Wondering what your car is worth? You can find out at Kelly Blue Book online (www.kbb.com). More than a generic estimate based just on car model and year, Kelly Blue Book online allows you to fill in your location and the car's options, mileage, and condition, so you can get a customized estimate of your car's value.

Based on the information you provide, KBB gives three kinds of values:

1. Trade-in: what a dealer might pay when you trade the car in.
2. Private party sale: what you might expect to ask when selling the car privately (to someone other than a dealer).
3. Retail: what a dealer would ask for the car. This tends to be higher than trade-in value because dealers commonly detail and repair cars before offering them for sale.

Prefer something a little more basic? Try the NADA guides. These books are produced by the National Automobile Dealers Association, and they provide a quick lookup for your car based on year, make, and model. They provide trade-in value, MSRP (manufacturer's suggested retail price), loan and retail values. In addition to used cars, NADA guides also cover antique cars, motorcycles, vans, boats, RVs, and more. Stop in at the reference desk for a look at these guides.

The latest issue of the ValueLine Investment Survey arrived today. For those of you who are not familiar with ValueLine, it is one of the largest independent research staffs of investment analysts and statisticians in the world. They collect data and analyze performance of approximately 8,000 stocks, 13,000 mutual funds, 80,000 options and other securities.

Their best known product is The Value Line Investment Survey. The Value Line Investment Survey is a comprehensive source of information and advice on approximately 1,700 stocks, more than 90 industries, the stock market, and the economy.

It has three parts. The Ratings & Reports section contains one-page reports about approximately 1,700 companies and more than 90 industries. The Summary & Index contains an index of all stocks in the publication as well as many up-to-date statistics to keep investors informed about the latest company results. Lastly, the Selection & Opinion section contains Value Line's latest economic and stock market forecasts, one-page write-ups about interesting and attractive stocks, model portfolios, and financial and stock market statistics.

For those who would prefer browsing the electronic editions of these publications, the library has online access to the these publications for one customer at a time. Unfortunately, you have to be at the library to login. To access the online edition here at the library, just speak with a librarian at the reference desk.

Finally, to learn more about ValueLine, visit their website at http://www.valueline.com.

Are you tired of making the same dishes for dinner week after week? We can help! Nashua Public Library has cookbooks covering cuisines from Afghan and African to Yemenite and Yugoslav. The collection includes recipe books such as The whole foods allergy cookbook : two hundred gourmet & homestyle recipes for the food allergic family ; Introducing Macrobiotic Cooking : A Primer And Cookbook; What to eat when you get diabetes : easy and appetizing ways to make healthful changes in your diet and more for people following special diets. You will also find some classics such as The Joy of Cooking, and books by notable chefs Julia Child and Jacques Pepin.

If you can't make it to the library and need a recipe right away, you can always check Epicurious, which has recipes from Bon Appetit and Gourmet magazines, or the Food Network website, which includes recipes from all of your favorite Food Network personalities and television shows. So, if you couldn't keep up with Rachael Ray's 30 minute meal or want to know what Emeril is cooking up, take a look at this site. It also lists the network's programming schedule, so you can be sure to catch your favorite chef.

Have you ever been stumped when a techie mentions something lika a CPU or when you read in the newspaper about the OED? Well, fear no longer. You can find out what any acronym, abbreviation, or initialism stands for by going to the website AcronymFinder.

To find what an acronym means:
Enter the acronym in upper or lower case and press Enter or click the Find button. Acronyms may contain a space or other characters only if that is the way they are actually written e.g. AT&T. Do not put periods after letters in the acronym or search string, e.g NH, not "N.H., unless the acronym actually contains a period e.g. X.500). Also, watch out for plurals. For example, you might want to know what the acronym "pixels" means. Enter the singular pixel, not pixels.

To find an acronym when you know the term but not the acronym (Reverse Lookup):
You can search by words or concepts by using the word in meaning option then typing in a phrase or a list of words. You will see a list of all acronyms containing the phrase or the words you enter. For example, you could find all acronyms containing and thus probably having to do with libraries (enter library) or computers (enter computer). Searching for multiple words or concepts is similar to Google's Boolean search. Type in each word separated by a space (the AND is assumed). If you are looking for an exact phrase, enter the phrase in quotations e.g. Social Security.

HF!

You've seen the movie and can't wait to read the book, or you've read the book and can't wait to see the movie. But where do you find that information? If you love movies and you love to read, this is for you.

