Facts from the Reference Desk: World’s Fastest Animals

According to THE ORDER OF THINGS by Barbara Anna Kipfer [REF 031.02 KIPFER], they are:

1. peregrine falcon (225 mph)
2. golden eagle (150+ mph)
3. cheetah (70 mph)
4. pronghorn antelope (55+ mph)
5. Grant’s gazelle (47 mph)
6. yellowfin tuna (46.61 mph)
7. ostrich (45 mph)
8. race horse (43.26 mph)
9. greyhound (41.72 mph)
10. eastern grey kangaroo (40 mph)

Patron OPAC Maintenance 5/28/2009

A message from Emily Clasper today reports the following;

“Due to system maintenance, the PAC2 (Public) Catalog will experience some
downtime between approximately 9:30pm and midnight on May 28. During this
period, the public catalog or various functions of the catalog will be
periodically unavailable. “

That is all…

Is Google Wave, their next big thing?

Coming this year from the team that created Google Maps, is Google Wave.

A “wave” is a chat session that lets you to send live messages in real time (no more “Jane is typing” messages). You can add people to the wave, drag and drop images and documents for transfers and realtime editing, where all participants work simultaneously.  Also, it does real time translation and will work in your browser, on your iphone or android phone.

Official Google Blog about Wave

NEW THEME!

Let’s try this out for a while.   WordPress broke our schedule page (by forcibly inserting sidebar widgets, which I couldn’t delete).  This new theme allows everything to fit now, though I know the default font is a bit too small, and there’s no simple way of resizing the font without it making it bold.  Like life, this is a work in progress.  

Slate’s Audio Book Club

Want to join a book club, but don’t have the time? Or maybe you just enjoy listening to intelligent people discussing a book?  If so,  Slate’s audio book club might be the answer.  Titles include fiction and non-fiction, popular and classics — and reading the book is optional!   Listen on the webpage or download mp3 files to listen on media players.  Archived audio book clubs include the following (Rt Click links below to save mp3):

Infinite Jest, by David Foster Wallace
Rabbit, Run, by John Updike
The Great Gatsby, by F. Scott Fitzgerald
American Wife, by Curtis Sittenfeld
Eat, Pray, Love, by Elizabeth Gilbert
The Audacity of Hope, by Barack Obama
The Road, by Cormac McCarthy
The House of Mirth, by Edith Wharton
Independence Day, by Richard Ford
The Omnivore’s Dilemma, by Michael Pollan
Everyman, by Philip Roth
The Year of Magical Thinking, by Joan Didion

BP Drugs To All, UK Study Concludes

“London, UK - Blood-pressure-lowering drugs should be offered to everyone, regardless of their blood-pressure level, as a safeguard against coronary heart disease and stroke, researchers conclude in the May 19, 2009 issue of British Medical Journal.

“Guidelines on the use of blood-pressure-lowering drugs can be simplified so that drugs are offered to people with all levels of blood pressure,” write Drs Malcolm R Law and Nicholas Wald. “Our results indicate the importance of lowering blood pressure in everyone over a certain age, rather than measuring it in everyone and treating it in some.”   Article

Libraries and The Google Book Deal

Although no ruling has been made yet, Brewster Kahle worries Google will have a “court sanctioned monopoly” over millions of scanned books.  In his letter to the editor, Paul Courant tries to allay these fears.

“As the steward of one of those libraries…let me assure readers that Google will not have a monopoly on the information that we hold. We retain the original copies, we have our own copy of the digital scans and we are free to scan the works again.”

In a related article about the arrangement at the Michigan University library, Courant reveals that the deal ”will soon allow students to browse through University library stacks from the comfort of their own homes.”

So, What Does It Cost?

What It Costs is a website that provides information on the costs associated with a wide variety of services and concepts…such as doggy day care, removing a tree stump, teeth whitening, joining a gym, replacing a kitchen countertop, or attending Fashion Week in Paris (Ooo-la-la!) . Entries are arrange by categories like Travel, Health, Business & Hobbies.  Visit

Drinking from Plastic Bottles Poses Risk

” New research by Harvard School of Public Health found that participants who drank for a week from polycarbonate bottles showed a two-thirds increase of BPA in their urine…BPA has been shown to interfere with reproductive development in animals and has been linked with cardiovascular disease and diabetes in humans.”   Story

Refinance and Mortgage Help Links

“I had a question from a patron on refinancing her mortgage, as she is worried that she may lose her home in the next year, even though she is up to date on her payments at the moment (payments will be ballooning in a year).  She wanted to know what government programs are out there to help.”

There is the HOPE for homeowners program and President Obama signed the Helping Families Save Their Homes Act into law on May 20, 2009.   Also try the HUD website for links on: Making Home Affordable ,Guide to Avoiding Foreclosure and Who to Call When A Lender Won’t Work With You .

Lastly, there’s a 2009 book called “An Insider’s Guide to Refinancing Your Mortgage” in many library collections, including Sachem’s.

(all links courtesy of S. Brooks, Smithtown Library)