadow is actually composed of two cone-shaped components, one nested inside the other. The outer or penumbral shadow is a zone where the Earth blocks part but not all of the Sun's rays from reaching the Moon. The inner or umbral shadow is a region where the Earth blocks all direct sunlight from reaching the Moon. During a total lunar eclipse, the entire Moon passes through Earth's umbral shadow. and the vibrant range of colors the Moon can take on can be quite spectacular.

The reason that the Moon appears to change colors is that the dust in the Earth's atmosphere acts like a light prism and refracts, or bends, the light that strikes the Moon. It is impossible to predict exactly how dark the Moon will appear during totality. The colors can vary from dark gray or brown through a range of shades of red and bright orange. The color and brightness depend on the amount of dust in in Earth's atmosphere during the eclipse. (The same effect happens after a major volcanic eruption. So much dust is pumped into the atmosphere that it actually affects the colors we see in the sky during sunset. After a major eruption, we can have really beautiful sunsets for months afterwards.)

For those of us living in the Eastern Daylight Time Zone, here is the timetable for this eclipse:

Partial Eclipse Begins: 04:51 am
Total Eclipse Begins: 05:52 am
Mid-Eclipse: 06:37 am
Total Eclipse Ends: 07:22 am
Partial Eclipse Ends: 08:24 am

Unlike solar eclipses, lunar eclipses are completely safe to watch. You will need neither protective filters nor a telescope. You can watch the lunar eclipse with nothing more than your eyes. If you have a pair of binoculars, they will help magnify the view and will make the colors brighter and easier to see. A standard pair of 7x35 or 7x50 binoculars will work fine.

Of course, an eclipse of the Moon can be a tempting target to photograph. Fortunately lunar eclipse photography is easy provided that you have the right equipment and use it correctly. For an introductory guide on how to photograph an eclipse, see Lunar Eclipse Photography. To view photographs taken during previous lunar eclipses, be sure to visit Lunar Eclipse Gallery 1 and Lunar Eclipse Gallery 2.

If you would like to read additional information about lunar eclipses, you may wish to check out some websites. For information about lunar eclipses in general see NASA 's Lunar Eclipse Page. For information specific to this week's eclipse go on to Total Lunar Eclipse: August 28, 2007 . To use an astronomical application to find out when future eclipses will occur, visit the U.S. Naval Observatory's Lunar Eclipse Computer.

And do take a look at our library's collection of items about eclipses:

Celestial delights : the best astronomical events through 2010 by Francis Reddy and Greg Walz-Chojnacki.

Eclipse : the celestial phenomenon that changed the course of history by Duncan Steel.

Understanding the universe [videorecording : an introduction to astronomy produced by Tamara Stonebarger and directed by Robert Moss.

Glorious eclipses : their past, present, and future by Serge Brunier and Jean-Pierre Luminet; translated by Storm Dunlop.

Eclipse!: the what, where, when, why, and how guide to watching solar and lunar eclipses by Philip S. Harrington.

Nightwatch: a practical guide to viewing the universe by Terence Dickinson; illustrations by Victor Costanzo and Adolf Schaller ; featuring more than 70 photographs by amateur astronomers.

On Stonehenge by Fred Hoyle (argues that the purpose of Stonehenge was to predict the occurrence of eclipses, and reviews the resulting cultural implications).

Happy viewing to all you early risers. This day I intend to awake early also!

Do you read numerous blogs or websites on a given day? Are you tired of checking each one to see if it has been updated? If this describes you, it might be time for an RSS aggregator. An aggregator, or feed reader, allows you to read your favorite blogs in one convenient location. As a reader of this blog, you may have noticed the word "Subscribe" on the right hand side of your screen, followed by a few icons. (see below)

Bloglines and My Yahoo are only a couple of the options available to you. Others include Google Reader, my AOL, and Technorati. Whenever you see icons for these services, a box with the letters "XML" or "RSS, "or this icon,
you can add the site to your aggregator. Many people use this technology not only for blogs, but also for news alerts. The Telegraph, Union Leader, Boston Globe, and CNN.com have feeds that will deliver the news right to your aggregator. So, you can catch up on local and national news as well as your favorite political and sports blogs all in one place.

What does RSS mean and how do the readers work? RSS, or Really Simple Syndication, is a group of web feeds that publish frequently updated content such as blog entries, news headlines or podcasts. You subscribe to a feed by entering the feed's link into your reader or by clicking an RSS icon, as noted above. The reader checks your feeds regularly for new content and downloads what it finds to your aggregator. Some, such as my Yahoo, list new posts on your my Yahoo page. Clicking on the link will bring you directly to the blog or article. Google Reader downloads the text of the blog or article, which you can view in the reader. If you do not receive an entire blog entry or article, click on the link. (I have to do this for the New York Times book reviews, but not for the NPL Blog.) You will also have to link to the actual blog to read comments.

I started using Google Reader in May after attending a session about RSS feeds at the New Hampshire Library Association conference. I had heard about RSS while I was in library school, but I wasn't sure if I really wanted or needed one. My curiosity about this Web 2.0 technology was piqued, however. The session convinced me that I should take the plunge. It's a lot easier than visiting each site daily, especially since some sites and blogs I read are not updated every day.

If you're interested in learning more, take a look at Secrets of RSS by Steven Holzner. Feel free to leave a comment.

Roger Tory Peterson, famous for his field guides to birds, would have been 99 today. He is credited with making bird identification accessible to all levels of birders. There's a nice biographical article about him in the Environmental Encyclopedia, available through our Biography Resource Center database. According to the article, Peterson was born August 28, 1908, and died July 28, 1996. His passion for birds began when he was a boy. An artist by training, he studied at the National Academy of Design and the New York City Art Students' League. His two interests came together in his publication of A Field Guide to the Birds, which was published in 1934. Several newer editions were subsequently produced.