There are a number of good websites, several posted by public libraries, which provide information about books into movies, and movies into books. Take a look at some of these and you’ll be ready the next time someone asks “Which did you like better, the movie or the book?”

The first website is posted by the Mid-Continent Public Library headquartered in Independence Missouri. The link provided is to their Reader’s Advisory section where one of their databases is “Based on the Book” It is well organized and easy to search as books and movies are categorized by Title, Release Year and Book Author. The information here is updated regularly and goes back as far as 1980. It provides a good starting point, but plot descriptions are not included.

Another alphabetical listing by movie title called “From Books to Movies” is done by the Arrowhead Library System and Hedberg Public Library in Janesville, Wisconsin. The title of the book is included if it differs from the movie title. This listing does include the author’s name, but not the year of publication or movie release.

The Book Report Network consists of a number of websites. One of these is Bookreporter, which has been on the web since 1996. “Books to Movies” is a link found on the toolbar at the top of the web page. “Books to Movies” provides information on the movie and the book. Here you can get all the information about the movie including the release date, rating and stars. A good plot description is included. The title of the book serves as a link to Amazon.com where information including reviews and availability of books can be found.

The last suggestion is the Internet Movie Database or IMDb. This site contains massive amounts of information on movies. Try searching using the Movie Keywords Analyzer or MoKA for keywords such as "based on the book" or "based on the novel". A search using "based on the book" brings up 20 categories such as "based on the children's book". Each category indicates the number of movies that are included. Each title is a link to extensive information about that movie including user ratings and comments.

Happy reading and viewing! Feel free to leave us a comment with your reviews of these sites.

Do you ever feel overwhelmed when you look for information on the Internet? Search engines such as Google and Yahoo can yield hundreds, thousands, or even millions of results, especially when your query contains common words, phrases or topics. For example, a Google search for Martin Luther King, Jr. returns over 2,700,000 hits! You can't look at all of these web pages, and some sites might not be helpful to you, appropriate for your project, or even reliable. Is there a better way?

To help you find credible and relevant information, NPL has compiled a list of suggested sites. Rather than enter a term into a search engine, take a look at our links page. From the homepage, click on links, and then links by topic. The General Adult Services link includes the Best of the Internet and the Librarian's Index to the Internet. Both are arranged by subject and will lead you to sites recommended by librarians. The list also has links for finding college rankings, bibliography and citation formats, the perfect quotation for any occasion, and other good references.

Remember, you should always evaluate web sites when you do research on the Internet--even if the pages are recommended by librarians.

Did you know that there is really such a thing as the Invisible Web? Is it something that you need rose-colored glasses to see?

The term "Invisible Web", also known as the "Deep Web", refers to the information that search engines and directories do not have direct access to, such as databases. Unlike pages on the "Visible Web" (the Web that you can access from search engines and directories), information in databases is generally inaccessible to software spiders and crawlers. That is because search engines cannot type or think to construct searches or enter passwords to access databases such as EBSCO, Lexix-Nexis and ERIC. In addition, there are sites that may build in technical barriers so that search engines cannot crawl them, sites that search engines reject to eliminate clutter, and sites that are dynamically created and thus do not have a stable address.

The Invisible Web is BIG. BrightPlanet estimates the invisible web as being 500 times bigger than the searchable Web. Google, for example, accesses about 8 billion web pages). The fact that search engines only access a very small portion of the web makes the Invisible Web a very tempting resource. There is much more information out there . And the Invisible Web will only become larger.

There are several ways to search the Invisible Web:
> You can find searchable databases containing invisible web pages in the course of routine searching in most general web subject directories. Examples are Librarians Index, AcademicInfo, Infomine, Direct Search, the Resource Discovery Network from the United Kingdom, and Virtual Library.

> Use Google and other search engines to find searchable databases by searching a subject term followed by the word "database". See the difference between entering "obituaries" and "obituaries database" in Google.

> Various websites are set up to search the Invisible Web. CompletePlanet.com is a directory of "over 70,000+ searchable databases and specialty search engines". "Academic gateways" can help you also. The SJSU Academic Gateway enables you to access the San Jose State University library as well as San Jose public libraries. In addition, there are various governmental (US) databases such as Ask Eric which provide access to educational resources, the US Securities and Exchange Commission, and many more

To Learn More About the Invisible Web
Related Library Books:
The hidden web : finding quality information on the net by Maureen Henninger.

