As tickets for the 2012 Olympics go on sale, we at Treasure Hunt Towers (being keen fans of all things active and outdoorsy) thought it might be an idea to find out what the Gateway has to offer in the matter of things Olympian
First port of call is the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (accessed via the Biography page on the Westminster Libraries Gateway) Apparently the British used to be quite good at sport once and to prove it, there’s a list of Olympic Title Holders in the ODNB (see under Themes). Among the notable gold medallists listed are Eric Liddell, Harold Abrahams and Lord Burghley of Chariots of Fire fame, John Pius Boland who won a tennis gold at the very first modern Olympics in 1896 and the splendidly named Wyndham Halswelle who won a somewhat controversial gold medal in the first London Olympics in 1908. Let the ODNB take up the tale…
“There was fine running in all four heats of the semi-finals, each of which was run in under 50 seconds. Halswelle recorded the fastest time and, having set a new Olympic record in the second round, was the favourite for the final on 23 July 1908.
The three other finalists—W. C. Robbins, T. C. Carpenter, and J. B. Taylor—were all American, and the race reflected the intense competition between the British and American track teams at the London games. The final was not run in lanes and ‘consequently something of a free-for-all developed’, with Halswelle being baulked by Robbins in the first 50 metres (Watman, 43). Coming to the 300 metres mark Robbins led from Carpenter by about a yard, with Halswelle well placed to strike off the final bend, as he had done in the earlier rounds. But as Halswelle made his move to pass Carpenter in the straight the American began to run wide, forcing him to within 18 inches of the outside of the track. Halswelle later recalled:
Carpenter's elbow undoubtedly touched my chest, for as I moved outwards to pass him he did likewise, keeping his right arm in front of me. In this manner he bored me across quite two-thirds of the track, and entirely stopped my running.
The interference appeared so obvious to the judges that they broke the tape while the race was still being run and declared the result void. That evening they disqualified Carpenter and ordered the race to be rerun in lanes (or ‘strings’ as they were then known) two days later.
It seemed to The Times that the American tactics were part of ‘a definite and carefully thought-out plan’ which in America would have been considered part and parcel of the race, but which in Britain was ‘contrary alike to the rules that govern sport and to our notions of what is fair play’ (The Times, 24 July 1908). Robbins and Taylor boycotted the final in protest at Carpenter's disqualification and Halswelle was left with a ‘walkover’ to the Olympic title. He made known his reluctance to run in such circumstances, but the AAA gave him no option. He received a warm reception from the capacity White City crowd during his 50.2 second lap.”
Also worth noting is the biography of Ran Laurie, father of actor Hugh Laurie who won a gold medal for rowing in the last London Olympics in 1948.
If this spurs you to want to look at some contemporary records of past Games, your next port of call should be the News & Magazines section of the Gateway. If you choose Picture Post and Browse by Date you can pick 1948 and the August 7th issue for some fascinating photojournalism about the London Olympics, including a fine picture of track legend Fanny Blankers-Koen who won 4 individual gold medals at the Games and another of Emil Zatopek, who won his first gold medal in London who went on to win 3 more in 1952 in Helsinki.
If you feel like going further back in history, why not try the Illustrated London News. Used the Advanced Search feature to browse by date and the 1st August 1908 has coverage of some of the first London Games (which ran all summer) including the most famous marathon race of all time, when the Italian, Dorando Petri was helped across the finishing line by race officials (one of whom was Arthur Conan Doyle) and subsequently disqualified.
Pictures are all very well – how about some film. If you go to the History section of the Gateway, you can check out the British Pathe site for some film of the 1908 Olympics, including open-air gymnastics (not very impressive by today’s standards), the tug-of-war (in which Great Britain, rather impressively came first, second and third), a rather peculiar sort of leapfrog, women’s archery (with compulsory silly hats) and the famous marathon.
Having read about all this Olympic history, don’t forget to go to the London 2012 site to order tickets for the next time the Games visit London.
About Web Treasure Hunt
The big idea is to suggest a couple of websites (usually from the Libraries Gateway to websites) which you might find interesting or helpful.
Thursday, 24 March 2011
Tuesday, 1 February 2011
The Year of the Rabbit
As you all know, the 3rd February is the start of the 2011 Chinese New Year (the Year of the Rabbit will apparently be peaceful, very welcome after the Year of the Tiger) so let’s see what there is on the Westminster Council website to help us celebrate!
First up is the Chinese New Year celebration in, well, Chinatown. If you go the Westminster Council homepage just search for ‘Chinese New Year’. The first result takes you to the What’s On page which reveals that the new year celebrations will be on Sunday 6th February. There’s a link to the London Chinatown homepage which has plenty of information about what’s going on in the area and the traditions surrounding the event.
Incidentally, if you redo your search for Chinese New Year in the council webpage’s search engine, the fourth result is a handy calendar of religious festivals from the Westminster Faith Exchange.
Not everyone will be able to go to Chinatown so why not have a little Chinese New Year celebration of your own with some appropriate food? No, not a take-away but some proper Chinese home-cooking. Here the Westminster Libraries Gateway comes into its own. Go to the section on Home and Garden and scroll down to Food and Drink. First port of call is the BBC Food page. If you click on the Recipes link you can search by Occasion (there are 16 special recipes for Chinese New year), Cuisine (148 Chinese recipes) or by chef - and for those of us of a certain age, Chinese chef means Ken Hom who has 33 recipes listed ranging garlic chicken with cucumber to steamed ginger fish with egg-fried rice. Or you could do an Advanced Search to check out individual ingredients – pak choi or tofu or duck perhaps.
While you’re doing all this cooking, why not listen to some Chinese music to get you in the mood? Choose the Music link on the Gateway and go to the Naxos music library (you may be asked to type in your library card number). Use the drop-down link to Genres and there is a selection of Chinese music – orchestral as well as folk and traditional. Just create your own playlist and enjoy.
And last, but certainly not least, don’t forget that we have a Chinese library on Charing Cross Road which has knowledgeable staff and a collection famous throughout London.
