Category: Databases

Give Your Doctor A Check-Up

- Valerie Leave a comment

Turn the tables on your doctors and give them an examination!  We are pleased to announce that within our ReferenceUSA product you’ll now find a new sub-database called U. S. Healthcare, which allows you to obtain information about your doctor’s vital statistics.

Search by the doctor’s name to learn primary specialty, medical school, year of graduation, hospital affiliations, and whether they are Board Certified.  Or if you are searching for a new doctor, you may enter geographic criteria and choose from a list of primary specialties.

This product provides information on over 675,00 doctors and 180,000 dentists, potentially providing their group’s name, office manager’s name, and what health plans they accept.

Take the pulse of your medical providers today.

The Wild Robot

- Brenda Leave a comment

An uncharacteristic thing has happened to this librarian lately: I haven’t felt much like reading. Of all the strange happenings in our world right now during this COVID-19 pandemic, this was yet another unexpected experience. I have no shortage of reading material. I have a reliable device I can use to download a variety of digital books. This seems like the perfect time to work my way through that looming stack of print books on my table waiting to be read.

And yet, my heart is just not in it. I sit down for about five minutes and then I am distracted and put it down and go do something else.

There has been one exception, however. I happened to be in the middle of reading The Wild Robot by Peter Brown with one of my children before bedtime each night before all this began. The chapters are short, and at one chapter a night, it was taking us a while to work our way through this 279-page book about a robot stranded on an island. But each night I read it aloud, the Wild Robot and its island populated by many animals and no humans endeared itself to me more and more.

You might think that reading a book with no humans in it during a pandemic is a lonely choice in an already lonely situation. Or perhaps on the contrary, you think it is a logical and fitting choice to read about being stranded on an island when it often feels exactly like that as we are isolated in our homes. I think there was something reflective about this mechanical protagonist who gradually (though paradoxically) becomes more humane through time and experience that captured my interest and my heart. Human interaction right now -when it does happen- is less warm and personal, more technological. Somehow the mirror image of a technological being becoming more warm and personal through challenging life experiences was a sort of balm to my woes.

Brown’s writing made reading effortless for me once again. His animal characters have unique personalities. The events that happen on his remote island, both tragic and joyful, are magically relatable. I have always been a fan of anthropomorphism. I am even more so now.

I wish I could point you to a digital version of this title that you can download immediately for free through the library, but our library currently only owns this in print. If you would like to request it for purchase in digital format, you can log into your library account using either the Libby or Overdrive apps and request this title. Be aware that it ends on a cliffhanger and you will probably want to read its sequel, The Wild Robot Escapes.

In the meantime, here are some similar books with anthropomorphic characters available digitally when you log into Overdrive with your Davenport Public Library account that you may enjoy:

What’s New With RBdigital Magazines

- Valerie Leave a comment

We are exited to announce the addition of HELLO! magazine to our digital magazine offering, as well as Conde Nast Traveler and  Life & Style Weekly.   These are just three of the fifty-three titles we are subscribing to this year with RBdigital Magazines.    And when we subscribe, you subscribe!

That’s right, as a Davenport cardholder you can read magazines that are cover-to-cover identical to the paper issues.   Login with your RBdigital account to check out and download issues that are yours to keep.  If you don’t have an RBdigital account yet, sign up here, by following the Create New Account link (top, right corner).

And, yes, there’s an app for that.  Best to limit use to a tablet, though; it can be challenging to view the magazine files on a smartphone.

Here’s the full list.  Which titles interest you?

AppleMagazine                                   Men’s Health

Backpacker                                         MOTHER EARTH NEWS

Bicycling                                              Motor Trend

Bon Appetit                                         National Geographic

Car and Driver                                    Newsweek

Chicago Magazine                             O, The Oprah Magazine

Clean Eating                                       OK! Magazine

Conde Nast Traveler                         Outside

Cook’s Illustrated                              PC Magazine

Cosmopolitan                                    PCWorld

Country Living                                  Popular Mechanics

Discover                                             Popular Science

Esquire                                               Prevention

Family Handyman                             Reader’s Digest

First for Women                                Rolling Stone

Food Network Magazine                 Runner’s World

Games                                                Smithsonian Magazine

Good Housekeeping                        Star Magazine

HELLO! magazine                            Taste Of Home

HGTV Magazine                               TV Guide Magazine

House Beautiful                                Us Weekly

In Touch Weekly                               WIRED

Kiplinger’s Personal Finance          Woman’s Day

Life & Style Weekly                          Women’s Health

Macworld                                           Woodworker’s Journal

Marie Claire                                       Yoga Journal

Maxim

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Truth Is Out There

- Valerie Leave a comment

Whispered Tone.

Pssst! Over here!

You’ll never guess what I found when I was using Fold3 to write an article for our newsletter. Project Blue Book Military Records! That’s right, reports of UFO Investigations as documented by men who witnessed the events and conducted the investigations. I found the official UFCS Index Cards and reports the US Government made at the time the sightings were made.