The invisible Web : uncovering information sources search engines can't see by Chris Sherman and Gary Price.

Websites:
Invisible or Deep Web: What it is, Why it exists, How to find it, and Its inherent ambiguity

Medical Resources on the Invisible Web (Scroll down to and select Featured Article: The Invisible Web")

Invisible Web Gateways-Portals to the Deep Web

Those Dark Hiding Places: The Invisible Web Revealed

Related Articles:
Invisible Web Gets Deeper

The Invisible Web

Special: Seek and Ye Shall Find

Flush The Web .com - Worst of the Web Search Engine

Happy searching!

If you got an e-mail making one of these claims, would you think it was true or false?

• "If you forward this e-mail, you could win a trip to Disney World from Bill Gates!"
• "If you forward this e-mail, someone will donate lots of money to the American Cancer Society!"
• "Boycott Starbucks, because they refused to send free coffee to our soldiers in Iraq!"

All three e-mails are compelling, and designed to make you pass the e-mail along to all of your friends. Also, all three are FALSE. How do you tell? When in doubt, check the story on Snopes.com, the Urban Legends Reference Pages.

With e-mail, it's easy to share cute stories, outrageous political news and scary health warnings with your friends. But before you hit the "forward" button on your e-mail, check for the facts on Snopes.com. The staff of Snopes investigate many of the e-mail claims circulating on the internet, and they post the results on their web site.

If you're researching a specific claim, you can use their search engine to locate the report. There's also a browse feature. Each urban legend or e-mail claim is assigned to a category. Categories range from Autos to Weddings, including Legal, Medical, Computers (which includes discussions about virus warnings), Fauxtography (exposes faked photographs), and more.

Sometimes the stories are true, and you can forward the e-mail with confidence. But often, Snopes staff have debunked them, and they give you clear descriptions of how they found out that a tale was false.

So stop inbox clutter, and fight the chain mail--check before forwarding!

The state of New Hampshire has a very handy website. It's loaded with information, all of it free! As the tabs across the top show, the website is divided into four categories: visitors, residents, business and government. Information is frequently referenced in more than one category,so it's hard to miss something important. The toolbar on the left-hand side also links you to important features such as Laws and Rules, Just for Kids, and especially useful at this time of year, ShopNH.

The state website has answers to a number of frequently asked questions. If you want to know who represents your town to the state legislature in Concord and how that person has been voting, take a look at Who's my Legislator?. Select your town by clicking on the map or using the dropdown menu. That will bring up a list of your representatives and your senator. Select a name, and you are connected with the contact information for this person as well as committee memberships, bills sponsored, voting record and personal webpage, if there is one.

Community profiles are also available on the state website. These profiles provide very complete information about each town drawn from a number of sources. Information about town services, demographics, property taxes, employment and wages, housing and largest employers can be found here.

The Visitors tab will connect you to the New Hampshire Events Catalog where you can search for events by date, region or town. The Things to do tab at the top of that page will connect you to attractions, dining, lodging and other must-know information for a wonderful vacation.

Business and tax information are available here as well as forms for New Hampshire taxes. The New Hampshire Almanac is an excellent resource for students and anyone else needing New Hampshire facts. Here you can find all of the state symbols as well as census data and information on the first-in-the-nation primary. This is a must-see website for anyone living in, working in, or visiting New Hampshire!

Once Thanksgiving has come and gone (and sometimes even before), houses are adorned with wreaths and lights; decorated trees line the streets; people circle parking lots to find a spot; and the familiar sound of the Salvation Army bell fills the air. According to Charity Navigator, "50% of all charitable giving by individuals is done between Thanksgiving and Christmas." Unfortunately, scam artists take advantage of this outpouring of kindness. How, then, do you know if an organization is legitimate or reputable? How do you know if your money is well spent? Below are three websites that can help you determine just that.

Charity Navigator has information on over 5,000 charities and is free to use. You can enter the name of a charity in the search bar or browse organizations by category. The site lists the highest and lowest rated charities by cause and has top ten lists covering the best charities you have heard of, charities that stockpile your money, and other topics. You can find these by clicking on the Top Ten Lists tab at the top of the screen. The Hot Topics tab has a holiday giving guide--just what you need this time of year. You can also find studies, articles, and tips for giving on the site.