Happy New Year!
First up is the Chinese New Year celebration in, well, Chinatown. If you go the Westminster Council homepage just search for ‘Chinese New Year’. The first result takes you to the What’s On page which reveals that the new year celebrations will be on Sunday 6th February. There’s a link to the London Chinatown homepage which has plenty of information about what’s going on in the area and the traditions surrounding the event.
Incidentally, if you redo your search for Chinese New Year in the council webpage’s search engine, the fourth result is a handy calendar of religious festivals from the Westminster Faith Exchange.
Not everyone will be able to go to Chinatown so why not have a little Chinese New Year celebration of your own with some appropriate food? No, not a take-away but some proper Chinese home-cooking. Here the Westminster Libraries Gateway comes into its own. Go to the section on Home and Garden and scroll down to Food and Drink. First port of call is the BBC Food page. If you click on the Recipes link you can search by Occasion (there are 16 special recipes for Chinese New year), Cuisine (148 Chinese recipes) or by chef - and for those of us of a certain age, Chinese chef means Ken Hom who has 33 recipes listed ranging garlic chicken with cucumber to steamed ginger fish with egg-fried rice. Or you could do an Advanced Search to check out individual ingredients – pak choi or tofu or duck perhaps.
While you’re doing all this cooking, why not listen to some Chinese music to get you in the mood? Choose the Music link on the Gateway and go to the Naxos music library (you may be asked to type in your library card number). Use the drop-down link to Genres and there is a selection of Chinese music – orchestral as well as folk and traditional. Just create your own playlist and enjoy.
And last, but certainly not least, don’t forget that we have a Chinese library on Charing Cross Road which has knowledgeable staff and a collection famous throughout London.
Happy New Year!
Wednesday, 17 November 2010
Coughs and sneezes spread diseases
Winter is almost upon us and it seems a good opportunity to see what the Gateway has to offer for anyone wanting to know how to keep healthy - and where to go if they can’t.
First port of call on the Westminster Libraries Gateway is the Health section.
Probably the most important site is NHS Choices, given as a Key Link. Put in a postcode to find your nearest doctors, dentists, hospitals etc. The other services listed include opticians and NHS walk-in centres. Handily it tells you which practices are accepting new NHS patients and whether the doctors are male or female, which foreign languages are spoken at the practice and what hours they are open. Other features of the site include articles giving the medical background to recent news stories (for example the story of the implant which improved the sight of three blind patients) and Carers Direct which is a mine of helpful information, including legal and financial advice. Have a look as well at the Health A-Z which gives advice on how to cope with 100s of medical conditions and diseases from abdominal aortic aneurysms to yellow fever (you’ll have to look elsewhere for advice on Zollinger-Ellison syndrome though).
If you really are concerned you have Zollinger-Ellison syndrome, (it’s fairly unlikely so don’t panic), you might want to look at the Merck Manual in the Conditions and treatment section. This is the online version of the standard medical textbook, first published in 1899. If it’s possible to catch it, Merck will have it – it’s even got syndromes that begin with X (xanthomatosis being one of them).
Having been to the doctor for a diagnosis and then read up on your illness, perhaps you want to check up on your prescription. The British National Formulary will come in handy here, though you do need to register (it’s free and not terribly arduous). Once you’ve registered, you’ll have access to comprehensive information about the full range of prescription drugs with details of their possible side-effects. Let’s hope you haven’t got Zollinger-Ellison syndrome as Pantoprazole, which you’ll be taking by intravenous injection can lead to alopecia and dizziness among other nasties.
If your illness gets worse and visit to hospital is required, you may want to check out Dr Foster’s consumer guide to the health service. Each NHS hospital has been provided with a ‘Patient Safety Score' (University College Hospital comes top) and you can find out about hospital mortality rates along with top tips for what makes a safe hospital. There’s a detailed guide to each hospital with information about their specialties (St Mary’s, Paddington are pioneers in robotic surgery) and waiting times, plus information about consultants.
If it’s not actually an illness you’re researching, but simple old age, you might want to look at Saga Health, brought to you by the company that produce Saga magazine. Packed with useful information about fitness, health, diet, help for carers, it’s well worth a look. As is the Care Homes Guide which lists more than 20,000 care homes in the UK, allowing you to search by area or by particular need (such as epilepsy or dementia), it’s a very useful source of information for anyone faced to choosing a home for themselves or a loved one.
First port of call on the Westminster Libraries Gateway is the Health section.
Probably the most important site is NHS Choices, given as a Key Link. Put in a postcode to find your nearest doctors, dentists, hospitals etc. The other services listed include opticians and NHS walk-in centres. Handily it tells you which practices are accepting new NHS patients and whether the doctors are male or female, which foreign languages are spoken at the practice and what hours they are open. Other features of the site include articles giving the medical background to recent news stories (for example the story of the implant which improved the sight of three blind patients) and Carers Direct which is a mine of helpful information, including legal and financial advice. Have a look as well at the Health A-Z which gives advice on how to cope with 100s of medical conditions and diseases from abdominal aortic aneurysms to yellow fever (you’ll have to look elsewhere for advice on Zollinger-Ellison syndrome though).
If you really are concerned you have Zollinger-Ellison syndrome, (it’s fairly unlikely so don’t panic), you might want to look at the Merck Manual in the Conditions and treatment section. This is the online version of the standard medical textbook, first published in 1899. If it’s possible to catch it, Merck will have it – it’s even got syndromes that begin with X (xanthomatosis being one of them).
Having been to the doctor for a diagnosis and then read up on your illness, perhaps you want to check up on your prescription. The British National Formulary will come in handy here, though you do need to register (it’s free and not terribly arduous). Once you’ve registered, you’ll have access to comprehensive information about the full range of prescription drugs with details of their possible side-effects. Let’s hope you haven’t got Zollinger-Ellison syndrome as Pantoprazole, which you’ll be taking by intravenous injection can lead to alopecia and dizziness among other nasties.