From Des Moines, Iowa, yes, Des Moines. On June 24, 1947, a United States Air Force pilot observed an object make a pass at his aircraft at 20,000 feet. The object appeared to climb to approximately 35,000 feet. This 25-second incident was reported eight days after the observation occurred and was not further investigated.

On June 28th 1947, 30 miles northwest of Lake Meade, Nevada there was a sighting of “5 or 6” circular objects at 6,000 feet, estimated speed 285 MPH, with a heading of 120°.  The investigating agent considered the man making the report, “very sincere in the explanation and was not the exaggerating type. He merely stated what he saw and drew no conclusions.”

How could this information be lurking in an unclassified, military, genealogy database in plain sight?

At 7:50 a.m. on June 27, 1950, in Texarkana, Texas a object whose shape is listed at “Flat Top & Round dishpan” of “Bright Aluminum” color was reported moving “plenty fast,” by two witnesses. The military investigator who spoke with them states, “The character and integrity of the observers is beyond reproach. Both are employed in supervisory capacities and possess above-normal intelligence.”

On February 23, 1968, in Evansville, Illinois a 14-year-old playing basketball with a friend say a white object “brighter than a star” covered half the night sky in “2 min. or less,” heading east. The letter he received from a Lt Colonel included an 8-page form to fill out to document his experience.

Want to read more? Log into the Fold3 database and “Browse All Non-military Records,” then look for “Project Blue Book – UFO Investigations.”

https://fold3library.proquest.com/login

Discover Answers With Ancestry Library Edition

- Valerie Leave a comment

My Grandma Jean came over from Ireland on a ship named Saturnia, which made port in Montreal, Quebec in 1922.

 

 

 

 

 

 

I found this information in Ancestry Library Edition.  Answers to questions await everyone inside the more than 7,000 available databases of Ancestry.  You can unlock the story of you with sources like censuses, vital records, immigration records, family histories, military records, court and legal documents, directories, photos, maps, and more.

The U.K. collection offer censuses for England, Wales, Isle of Man, Channel Islands, and Scotland, with nearly 200 million records: Births and Baptisms (1834-1906), Marriage Licenses (1521-1869), Deaths and Burials (1834-1934), and Poor Law Records (1840-1938) in London, and more.

Other international collections continue to grow with more than 46 million records from German censuses, vital records, emigration indexes, ship lists, phone directories, and more; Chinese surnames in the large and growing Jiapu Collection of Chinese lineage books; Jewish family history records from Eastern Europe and Russia; and more.

All this data, paired with an intuitive search interface, makes Ancestry Library Edition an indispensable resource.  To use this database, come into one of the Davenport Libraries.

Learn to Talk Like a Pirate by Sept 19 With the Help of Mango Languages

- Brenda Leave a comment

September 19 is International Talk Like a Pirate Day.  According to Chase’s Calendar of Events, it is “a day when people everywhere can swash their buckles and add a touch of larceny to their dialogue by talking like pirates: for example, ‘Arr, matey, it be a fine day.’  While it’s inherently a guy thing, women have been known to enjoy the day because they have to be addressed as ‘me beauty.’ Celebrated by millions on all seven continents.”

You can learn more about how two average guys started this holiday on June 6, 1995 on a racquetball court in a YMCA in Albany, Oregon here. It didn’t gain a lot of attention until humor columnist Dave Barry wrote about it in a 2002 article. The rest, as they say, is hist -arrrr-y.

Mango Languages, one of the language learning databases to which the Davenport Public Library subscribes, will be offering lessons on how to talk pirate through Sept 19. To access Mango languages, click here. Or, you can go to www.davenportlibrary.com, click on Research Tools, then Online Resources and scroll down until you get to Mango Languages. You’ll need to create a profile using your library card number. Once you’re in, find the search box (it has a magnifying glass icon next to it) and type “Pirate.” You’ll be taken to a page with options such as:

  • Call Someone Names
  • Express Surprise
  • Give Sailing Commands
  • Greet a Friend or Superior
  • Pay a Compliment
  • Invert the Simple Sentence Structure
  • Understand the Usage of Be
  • Use the 2nd Person Pronoun Ye
  • Use Me as a Possessive

Alas, have a fine day, mateys!

 

 

Ready…Set…Organize!

- Bianca Leave a comment

Winter is over and the weather is warming! It’s time to get started on the list of projects piling up around the house. Turning disorder into order is at the top of my list for a fun Friday night. But for most people, decluttering the home can be a daunting task. However the truth of  the matter is that a messy house causes stress. According to an online survey conducted by Huffington Post, eighty-seven percent of Americans are worried that their home isn’t clean or organized enough. If this sounds like you, the library has just the right materials to get you started!

Love the Home You Have by Melissa Michaels: A 31 day love your home challenge . Declutter, organize and decorate. Melissa also has a popular blog: The Inspired Room.

Secrets of an Organized Mom by Barbara Reich: In this book, you will find four easy steps to tackling any organizational project. From cluttered closets to over booked personal obligations, this method can be applied to it all.