Give.org is also free and belongs to the BBB (Better Business Bureau) Wise Giving Alliance. According to the website, "The Alliance does not rank charities but rather seeks to assist donors in making informed judgments about charities soliciting their support." Give.org reports on national charities and organizations, so you will have to check your local Better Business Bureau for local, state, and regional charities. To find an organization, click on Charity Reports on the left side of the screen. Choose the first letter of the charity's name, then scroll through the index to find it. You can also find news, charity standards, tips for giving, and instructions for issuing a complaint against an organization.

Unlike the other sites, GuideStar.org charges for some of its services. GuideStar Premium and Select are subscription services, but GuideStar Basic is free. This site includes 1.5 million--yes, million--organizations that are either registered with the IRS or meet the criteria for exempt organizations. Using the basic service, you can verify the legitimacy of a non-profit, find out if your contribution is tax deductible, view recent IRS 990 forms, and read about an organization's mission, programs, and finances. Just enter the organization's name into the search bar. Click on GuideStar for Donors to find tips, a donor bill of rights, and tutorials for using the site.

The New Hampshire Department of Health and Human Services announced on November 29 that NH will become the first state to offer a cervical cancer vaccine as part of its Vaccines for Children program [read the press release]. The Vaccines for Children program promotes immunization of children under 19. To learn more about it, visit the NH Department of Health & Human Services' immunization page. Here you can find out what vaccines are required for school-aged children in New Hampshire, and read about the vaccines and the diseases they protect against.

Another good source of information on vaccinations is the Centers for Disease Control's National Immunization Program web site. This site includes vaccination schedules, guides for parents, information on state requirements, fact sheets on vaccines and their safety, Spanish-language materials, and much more.

If you'd like to see what the press is saying about the new cervical cancer vaccine, try searching the Health Source section of the EBSCO database using the search terms "vaccine" and "cervical cancer".

For more information on the vaccine and on all types of cancer, visit the National Cancer Institute's web site. The site provides a wealth of information for both patients and doctors. It covers treatment and screening, discusses causes and prevention, and has a searchable database of clinical trials. Cancer incidence and survival statistics are also available.

Published by the National Institutes of Health and the National Library of Medicine, MedlinePlus is a great web site for researching vaccines, cancer, and many other medical conditions. It includes a medical dictionary and encyclopedia, and serves as a portal to high-quality information sites such as the American Cancer Society and the National Cancer Institute.

Of course, you can also stop by the library to pick up a book or video on the topic! Here are a few books:
• Cancer made me a shallower person : a memoir in comics by Miriam Engelberg.
• After cancer treatment : heal faster, better, stronger / Julie K. Silver.

'Tis the season for lots of things - including politics. If you have caught a news report lately, you may have noticed the increase in references to political candidates and the New Hampshire Primary. One projected date for the New Hampshire Primary has been mentioned as January 22, 2008. The number of individuals creating presidential exploratory committees grows daily. The number of states trying to find a way around New Hampshire's first-in-the-nation status is growing as well.

If you are a newcomer to New Hampshire or if you will be an eligible voter in January 2008, you may find yourself feeling confused by or uninformed about the whole concept of a first-in-the-nation primary. The library has several books which will help to explain the background of the New Hampshire primary. Two of these books were authored by Hugh Gregg, a former Republican governor of New Hampshire, Why New Hampshire published in 2003 and A Tall State Revisited published in 1993. For more background information, try Primary Politics by Charles Brereton, a writer living in New Hampshire since 1970. Although his book The New Hampshire Primary and the American Electoral Process ends with the 1996 election, Niall Palmer provides a most thoughtful and thought-provoking discussion of the new Hampshire primary and its influence on the electoral process. Another discussion of the primary and its background can be found on the website for the state of New Hampshire

If you are looking for current information on the candidates and the political situation, the choices are unlimited. Keep in mind, however, that many of the political websites will display opinions slanted toward one party or candidate and away from the rest. WMUR, Channel 9 news, maintains a political webpage which will contain current and unbiased information. Those candidates, or potential candidates, currently in the U.S. Senate maintain websites which will provide their views and accomplishments. Among the Democrats, that would incude Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama . Among the Republicans, that would include Sam Brownback and John McCain. Other possible candidates have their websites as well. You can find information on John Edwards through his One America Committee. Tom Vilsack can be located through the state of Iowa website. Rudolph Giuliani has a website called Solutions America which features his viewpoints and travels across America. Information about Mitt Romney can be located on the website for the state of Massachusetts. Another website worth a look is RealClearPolitics. RCP features newspaper columns, magazine articles and web writeups on all aspects of American politics.