If your illness gets worse and visit to hospital is required, you may want to check out Dr Foster’s consumer guide to the health service. Each NHS hospital has been provided with a ‘Patient Safety Score' (University College Hospital comes top) and you can find out about hospital mortality rates along with top tips for what makes a safe hospital. There’s a detailed guide to each hospital with information about their specialties (St Mary’s, Paddington are pioneers in robotic surgery) and waiting times, plus information about consultants.
If it’s not actually an illness you’re researching, but simple old age, you might want to look at Saga Health, brought to you by the company that produce Saga magazine. Packed with useful information about fitness, health, diet, help for carers, it’s well worth a look. As is the Care Homes Guide which lists more than 20,000 care homes in the UK, allowing you to search by area or by particular need (such as epilepsy or dementia), it’s a very useful source of information for anyone faced to choosing a home for themselves or a loved one.
Friday, 1 October 2010
Lies, damned lies and statistics
While reading someone else’s newspaper on the tube this morning (always so much more interesting than one’s own), I noticed a headline suggesting that there are more centenarians around than ever before. Having a few years ago attended my grandmother’s 100th birthday (no telegram nowadays – the birthday boy or girl gets a card with a nice picture of Her Majesty on it), I thought I’d see how many people over 100 there are in Britain.
First port of call was the Westminster Libraries Gateway and the section on Statistics & Figures. Clicking on the link for the Office for National Statistics, I found, on the front page, an article on centenarians – apparently the number in the UK has more than quadrupled from 2,600 in 1981 to 11,600 in 2009. By 2033, there should be more than 80,000 which will certainly keep the Buckingham Palace post-room busy!.
I decided to have a browse around the site to see what else of interest I could find. The Neighbourhood Statistics (click on the link at the top of the ONS site) are always worth a look as they give you the area information from the last Census. Putting in the postcode of Marylebone Library I find that in 2001 there were 1254 people (out of 10,669) with a limiting long-term illness and compare this to the rest of Westminster, the rest of London and the rest of the country. I can find out about housing, crime, employment and religion (sadly, there are no Jedis in Marylebone) and more. Of course, this information is now 10 years old – for more recent figures for Westminster, go back to the Statistics & Figures Gateway page and choose Westminster Facts and Figures for more up-to-date local statistics, though not with the full range that the census figures have.
Of course, another census is coming up next year. If you want to find out more about this (and how you can earn some extra money either in Westminster or your home borough), go back to the Statistics & Figures page on the Gateway and check out the 2011 census link in the ONS section. There’s a lot of fascinating information there – who knew they’ve had test runs in 2007 and 2009?
The census, of course, has been going for more than 150 years. Personal details don’t become fully available for 100 years or so but it’s invaluable for checking up what your ancestors were up to in the nineteenth and early twentieth century. There are two sources of census transcripts – both available for free at a PC in a Westminster Library. From the Gateway, choose Family History and you have the option of using either FindMyPast or Ancestry (both of which are probably familiar from TV ads). The recommendation from Treasure Hunt Towers is that you use FindMyPast for searching the census simply because the nice folks there have typed up all the written entries making it a lot easier to read. You can also search by address – it can be sobering to see quite how many people crammed into a small Victorian house. If you search FindMyPast, you will need a username and password which should be available at the library enquiry desk.
So, back to my centenarian grandmother. She had the rare distinction of appearing on a census (1901) and still being alive when it was published a hundred years later. Checking, I find that she lived in Great Ormond Street (probably a bit less fancy than it sounds), that her father was a fruiterer, she had a mother, a slightly older sister and there was a no doubt very-overworked 18-year-old servant. I then had a look at who was living at the same address in previous years and discovered that in 1881 there was (among others) there was Jacob Dixon, medical professor, Mary Dixon, who gave her profession as ‘medical professor wife’, William Godden, Professor of Music and Philip Williams, a library attendant at the British Museum.
So why not have a look for yourselves. Even if, like me, you have a family of monumental dullness, you may be able to share in the reflected glory of having somebody rather more interesting having lived in the same house!
First port of call was the Westminster Libraries Gateway and the section on Statistics & Figures. Clicking on the link for the Office for National Statistics, I found, on the front page, an article on centenarians – apparently the number in the UK has more than quadrupled from 2,600 in 1981 to 11,600 in 2009. By 2033, there should be more than 80,000 which will certainly keep the Buckingham Palace post-room busy!.
I decided to have a browse around the site to see what else of interest I could find. The Neighbourhood Statistics (click on the link at the top of the ONS site) are always worth a look as they give you the area information from the last Census. Putting in the postcode of Marylebone Library I find that in 2001 there were 1254 people (out of 10,669) with a limiting long-term illness and compare this to the rest of Westminster, the rest of London and the rest of the country. I can find out about housing, crime, employment and religion (sadly, there are no Jedis in Marylebone) and more. Of course, this information is now 10 years old – for more recent figures for Westminster, go back to the Statistics & Figures Gateway page and choose Westminster Facts and Figures for more up-to-date local statistics, though not with the full range that the census figures have.
Of course, another census is coming up next year. If you want to find out more about this (and how you can earn some extra money either in Westminster or your home borough), go back to the Statistics & Figures page on the Gateway and check out the 2011 census link in the ONS section. There’s a lot of fascinating information there – who knew they’ve had test runs in 2007 and 2009?
The census, of course, has been going for more than 150 years. Personal details don’t become fully available for 100 years or so but it’s invaluable for checking up what your ancestors were up to in the nineteenth and early twentieth century. There are two sources of census transcripts – both available for free at a PC in a Westminster Library. From the Gateway, choose Family History and you have the option of using either FindMyPast or Ancestry (both of which are probably familiar from TV ads). The recommendation from Treasure Hunt Towers is that you use FindMyPast for searching the census simply because the nice folks there have typed up all the written entries making it a lot easier to read. You can also search by address – it can be sobering to see quite how many people crammed into a small Victorian house. If you search FindMyPast, you will need a username and password which should be available at the library enquiry desk.