Organize for a Fresh Start by Susan Fay West: As life changes, so does your home. Learn how to make your home reflect your current interests while honoring your past too.

Simple Matters by Erin Boyle: This book is all about simplifying your home. A great book for those interested in making do with less. Also beneficial for  those living in small spaces.

The Hands-On Home by Erica Strauss: This book focuses on the the most important room in the house, your kitchen! Maximize your time, energy, and effort with this guide to modern homemaking.

The Complete Book of Home Organization by Toni Hammersley: Purge, sort, and store items to attractively organize your home.

 

Want to Read in eBook?

the life changing magic

The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up by Marie Kodo: This NY Times best selling guide to decluttering your home is available in eBook or eAudio Book through Rivershare Overdrive. Kondo boasts that once you organize your home, you will never have to do it again. The KonMari Method takes a room by room or little by little approach to organizing your home.

 

 

Atomic Training: Microsoft Office Edition

- Rachel Leave a comment

atomicWhether you use it all the time or are new to it, everyone can benefit from some training on Microsoft Office.  The software is updated every three years and features and functions change with that update.  Also, the screen does not look the same and you have to relearn where to find important commands.

Atomic Training can help!  If you go to the Online Resources page on our website, you will find Atomic Training.  Once you are there, you will have to login with an email account and password.  It is free to sign up. A nice feature of Atomic Training is that you can select to get email reminders to keep you on task.  Atomic Training has several video tutorials that will teach you how to use Microsoft Office.  Included are videos for Microsoft Office 2010 and Microsoft Office 2013.

Once you are in Atomic Training, you will find several videos.  You can choose to watch Introduction to Office, Advanced Office training, or What’s New to 2013 Office.  Or, if you need to learn more about one part of Microsoft Office, you can do that too.  There are videos on Word, Excel, and Powerpoint.  Need something specific?  Atomic Training has tutorials on how to make a newsletter, graphs, charts and animation.

So if you are trying to learn how to use Microsoft Office, or it you need a refresher, then go to Atomic Training.  Even if you are a seasoned pro, you may learn some new tips and tricks that will help you use Microsoft Office more efficiently.PowerPointExcelWord

Language of Love

- Rachel Leave a comment

Mango_colorDo you want to impress your sweetheart with your ability to say “I love you” in a different languages?  If so, the library can help!

The Davenport Public Library subscribes to a database called Mango Languages which can help you learn several different foreign languages.  So if you want to know how to say, “I love you” in another language this Valentine’s Day, you should take a look at Mango.

Mango Languages offers courses in  71 different languages.  But if you want to learn the “Language of Love”, you might want to try French. Or Italian.  Or possibly Spanish or Portuguese.  Those four languages have entire lesson plans dedicated to “Romance”.  Not only will you learn how to say, “I love you” in your chosen language, but you will also learn terms of endearment.  The lessons in the Romance section also teach you how to introduce yourself, offer to buy someone a drink, and other phrases that could be useful on a date.

I find that it is very easy to learn new foreign phrases on Mango Languages.  The lessons are interactive.  You can see the word and hear how it is pronounced at the same time.  You can play back the word as many times as you need to in order to get the pronunciation right.  And the best thing about Mango Languages is that you can learn at your own pace.  All you need is an Internet connection and a Davenport Public Library card in order to access Mango Languages!  Go to the Online Resources section of our website.  Scroll down alphabetically until you see Mango.  It is best if you sign up for a FREE account and all you need is an email account and password.  You can also find Mango Languages on Google Play and the App store.

Good luck with learning your new foreign phrases!

v day

Atomic Training: eReader edition

- Rachel Leave a comment

atomicDid you get a new eReader for Christmas?  Are you having trouble figuring out how it functions?  The library may be able to help you!

Davenport Public Library subscribes to a database called Atomic Training.  This database has thousands of videos that will teach you how to use your Kindle, iPad, Nook or Android device.  And since you have a library card from the Davenport Public Library, you are able to watch these videos at your convenience!

If you have an iPad, you can learn about the different settings and how to install iBooks.  Also, there are tutorials about the Kindle app and the Nook app that you can install on your iPad.  You can also watch videos about finding apps to read newspapers and magazines.

If you have a Kindle, you can learn how to manage your Kindle library, share content on multiple devices, and the different settings and features available.  Also included are videos on how to locate free materials for your Kindle.  Tutorials about Amazon Prime and apps available for Amazon Prime.  You can also find help for how to use your Kindle Fire as a tablet and its Internet Browser.

Nook users can find help on a variety of topics.  You can learn how to set up your Barnes and Noble account along with the different features.  Also, there are are tutorials about using Chrome and Google Play.  Videos have information on how to find newspapers, magazines and other free materials.

To access Atomic Training, go to Research Tools on our website. From there, go to Online Resources. Once you are there, you will find Atomic Training. You will have to set up a free account to access the database.  All it requires is an email adress and password.