If you have any other suggestions for good political websites, be sure to let me know and I'll include them in a later update!

Exciting news from NASA.... Recent photos from the Mars Global Surveyor suggest the presence of water on Mars. Articles about the discovery are available in the EBSCO collection of articles, available through the library's web site. You'll find information in the Newspaper and General Magazines collections. Choose "MasterFile Premier" and "Newspaper Source" from the list of databases. On the search page, use keywords "Mars" and "water". Make sure to click the checkbox next to "full text" so that your search results include the full article. Sources such as the Times of London, Astronomy magazine, Scientific American magazine, and USA Today all covered the announcement.

For more on Mars, check out our science collections for books for children...

• Exploring Mars, by D.J. Ward
• Mars, by Mary Kay Carson
• Mars, by Tim Goss

And adults...

• The Rock from Mars, by Kathy Sawyer
• Roving Mars, by Steve Squyres (an account of the Mars Exploration Rover mission)
• NASA's Mars Mission Reports, compiled from the NASA archives and edited by Robert Godwin. Volume 2 includes DVD with images and movies of Mars.
• A Traveler's Guide to Mars, by William K. Hartmann (of the Mars Global Surveyor Mission)
• Smithsonian Book of Mars, by Joseph M. Boyce

You can also browse by category: "Life on Earth", "Exploring the Universe", or "Humans in Space." There are web pages for kids, students, educators, researchers, press, industry, and employees. A multimedia section has photos, video (including a video of the evidence of water on Mars), podcasts, and more. The site also provides links to other space-related web sites, including other countries' space agencies.

Happy exploring!

This past Sunday I read an article from the Nashua Telegraph titled, "Social Sites Find a Fickle Teen Audience." The article discussed how the tides are changing for the infamous social networking site MySpace.com as teens are logging on for fewer and shorter sessions. Meanwhile, its sister site, Facebook is on the rise in popularity.

So while MySpace is soon to be passe, social networking sites are still hot. So here's a safe alternative that I recently read about that I think is worth checking out...famster. This is a free, secure networking site for families that allows you to share a calendar, photos, blogs, instant messaging, scrapbooks, videos, and family trees. It looks like a lot of fun, especially for families that are spread around the country or even the world.

I imagine you've probably read or heard about 'Seinfeld' star Michael Richards' outburst in which he screamed racial epithets at African-American members of his comedy club audience. In doing so, Richards has sparked an often angry discussion on just how far comedians can go to get a laugh. In the aftermath of the incident, Paul Mooney, a prominent African-American comedian, has decided to renounce the slur, vowing never to use it in public again, and said he would campaign to get all blacks to stop using it. (Read more in this story at Recordonline.com.

In thinking about these issues myself, I wondered if the Nashua Public Library had any books on these topics and sure enough we do. The first is
Nigger : The Strange Career of a Troublesome Word written by Harvard Law School Professor Randall Kennedy. According to a review in Booklist, Kennedy "examines the most socially explosive word of insult in the U.S. His approach is comprehensive, both from a historical and a contemporary perspective...Kennedy also explores the contemporary use of this taboo word, notably in rap music and the youth culture."

Back in 2002, Andy Rooney offered a commentary on Kennedy's book which I found in a book recently donated to the library, Years of Minutes: The Best of Rooney from 60 Minutes. In his commentary, titled "The N-Word", Rooney states that the best way for any of us to get rid of a problem is to hold it up to a bright light and look at all sides of it. That's what Kennedy does in this book."

Perhaps Michael Richards' recent outburst and the aftermath is forcing society to do this once again. What do you think? Please leave us your comments.

Other recommended library books:
* White guilt : how blacks and whites together destroyed the promise of the civil rights era / Shelby Steele.
* Sundown towns : a hidden dimension of American racism by James W. Loewen.

Other online resources:
* Google News Search for "Michael Richards"
* TMZ.com article

The Kwanzaa cultural holiday begins today, December 26, and runs until January 1. According to the official Kwanzaa web site, "Kwanzaa is an African American and Pan-African holiday which celebrates family, community and culture."

At the official Kwanzaa web site, you can learn about the seven principles of Kwanzaa, its symbols, celebrations, and meditations. You can also read about the founder of Kwanzaa, Dr. Maulana Karenga.