So, back to my centenarian grandmother. She had the rare distinction of appearing on a census (1901) and still being alive when it was published a hundred years later. Checking, I find that she lived in Great Ormond Street (probably a bit less fancy than it sounds), that her father was a fruiterer, she had a mother, a slightly older sister and there was a no doubt very-overworked 18-year-old servant. I then had a look at who was living at the same address in previous years and discovered that in 1881 there was (among others) there was Jacob Dixon, medical professor, Mary Dixon, who gave her profession as ‘medical professor wife’, William Godden, Professor of Music and Philip Williams, a library attendant at the British Museum.
So why not have a look for yourselves. Even if, like me, you have a family of monumental dullness, you may be able to share in the reflected glory of having somebody rather more interesting having lived in the same house!
Thursday, 16 September 2010
Is the Pope...?
It won’t have escaped your notice that Westminster is playing host to a Very Important Visitor this weekend – Pope Benedict XVI, 265th successor to St Peter, the second non-Italian Pope since 1522 and only the second Pope to visit Britain (apparently the one British Pope, Adrian IV, showed no desire to come back and visit his old friends). So it seems a good opportunity to see what the internet can offer on the subject of matters spiritual.
First port of call is the official website of the Pope’s visit at where you can find his itinerary, details of road closures and a brief (and inevitably uncritical) biography. One of the reasons for the visit is the beatification of Cardinal Newman – if you’re interested you can look him up in the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography in the Biography section of the Westminster Libraries Gateway. There’s an article on Pope Adrian VI too.
Next we move to the Beliefs & Customs section of the Gateway. The handy link to Religion from Credo Reference will take you straight through to a series of useful volumes on many religions. Ever wondered why lorry drivers often carry St Christopher medals or what the connection is between Santa Claus and pawnbrokers? Check out Who’s Who in Christianity to find out. Or perhaps you want to find out more about another religion – just what exactly was the Ark of the Covenant, perhaps? Let The New Encyclopaedia of Judaism tell all.
You appetite whetted, why not have a look at the sacred books of different religions and belief systems? One very useful resource, also linked from the Beliefs section of the Gateway is the Sacred Texts Archive. Here you can find the major books not just of religions (the Koran, the Bible, the book of Mormon, the Bhagavad Gita and so on but also various core texts relating to Freemasonry, Nostradamus and even the sagas which influenced JRR Tolkien. Sadly the Jedi religion isn’t yet represented but it’s only a matter of time…
One major resource, on the same page of the Gateway, is Oxford Islamic Studies Online. This is a major resource for all matters to do with Islam ranging from scholarly commentary on the Koran to a guide to What Everybody Needs to Know about Islam.
Moving away from the Belief page of the Gateway, if you’re interested in the news coverage of the last Papal visit, check out the News & Magazines section of the Gateway to see how the Guardian, Times, Daily Mirror or Daily Mirror covered the 6-day visit which started on 28th May 1982. Some things haven’t changed – there were protestors (led by the Rev Ian Paisley) and Britain was at war (in the Falklands).
First port of call is the official website of the Pope’s visit at where you can find his itinerary, details of road closures and a brief (and inevitably uncritical) biography. One of the reasons for the visit is the beatification of Cardinal Newman – if you’re interested you can look him up in the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography in the Biography section of the Westminster Libraries Gateway. There’s an article on Pope Adrian VI too.
Next we move to the Beliefs & Customs section of the Gateway. The handy link to Religion from Credo Reference will take you straight through to a series of useful volumes on many religions. Ever wondered why lorry drivers often carry St Christopher medals or what the connection is between Santa Claus and pawnbrokers? Check out Who’s Who in Christianity to find out. Or perhaps you want to find out more about another religion – just what exactly was the Ark of the Covenant, perhaps? Let The New Encyclopaedia of Judaism tell all.
You appetite whetted, why not have a look at the sacred books of different religions and belief systems? One very useful resource, also linked from the Beliefs section of the Gateway is the Sacred Texts Archive. Here you can find the major books not just of religions (the Koran, the Bible, the book of Mormon, the Bhagavad Gita and so on but also various core texts relating to Freemasonry, Nostradamus and even the sagas which influenced JRR Tolkien. Sadly the Jedi religion isn’t yet represented but it’s only a matter of time…
One major resource, on the same page of the Gateway, is Oxford Islamic Studies Online. This is a major resource for all matters to do with Islam ranging from scholarly commentary on the Koran to a guide to What Everybody Needs to Know about Islam.
Moving away from the Belief page of the Gateway, if you’re interested in the news coverage of the last Papal visit, check out the News & Magazines section of the Gateway to see how the Guardian, Times, Daily Mirror or Daily Mirror covered the 6-day visit which started on 28th May 1982. Some things haven’t changed – there were protestors (led by the Rev Ian Paisley) and Britain was at war (in the Falklands).
Tuesday, 7 September 2010
It was 70 years ago today…
It’s hard to have missed the fact that this week is the anniversary of the start of the Blitz (and we don’t mean the much under-rated Lionel Bart musical!). There have been commemorative services at St Pauls, some excellent tv and radio documentaries and an exciting new website with colour footage of wartime Westminster. So let’s see what the Westminster Libraries Gateway has to offer in the way of wartime memories.
First port of call is the History section. If you go to the BBC History site and simply search for Blitz, you’ll find a variety of news clips, personal reminiscences and links to tv and radio programmes. Fascinating, if occasionally distressing stuff. Back at the History section of the Gateway, go to British Pathe for newsreel and documentary footage from the war – I found a clip of the Queen visiting a salvage centre in Paddington accompanied by the Lord Mayor and another of a bomb crater in Charing Cross Road with a temporary, but very sturdy looking, bridge over it. As with Youtube, you’ll see other videos of interest linked to the one you are watching so you can spend hours there. The only downside to this excellent site is the rather annoying ad that runs before each clip but that’s a small price to pay for such a valuable record.
You may have seen in the news in last couple of days that there has recently been discovered colour footage of the war in Westminster, filmed by the Mayor of Westminster no less. You can see the complete films on West End at War, linked from the Local History section of the History Gateway page. As well as the film clips (which include a brief glimpse of Winston Churchill himself reviewing the troops in Hyde Park), there are paintings by war artists and reminiscences from local residents including a Nigerian ARP warden.