In addition to his Field Guide to the Birds, he also produced guides to wildflowers (A field guide to wildflowers of Northeastern and North-Central North America; a visual approach arranged by color, form, and detail) and plants (A field guide to edible wild plants of Eastern and Central North America). Houghton Mifflin now publishes a series of field guides in his name.

He received many awards for his work, including the Presidential Medal of Freedom. There is even a natural history institute named for him: The Roger Tory Peterson Institute of Natural History.

A book about Peterson's life in birding, All Things Reconsidered: My Birding Adventures was released posthumously in 2006, and you can find it here at the library.

Welcome back to a new school year! Students and parents will find that most things have changed - new grade, new room, new teachers, new subjects, new friends. There is also, in today's world, a new emphasis on healthy nutrition. So - will the lunches served in the school cafeteria and the lunches packed at home be the same old thing? Hopefully not. School lunches take many forms, those provided by the school district, those packed by an adult family member, and those packed by the student or another child in the family. Nutrition education needs to be available for a very diverse group.

There is help out there for people who are concerned with good nutrition. The United States Department of Agriculture has a Food and Nutrition information center online. A section of this is devoted to Child Nutrition and Health. Here you will find a link to a kid friendly page with games which teach about nutrition, also links to information for parents about the nutritional needs of children in different age groups. Another helpful website is KidsHealth from the Nemours Center for Children's Health Media. It provides helpful guides for things like browsing the school lunch menu for the week with your child and discussing healthful choices. There is also a guide for doing healthy makeovers of the typical bag lunch. If you are interested in browsing the school lunch menu with your child, the Nashua Telegraph publishes the weekly lunch menu for all of the area schools on each Thursday for the following week.

The library also has materials which could be helpful in lunch planning. Eat, Play and be Healthy is the Harvard Medical School guide to healthy eating for kids. In addition to chapters on nutrition for infants and toddlers and how to choose better food sources for good nutrition for all ages, there is a chapter called How to recognize a healthy (and unhealthy) school lunch. It provides parents with information on how the school lunch program works, and also gives a hierarchy of individuals and agencies to contact to, hopefully, become involved in improving their child's school lunch program if needed.

The Parenting Shelf in the Children's Room is home to a number of books dealing with healthy nutrition ideas for children. Many of these ideas would be very handy for healthy school lunches.

The sneaky chef : simple strategies for hiding healthy foods in kids favorite meals
Miracle foods for kids : 25 super-nutritious foods to keep your kids in great health
Gimme five! : kid-friendly recipes and tips for helping your child enjoy eating fruits and vegetables
Healthy food for kids : quick recipes for busy parents
Kid favorites made healthy

Healthy eating made simple! Just remember that, in addition to healthy eating, kids need lots of active playing at recess!

This past summer a group of middle and high school students enrolled in summer school came to the library for a tour and orientation. While stopped in the teen room they noticed we didn't have any magazines written en español.

I started thinking about this and realized there are a lot of spanish speaking teens that visit the library and it is kind of silly not to have a magazine of interest for them. Besides, we have magazines written in spanish for adults.

So I did a little research and asked a few colleagues for suggestions. Now I'd like some input from our teen customers to see which title you think we should add to our collection. If you would like the library to consider a title that isn't listed below leave me a comment with the title of the magazine included.

LàTeen
LàTeen Magazine provides the Latino teen community with positive reading material that is relevant to the Hispanic experience. We strive to empower and educate the next generation of Hispanics through articles that highlight Hispanic success. We believe in education, equality, and pride in being brown. (The description is from their website. I have previewed an issue and feel it is important to note it is written in english).

Latina
[O]ur mission has been to entertain and inspire Hispanic women with award-winning content that covers Latin culture, style, beauty, food, music and celebrities, and to create products and services that always have, at their core, the real Latina woman—her unique needs, her unique lifestyle. (The description is from their website. This also appears to be written in english and possibly geared more towards adults than teens.)

Tu (This title was recommended but I have not been able to find any information about it.)

Leave me a comment below to let me know if you'd like to see any of these magazines at the Nashua Public Library.

The Pride. When I think of pride, I think of gay pride, but maybe that's because I'm gay. I'm also a big baseball fan, but I have to admit, I've never been to a Pride game even though I live a stone's throw from the left field entrance to Holman Stadium. And according to yesterday's Nashua Telegraph article, "Future of Pride Hangs in Balance", (available in the library's Newsbank database,) this weekend may be the last chance I have to take in a Nashua Pride baseball game. So you can count on finding me at at least one of the games in the final regular-season homestand this weekend.

As a Boston Red Sox fan, the Nashua Pride have always intrigued me. Their manager is the same legendary third baseman of my childhood years, Butch Hobson. And now, "El Guapo" otherwise known as Rich Garces, has joined the team. Rich was a Red Sox fan favorite from 1999-2002 who disappeared far too quickly for most Fenway faithful. According to baseballreference.com, Rich had a career record of 23-10 with an E.R.A. of 3.74. Not bad for pitcher with ten years of pro ball experience. Unfortunately, he never experienced the World Series with the Red Sox, but he did pitch in the team's 1999 postseason series with the Cleveland Indians and the New York Yankees. Personally, I can't wait to see El Guapo on the mound for the Pride.

So if you have any desire to attend a Nashua Pride game, this weekend is the time to do it. It may be your last chance!