For books about Kwanzaa, try:

• The complete Kwanzaa : celebrating our cultural harvest, by Dorothy Riley. (Adult Nonfiction 394.261 R)
• A Kwanzaa keepsake : celebrating the holiday with new traditions and feasts, by Jessica B. Harris. (Adult Nonfiction 394.261 H)
• Kwanzaa : everything you always wanted to know but didn't know where to ask, by Cedric McClester. (Adult Nonfiction 394.268 M)

The library's Music, Art, & Media Department also has some music CDs to get you into the spirit of the Kwanzaa celebration:

• Kwanzaa music [sound recording] (CD K 98 1)
• Kwanzaa party [sound recording], compiled, sequenced and annotated by Eric V. Copage and Daisann McLane. (CD K 981 1)

Another year has gone by (almost) and it's time to look back with nostalgia or look ahead with relief. This is the time for making lists- we get the "best of" and the "worst of" just about everything. So take a look at some of these websites where you will find lists of things that you liked. Or in some cases, the things that you didn't like.

Amazon.com has posted a list of the Best Books of 2006, fifty books chosen by editors and by customers of Amazon.com. The New York Times book review has also produced a list of best books, the 100 notable books of the year.

Time.com has a variety of "the best of" articles. Here you will find the best 10 books of 2006, the best political cartoons of 2006, the best photos of 2006, the people who mattered in 2006, and in music, the all-time 100 albums. IIf you are looking for more lists of music's best. metacritic may be the website to choose. They have listed the 30 best albums of 2006 as well as the Music Critics year end top 10 lists in a variety of areas. More specific information on music's best can be found through bestmusicpoll.com. The musical preferences of residents of the Boston area regarding local music can be found here.

If movies are more to your liking, IMDB, the Internet Movie Data Base, has a listing of the top 25 movie stars of 2006. This listing is based on searches done by 42 million users of IMDB rather than by box office earnings or critical acclaim.

The Los Angeles Times, sick of all the best of lists, published an article on "the worst of pop culture 2006". It covers everything! Another series of worsts comes from about.com, the worst fashion trends of 2006. If finding out that you may own a fashion loser hurts too much, you can check out the worst Oscar moments in fashion for 2006. Even the stars have their weak moments.

Check these sites out quickly because 2007 is fast approaching. In another few days who is going to remember 2006!

It is that time of year again when many people resolve to improve their lifestyles, their health and countless other aspects of their lives. Many if not most of these good intentions, however, get derailed within a few weeks. There are many websites that can help you not only to make those resolutions but also to attain success in keeping them.

Firstgov (the US Government's Official Web Portal) has published a webpage containing U.S. government resources to help motivate and support your good intentions. It provides information about such popular topics as saving money, losing weight, getting a better job and a better education, reducing stress and volunteering to help others. The University of Maryland Medical Center has published a guide to help you maintain your motivation and avoid common pitfalls for resolutions involving health. To assist your children to make appropriate resolutions, see 20 Healthy New Year's Resolutions for Kids, part of the American Academy of Pediatrics website. Their resolutions are grouped by age category (preschoolers, kids 5- to 12-years-olds and teenagers). In addition, this site links to Tips for a Healthier New Year.

To keep up with those New Year's resolutions, researchers find commitment to be the secret of success. A study conducted at the University of Washington sought to understand the factors that best predict success in keeping New Year's resolutions. The researchers state that to be successful:
• Have a strong initial commitment to make a change.
• Have coping strategies to deal with problems that may arise.
• Keep track of your progress and seek feedback.

The researchers add that ingredients for setting yourself up for failure include:
• Waiting until the last minute to make your resolutions.
• Reacting to the holiday and making your resolutions based on what is on your mind at that time.
• Framing your resolutions as absolutes by saying, "I will never do that again."

The researchers add that should one not achieve success, do not blame oneself. "Instead, look at the barriers that were in your way. See how you can do better the next time and figure out a better plan to succeed. You do get to try again and can make behavior changes throughout the year, not only at New Year's."

Please let us know how you make out with your resolutions. Cheers to 2007!

Area codes and zip codes--you often need them and rarely have them. Although you can't mail anything without a zip code, people often exclude it when they hastily jot down or leave their street address. If you live in a state with overlaying area codes, call another state, or need to call information in another state, you must dial those three extra numbers. Where can you find the zip code for Acmar, Alabama or the area code for Idman, Idaho? Try the following sites.