Another excellent source of history is contemporary newspapers and magazines. We’re spoiled for choice on the Gateway – have a look at the Newspapers and Magazines page and take your pick. Why not choose The Times Digital Archive - you can browse an individual issue. One snippet I noticed from the 7th September 1940 issue is a letter from Mr Stafford Bourne, of Bourne and Hollingsworth, assuring readers that their shop would remain open during raids while 200 staff who doubled as fire-watchers, Red Cross nurses, special constables and members of a decontamination squad leapt into action and another item announcing the schedule for band concerts in Hyde Park. Have a look too at the Illustrated London News – the issue of September 14th 1940 has a full page of bombed London churches though, presumably because of censorship, most are not identified.
A whole page of items about the war and no mention of Dame Vera Lynn! Can such a thing be possible? I hear you cry. Fear not – we can supply all your nostalgic wartime music needs too. Go to the Music section of the Gateway and click on the link for Naxos Music Library. A search for Dame Vera will give you more morale boosting songs than anyone could possibly need but if your appetite hasn’t yet been satisfied, there’s plenty of Gracie Fields, Al Bowlly (a victim of the Blitz) and the Andrews Sisters. Just sit back and enjoy…
First port of call is the History section. If you go to the BBC History site and simply search for Blitz, you’ll find a variety of news clips, personal reminiscences and links to tv and radio programmes. Fascinating, if occasionally distressing stuff. Back at the History section of the Gateway, go to British Pathe for newsreel and documentary footage from the war – I found a clip of the Queen visiting a salvage centre in Paddington accompanied by the Lord Mayor and another of a bomb crater in Charing Cross Road with a temporary, but very sturdy looking, bridge over it. As with Youtube, you’ll see other videos of interest linked to the one you are watching so you can spend hours there. The only downside to this excellent site is the rather annoying ad that runs before each clip but that’s a small price to pay for such a valuable record.
You may have seen in the news in last couple of days that there has recently been discovered colour footage of the war in Westminster, filmed by the Mayor of Westminster no less. You can see the complete films on West End at War, linked from the Local History section of the History Gateway page. As well as the film clips (which include a brief glimpse of Winston Churchill himself reviewing the troops in Hyde Park), there are paintings by war artists and reminiscences from local residents including a Nigerian ARP warden.
Another excellent source of history is contemporary newspapers and magazines. We’re spoiled for choice on the Gateway – have a look at the Newspapers and Magazines page and take your pick. Why not choose The Times Digital Archive - you can browse an individual issue. One snippet I noticed from the 7th September 1940 issue is a letter from Mr Stafford Bourne, of Bourne and Hollingsworth, assuring readers that their shop would remain open during raids while 200 staff who doubled as fire-watchers, Red Cross nurses, special constables and members of a decontamination squad leapt into action and another item announcing the schedule for band concerts in Hyde Park. Have a look too at the Illustrated London News – the issue of September 14th 1940 has a full page of bombed London churches though, presumably because of censorship, most are not identified.
A whole page of items about the war and no mention of Dame Vera Lynn! Can such a thing be possible? I hear you cry. Fear not – we can supply all your nostalgic wartime music needs too. Go to the Music section of the Gateway and click on the link for Naxos Music Library. A search for Dame Vera will give you more morale boosting songs than anyone could possibly need but if your appetite hasn’t yet been satisfied, there’s plenty of Gracie Fields, Al Bowlly (a victim of the Blitz) and the Andrews Sisters. Just sit back and enjoy…
Sunday, 15 August 2010
Arting About
One of the occupants of Treasure Hunt Towers was recently let out on parole and took the opportunity to pay a visit to the Eternal City (that’s Rome to the less educated among us) and realised there was a huge knowledge gap in the field of Art and Architecture. So on the treasure hunter’s return it was off to the Westminster Libraries Gateway to do some research.
First stop, obviously, was the Art & Design section and Oxford Art Online. This gives access to, among other things, The Grove Dictionary of Art (all 34 volumes of it!). A search for Rome gives an article with sections on history, art and buildings, each section being print-friendly. Searches for Michelangelo, Raphael, Leonardo and their chums lead to excellent biographies complete with detailed bibliographies and plenty of pictures. Exploring further, click on Tools and Resources for thematic collections of essays on subjects such as Medieval Art and Architecture (who knew there were so many different Viking schools of art?) and Australian Modern Art (who there were so many different etc etc?). Good stuff and coming from Oxford University Press, you know it can be trusted.
Back to the Gateway, our friends at OUP have also provided us with Oxford Reference Online – handy online versions of their one volume dictionaries and encyclopaedias so you can browse The Oxford Companion to the Photograph and the Oxford Companion to the Garden without the inconvenience of walking across to the shelves.
Also linked from the Gateway art section are some excellent guides to photography. A History of Photography from its beginning till the 1920s does exactly what it says on the tin with articles on pioneers and early processes – check out the article on Eadweard Muybridge for a link to how to make your own zoetrope. And check out the Architecture links too – Open-City will tell you all about the annual Open House event while Images of England has over 300,000 images of listed buildings (or lamp-posts or milestones or pillar boxes). See if your library is there.
Going back to Rome, what is the Treasure Hunt Towers top tip for the one place of interest you must not miss? Well, just check out these pictures of the Capuchin Chapel – IF YOU DARE!!!!
First stop, obviously, was the Art & Design section and Oxford Art Online. This gives access to, among other things, The Grove Dictionary of Art (all 34 volumes of it!). A search for Rome gives an article with sections on history, art and buildings, each section being print-friendly. Searches for Michelangelo, Raphael, Leonardo and their chums lead to excellent biographies complete with detailed bibliographies and plenty of pictures. Exploring further, click on Tools and Resources for thematic collections of essays on subjects such as Medieval Art and Architecture (who knew there were so many different Viking schools of art?) and Australian Modern Art (who there were so many different etc etc?). Good stuff and coming from Oxford University Press, you know it can be trusted.