United States Postal Service
Where better to get a zip code than the United States Postal Service? They deliver the mail, after all. You can type in a residential or business address, and USPS will give you the zip code. Although you can search for zip codes by city, searching by street address is more efficient because many cities have more than one zip code. If you need the name of a city or cities within a certain zip code, you can "find all cities in a zip code." The results will list not only the official name of the cities and towns within the zip code, but also other acceptable and unacceptable names for that area. This is handy if you can't read someone's handwriting or if a friend abbreviated the name of his or her town.

Zip-Codes.com
This site is fun. You can search zip codes, area codes, states, counties, or towns/cities. The information on this site is organized by zip code, so you will notice that the zip code in the results of other searches is a link. Once you click on the link, you will find demographic information, the area code, longitude and latitude, elevation, a local street map, and other facts for that zip code location. You can also search for the distance between two zip codes or the zip codes within a certain radius of the one you enter.

ZipInfo.com
If you Google "zip codes" you will find this site. However, the information in the free zip code lookup is incomplete because it is a sample of the company's zip code database, which is available for purchase. If you find your way to this site and try to look up the zip code for Nashua, you will not find it.

NANPA
NANPA, the North American Numbering Plan Administration, is the organization that assigns area codes. This site offers information about NANPA and the numbering system, as well as a searchable database of area codes in the United States. NANPA allows you to find an area code by clicking on a map, or you can choose "tools" from the dropdown menu on the side of the screen to do an area code search or a city/town search. The area code search gives you information about a particular area code, such as its geographic location, whether it is an overlay code, and its time zone. The city/town search allows you to either enter the name of the city/town to find its area code, or the area code to find the list of cities and towns it covers.

All Area Codes
All Area Codes offers two ways to match locations and area codes in the United States and Canada. By clicking on a state name, you will find its area codes and the cities located within the area codes. The site also offers a numeric listing of area codes. If you have a phone number with an unfamiliar area code, this will tell you in which state the area code is located.

WhitePages.com
In addition to searches for addresses and phone numbers (which include area codes and zip codes), the WhitePages.com site has a search specifically for area codes and zip codes. Click on the "area and zip code" tab to search for an area code or zip code by entering a city and state, or do a reverse search by entering an area code or zip code that you already have. The tab also includes a link to a US area code map and a list of international codes.

They say that talking about the weather is the last resort of people making small talk. But I've always thought it was an interesting subject. Take the weather we've been having this winter--people are wearing shorts in New Hampshire in January! On the other hand, Denver is getting socked with blizzards and avalanches. How do we make sense of it all?

For the weather information purist, the National Weather Service is the source to beat. Their web site, www.weather.gov, is a treasure trove of weather information. (Note: be sure to type .gov, not .com--we'll talk about the .com site shortly.) The National Weather Service site provides weather forecasts, but also gives climate information, tracks fire, flood, and storm risks, gives historical weather information, air quality data, and much more.

Television's Weather Channel also has a web site, www.weather.com. One of their specialties is a focus on how the weather will impact your activities. Here you can find the forecast for upcoming events like NFL playoff games. Planning a wedding? You can track the weather forecast for the big day, see what time the sun will set, get tips for an outdoor wedding, and even see what flowers will be in season. Going out of town? Find out what the interstate travel conditions will be like. There's even a section on keeping your pet comfortable. (Oh, and they also have weather forecasts.)

Think this weather has been strange? Check out "Freaks of the storm : from flying cows to stealing thunder, the world's strangest true weather stories" by Randy Cerveny.

Interested in how the weather affects us all? Two recent titles show that it has a bigger impact than you might think:

• The winds of change : climate, weather, and the destruction of civilizations, by Eugene Linden
• Blame it on the rain : how the weather has changed history, by Laura Lee

• Weather : a visual guide, by Bruce Buckley, Edward J. Hopkins, and Richard Whitaker
• Cambridge guide to the weather, by Ross Reynolds.

Or, stop by the reference area for a look at the Encyclopedia of climate and weather, edited by Stephen H. Schneider.

Let it snow!

Some time around the middle of February, which is only a little over a month away, Red Sox players will begin to appear in Fort Meyers, FL. The reporting date has not yet been set according to Spring Training online, but a lot of folks can't wait! If you are having trouble filling the void in your life left since last October 1, there are a couple of websites which just may interest you.