Back to the Gateway, our friends at OUP have also provided us with Oxford Reference Online – handy online versions of their one volume dictionaries and encyclopaedias so you can browse The Oxford Companion to the Photograph and the Oxford Companion to the Garden without the inconvenience of walking across to the shelves.
Also linked from the Gateway art section are some excellent guides to photography. A History of Photography from its beginning till the 1920s does exactly what it says on the tin with articles on pioneers and early processes – check out the article on Eadweard Muybridge for a link to how to make your own zoetrope. And check out the Architecture links too – Open-City will tell you all about the annual Open House event while Images of England has over 300,000 images of listed buildings (or lamp-posts or milestones or pillar boxes). See if your library is there.
Going back to Rome, what is the Treasure Hunt Towers top tip for the one place of interest you must not miss? Well, just check out these pictures of the Capuchin Chapel – IF YOU DARE!!!!
Wednesday, 21 July 2010
You're Fired!!!
Well, not really, obviously but it can’t have escaped the notice of any of us that these are dark days for jobseekers and more and more people are asking for our help in finding employment. So we at Treasure Hunt Towers have put together a collection of links and useful information that we hope will be useful for our readers. Go to the Westminster Library Gateway and you will notice a box labelled Back to work – we can help. At the top is a guide to where to find jobs ads – both in print and online. One top tip is to recommend people to check each local council website every week as very few public sector jobs make it into the Guardian or Voice any more. (go to the Westminster Council homepage and you’ll find a link at the bottom to Jobs and Vacancies). We’ve given a link to the libraries careers advice sessions (very handy for printing out for a reader) and to the local advice services.
As well as the Back to Work, it’s also worth pointing readers (and yourselves) towards the Education section. Scroll down to the Adult & further education for links to the local adult education colleges (including Westminster Adult Education Service) plus the online version of Floodlight, which lists part-time course all over London. And for anyone who wants a complete change of career there are links to colleges running access courses and to universities in the higher education. Have a look – who knows, you may discover a hitherto suppressed desire to make a career in Golf Management or Fish Farming!
As well as the Back to Work, it’s also worth pointing readers (and yourselves) towards the Education section. Scroll down to the Adult & further education for links to the local adult education colleges (including Westminster Adult Education Service) plus the online version of Floodlight, which lists part-time course all over London. And for anyone who wants a complete change of career there are links to colleges running access courses and to universities in the higher education. Have a look – who knows, you may discover a hitherto suppressed desire to make a career in Golf Management or Fish Farming!
Monday, 5 July 2010
Summer School
If there’s one thing we at Treasure Hunt Towers hate, it’s spending money. And if there’s one thing we like doing, it’s getting educated. So how to combine our two hobbies without actually getting out of our chairs? (another thing we hate doing!) . As usual it’s the Gateway to the rescue! First up is Computers & the Internet where I can scroll down to Learning Resources and then learn just about anything I want toinvolving ICT. The biggie here is obviously IVY (or the Ivy Learning Management System as it’s officially known). You need to register for this – you should have instructions at your enquiry desk, or if you're not a library staff member, just ask next time you visit – but once you have a login, there is a whole wealth of ICT and business courses available to you. If you want to browse before registering, just click on the About Ivy link on the Gateway page and see what’s there – a full range of Microsoft offices, all in easy bitesized chunks so you don’t actually have to learn Access in one go plus an excellent range of business courses from health and safety, employment law, interview techniques and even body language.
Once you’ve exhausted everything Ivy has to offer, there’s plenty more available back on the Gateway. Fancy learning a new language? Go to the Languages page of the Gateway and you’ll find I Love Languages as a key link. Going to Zanzibar this Summer? Well, you’ll want to have a bit of basic Swahili so clink on Languages and then By Language and the helpful Swahili links will give you some basic lessons. Taking a trip to Qo’nos and worried about not being able to ask way to the bathroom? Check out the Klingon language resources and memorise the useful phrase ‘nuqDaq 'oH puchpa''e' ?
Perhaps you fancy something a little more creative than learning how to talk to fictional characters? How about something a little crafty? Try HintsandThings which you’ll find in the Homes & Gardens section of the Gateway. Check out the Workshop and you’ll find guides to cross-stitch, making paper clay (papier mache we called it when I were a lass), economical gifts and much more. It’s an excellent site and you can get lost browsing in it – the Kitchen is excellent for brushing up on your culinary skills.
Once you’ve exhausted everything Ivy has to offer, there’s plenty more available back on the Gateway. Fancy learning a new language? Go to the Languages page of the Gateway and you’ll find I Love Languages as a key link. Going to Zanzibar this Summer? Well, you’ll want to have a bit of basic Swahili so clink on Languages and then By Language and the helpful Swahili links will give you some basic lessons. Taking a trip to Qo’nos and worried about not being able to ask way to the bathroom? Check out the Klingon language resources and memorise the useful phrase ‘nuqDaq 'oH puchpa''e' ?
Perhaps you fancy something a little more creative than learning how to talk to fictional characters? How about something a little crafty? Try HintsandThings which you’ll find in the Homes & Gardens section of the Gateway. Check out the Workshop and you’ll find guides to cross-stitch, making paper clay (papier mache we called it when I were a lass), economical gifts and much more. It’s an excellent site and you can get lost browsing in it – the Kitchen is excellent for brushing up on your culinary skills.
Friday, 11 June 2010
What’s the use of a book without pictures or conversation?
Wise words there from Alice and we at Treasure Hunt Towers are big fans of pictures. And books. (And conversations but that’s for another day). So today we’re considering the latest addition to the 24/7 library – The Illustrated London News (the clue’s in the title). This was the first ever illustrated weekly newspaper and ran from 1842-2003. Contributors included Robert Louis Stevenson, Rudyard Kipling, W Heath Robinson, Kate Greenaway and Agatha Christie. And it’s now all available online via the News and Magazines page of the Westminster Library Gateway or the - Exclusive Resources page
They struck lucky in their very first week – the hot news of the week was a devastating fire in Hamburg so an artist was sent to the British Museum to find an engraving which he copied with additional flames for the front page. A two page spread inside was devoted to a Magnificent Fancy Dress Ball given by Queen Victoria but in case that was too cheerful, there was also an Awful Steamboat Explosion in America and a Dreadful Railway accident near Paris.
Every issue has something of interest. You can pick one at random and browse it – the cover picture on the week I was born is of Professor Dorothy Hodgkin receiving the Nobel Prize for Chemistry, while other articles (all copiously illustrated) cover Prime Minister Harold Wilson’s visit to Washington, Inside Red China Today and the new traffic signals just in force (NO U TURN, SCARBOROUGH A64 etc). All fascinating stuff.
Royalists will have a field day browsing through the many special editions devoted to royal weddings and funerals (the 2nd May 1882 number celebrating the marriage of Prince Leopold and Princess Helena has some splendid engravings of the groom’s student life at Oxford though sadly this was followed only two years later by a commemorative funeral edition after the Prince’s death, giving them a chance to re-use some of the same pictures), while war-buffs will want to spent time browsing the issues relating to the Blitz. Or you could check out your own workplace – I’ve been reading about the ratepayers’ meeting May in 1856 which agreed that a public library in Paddington was ‘needless and inexpedient’, while during the summer of 1854 Marylebone Free Library had 5489 male visitors and 179 ladies who between them read 5655 books, all no doubt Highly Improving.
Whatever your interests – films, theatre, history, science, fashion - the Illustrated London news is bound to have something to interest you. And the Treasure Hunt Towers top search tip? The default search is Keyword. Ignore that and click on the button for Entire Document and you’ll get far more results.
They struck lucky in their very first week – the hot news of the week was a devastating fire in Hamburg so an artist was sent to the British Museum to find an engraving which he copied with additional flames for the front page. A two page spread inside was devoted to a Magnificent Fancy Dress Ball given by Queen Victoria but in case that was too cheerful, there was also an Awful Steamboat Explosion in America and a Dreadful Railway accident near Paris.
Every issue has something of interest. You can pick one at random and browse it – the cover picture on the week I was born is of Professor Dorothy Hodgkin receiving the Nobel Prize for Chemistry, while other articles (all copiously illustrated) cover Prime Minister Harold Wilson’s visit to Washington, Inside Red China Today and the new traffic signals just in force (NO U TURN, SCARBOROUGH A64 etc). All fascinating stuff.
Royalists will have a field day browsing through the many special editions devoted to royal weddings and funerals (the 2nd May 1882 number celebrating the marriage of Prince Leopold and Princess Helena has some splendid engravings of the groom’s student life at Oxford though sadly this was followed only two years later by a commemorative funeral edition after the Prince’s death, giving them a chance to re-use some of the same pictures), while war-buffs will want to spent time browsing the issues relating to the Blitz. Or you could check out your own workplace – I’ve been reading about the ratepayers’ meeting May in 1856 which agreed that a public library in Paddington was ‘needless and inexpedient’, while during the summer of 1854 Marylebone Free Library had 5489 male visitors and 179 ladies who between them read 5655 books, all no doubt Highly Improving.
Whatever your interests – films, theatre, history, science, fashion - the Illustrated London news is bound to have something to interest you. And the Treasure Hunt Towers top search tip? The default search is Keyword. Ignore that and click on the button for Entire Document and you’ll get far more results.
Thursday, 27 May 2010
Holding out for a hero
We at Treasure Hunt Towers like to start our morning with Radio 4’s Today programme and this morning we were intrigued to hear an interview with the editor of one of our very favourite online resources, the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. If you missed it, you can listen here - here (it’s the last item). He was discussing the way the concept of heroism has changed over the last 150 years.
Anyway, this prompted me to revisit the ODNB (linked from the Biography page of the Westminster Libraries Gateway and check out the fascinating article on heroic figures in the ODNB here with links to biographies of such varied characters as Grace Darling, The Unknown Warrior and Princess Diana. This led me to some of the other themed articles on such subjects as Childhood in the ODNB, the Great Fire of London, Servants in the ODNB and Trafalgar Square.
My thirst for knowledge not satiated, I checked out the Life of the Day (you can subscribe at Lives of the Week) and found the rather sad little story of Penelope Boothby (1785–1791), artist's model and subject of poetry.
Then I took a quick look at the list of 90 new names added this month including Kathleen Drew, (1901–1957), phycologist (who knew there were celebrity experts in algae?) and George Tuthill, (1817–1887), banner and regalia maker.
Fascinating stuff and you can easily get lost browsing around there but you’ll certainly learn a lot more than you set out to.
After all those biographies, I felt like a change of scene and had a look at a rather fun site sent in by Stuart Walsh, a correspondent from Victoria. This is the Literature Map. Simply put in the name of your favourite authors, (here at Treasure Hunt Towers it’s George Orwell) and watch as a hypnotic pattern of names appears, all of other writers who you might enjoy. Click on one of those for another hypnotic cluster of suggestions. It’s rather like the If You Like… site linked from the Books & Literature page of the Gateway or the book Who Writes Like? which some of you may have at your enquiry desk but a lot more psychedelic.
Anyway, this prompted me to revisit the ODNB (linked from the Biography page of the Westminster Libraries Gateway and check out the fascinating article on heroic figures in the ODNB here with links to biographies of such varied characters as Grace Darling, The Unknown Warrior and Princess Diana. This led me to some of the other themed articles on such subjects as Childhood in the ODNB, the Great Fire of London, Servants in the ODNB and Trafalgar Square.
My thirst for knowledge not satiated, I checked out the Life of the Day (you can subscribe at Lives of the Week) and found the rather sad little story of Penelope Boothby (1785–1791), artist's model and subject of poetry.
Then I took a quick look at the list of 90 new names added this month including Kathleen Drew, (1901–1957), phycologist (who knew there were celebrity experts in algae?) and George Tuthill, (1817–1887), banner and regalia maker.