The Detroit Public Library is home to the Ernie Harwell Collection of Baseball History. This collection was started in the 1920's by Ernie Harwell and donated to the Detroit Public Library in 1965. Ernie Harwell was a sports broadcaster and the voice of the Detroit Tigers for many years. His collection, which he has continued to add to through the years, now includes thousands of items, and is considered second only to the collection at Cooperstown in size and scope. While the collection itself is on display at the Detroit Public Library by appointment only, portions of the collection can be accessed online. A biography of Ernie Harwell is included in the online display. The navigation bars at the bottom of the page will guide you through the collection. On the left-hand side of each section is a brief description of what is available on line in that section. There is also a link to a website in each section, which will provide more information about that item. For instance, on the page that starts the online collection of baseball cards, there is a link to The Baseball Page.

If that isn't enough to keep you involved until Spring Training, there is an online database called SABR which is maintained by the Society for American Baseball Research . Although the site does offer paid memberships, a wealth of information exists which is free to the general public. There are SABR links to research done by members of the Society. Here you will find everything baseball! One link even gives the burial locations of past Hall of Famers and connects you to a picture of the gravesite! There are discussions of international baseball, fantasy baseball, baseball-related books and baseball statistics. One member maintains a Sports Wiki which goes beyond baseball and features other sports as well. None of the sites which I found required that someone be a SABR member to view them, but to add information or participate in a blog, you would probably have to be a member.

This should keep you busy until spring training, but if all else fails, you could always watch the Patriots.

Today we honor the life, work, and legacy of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. The civil rights leader, Nobel Peace Prize winner, and Time magazine's 1963 "Man of the Year" worked for justice and equality throughout his short life. King was assassinated on April 4, 1968, while standing on a motel balcony in Memphis. Four days after King's death, Congressman John Conyers (D-MI) proposed the establishment of a holiday in honor of King. The King Center, which was founded in 1968 by the late Coretta Scott King, organized a commemoration on January 15 1969, and for several years, various groups and individuals petitioned Congress to declare a holiday in memory of King. In 1973, Illinois became the first state to pass a King Holiday bill. The federal holiday was not signed into law until 1983, and was first observed in 1986. At that time, 17 states had been celebrating the King Holiday, and by 1989, 44 states had declared the holiday. In 1994, the mission of the day was expanded to include community service, interracial cooperation, and youth anti-violence initiatives. In 1999, New Hampshire became the last state to adopt the holiday.*

Ordained as a minister at 19 and educated at Morehouse College, Crozer Theological Seminary, and Boston University, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. was influenced by the Social Gospel, which applies biblical teachings to social problems, and Gandhi, who advocated and practiced nonviolence.** While working as Pastor of the Dexter Avenue Baptist Church in Montgomery, AL, he was elected President of the Montgomery Improvement Association, which organized the Montgomery Bus Boycott. In 1956 he and others were indicted "on the charge of being party to a conspiracy to hinder and prevent the operation of business without 'just or legal cause.'" That was only one of thirty arrests for his efforts on behalf of civil rights.***

King is probably most famous for the often cited "I Have a Dream" speech, which he delivered on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial; however, his work extends far beyond the August 28, 1963, March on Washington. To learn more about Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., take a look at The King Center website. You will find a biography and chronology of King's life, as well as links, information about the holiday, and information about the work of the center. Another good site is the Martin Luther King, Jr. Research and Education Institute at Stanford University. This site is especially helpful to educators, as it includes lesson plans and classroom resources, as well as quotations, a King encyclopedia, information about lectures and programs, a bibliography, and the opportunity to purchase publications. A few of King's speeches are available free on this site.

Here at the library, we have numerous books about Dr. King. The most recent, At Canaan's Edge: America in the King Years 1965-1968, by Taylor Branch, was named one of Amazon.com's Top 50 Editor's Picks of 2006; a top 10 history book by editors and customers at Amazon.com; and one of New York Times’ 100 Notable Books for 2006. The book is the third in a trilogy. The first, Parting the Waters: America in the King Years 1954-63, received the Pulitzer Prize. We also have Pillar of Fire: America in the King Years 1963-65. These books combine for over two thousand pages of information about Martin Luther King, Jr. You can find other (and shorter) books, by doing a subject browse for King, Martin Luther, Jr., 1929-1968. To read about the Civil Rights Movement