Fascinating stuff and you can easily get lost browsing around there but you’ll certainly learn a lot more than you set out to.
After all those biographies, I felt like a change of scene and had a look at a rather fun site sent in by Stuart Walsh, a correspondent from Victoria. This is the Literature Map. Simply put in the name of your favourite authors, (here at Treasure Hunt Towers it’s George Orwell) and watch as a hypnotic pattern of names appears, all of other writers who you might enjoy. Click on one of those for another hypnotic cluster of suggestions. It’s rather like the If You Like… site linked from the Books & Literature page of the Gateway or the book Who Writes Like? which some of you may have at your enquiry desk but a lot more psychedelic.
Tuesday, 11 May 2010
Too Many Books Spoil the Broth
Are you running up huge bills on Amazon every month? Worried your bookshelves will collapse under the weight of your acquisitions? Struggling to get your suitcase through customs since you can’t possibly go away for a week with less than seven books? Then maybe an eBook reader is for you. We at Treasure Hunt Towers, being at the cutting edge of technology, have already invested in one of these lovely shiny gadgets, much to the envy of our colleagues and now all we want is some books to put on it!
Obviously we could head off to Amazon and hand over some of our hard-earned cash but that would be ridiculous when there is so much free stuff around. And fortunately the Westminster Libraries Gateway (http://www.westminster.gov.uk/services/libraries/gateway/) is here to help. Just click on the section for Books and Literature and scroll down to Online Books and you’ll find literally tens of thousands of free books to download onto your new toy.
The mother of all online book sites is Project Gutenberg, named after the chap who invented the printing press. The creator of the site claims to have invented the eBook back in the Neolithic era or 1971 to be precise (trivia note – the first ever eBook was The Declaration of Independence) and since those unimaginably far distant days, long before the web was even a gleam in Tim Berners-Lee’s eye, he has added over 30,000 copyright free (in the USA) titles to the site. These range from the classics – you’ll find all of Dickens and Thomas Hardy there as well as the Sherlock Holmes stories – through children’s titles such as Peter Pan and Anne of Green Gables to heavier reference works such as Palgrave’s Golden Treasury of the Best Songs and Lyrical Poems in the English Language and various translations of the Bible. If it was published in the USA before c1923 and you’ve heard of it, it’s quite likely to be there. And they can all be downloaded to your ebook reader for the grand sum of nothing! And the site has some useful advice on how to do it.
Once you’ve read everything on Project Gutenberg, where to go next? Also linked from the Books and Literature section of the Gateway is the Online Books Page, created by the University of Pennsylvania. This covers a lot of the same ground as Project Gutenberg but it also has handy collections of Women Writers and, excitingly, Banned Books so you can gather together Lady Chatterley’s Lover, Frankenstein, The Adventures of Tom Sawyer Rousseau’s Confessions and Black Beauty into one playlist on your eBook reader and also find out what was so controversial about them.
Staying on the Books and Literature page for a moment, don’t forget Contemporary Authors, one of the key links at the top and one of the unsung heroines of the 24/7 library. Not flashy or glam but very useful indeed with biographies, bibliographies and critiques of 1000s of authors which you can search by name, book title, country, genre or even by year of birth.
Hopefully, all this should keep your eBook readers well-stocked and more importantly your readers happy until The Management unveil their scheme for Westminster Libraries’ eBook Collection
Obviously we could head off to Amazon and hand over some of our hard-earned cash but that would be ridiculous when there is so much free stuff around. And fortunately the Westminster Libraries Gateway (http://www.westminster.gov.uk/services/libraries/gateway/) is here to help. Just click on the section for Books and Literature and scroll down to Online Books and you’ll find literally tens of thousands of free books to download onto your new toy.
The mother of all online book sites is Project Gutenberg, named after the chap who invented the printing press. The creator of the site claims to have invented the eBook back in the Neolithic era or 1971 to be precise (trivia note – the first ever eBook was The Declaration of Independence) and since those unimaginably far distant days, long before the web was even a gleam in Tim Berners-Lee’s eye, he has added over 30,000 copyright free (in the USA) titles to the site. These range from the classics – you’ll find all of Dickens and Thomas Hardy there as well as the Sherlock Holmes stories – through children’s titles such as Peter Pan and Anne of Green Gables to heavier reference works such as Palgrave’s Golden Treasury of the Best Songs and Lyrical Poems in the English Language and various translations of the Bible. If it was published in the USA before c1923 and you’ve heard of it, it’s quite likely to be there. And they can all be downloaded to your ebook reader for the grand sum of nothing! And the site has some useful advice on how to do it.
Once you’ve read everything on Project Gutenberg, where to go next? Also linked from the Books and Literature section of the Gateway is the Online Books Page, created by the University of Pennsylvania. This covers a lot of the same ground as Project Gutenberg but it also has handy collections of Women Writers and, excitingly, Banned Books so you can gather together Lady Chatterley’s Lover, Frankenstein, The Adventures of Tom Sawyer Rousseau’s Confessions and Black Beauty into one playlist on your eBook reader and also find out what was so controversial about them.
Staying on the Books and Literature page for a moment, don’t forget Contemporary Authors, one of the key links at the top and one of the unsung heroines of the 24/7 library. Not flashy or glam but very useful indeed with biographies, bibliographies and critiques of 1000s of authors which you can search by name, book title, country, genre or even by year of birth.
Hopefully, all this should keep your eBook readers well-stocked and more importantly your readers happy until The Management unveil their scheme for Westminster Libraries’ eBook Collection
Wednesday, 21 April 2010
Vote early and vote often
We at Treasure Hunt Towers are in fever pitch of excitement about the election and just can’t get enough of speeches, hustings, manifestos, soundbites, battle buses and electoral reform. But even if you’re not as enthusiastic/sad (delete as appropriate) as us, it’s useful to know what’s out there on the web to help you decide where to put your cross.
First port of call on the Westminster Libraries Gateway (http://www.westminster.gov.uk/services/libraries/gateway/) is the section on Government and Politics : National & International. A useful site is They Work for You – you can check out an MP’s voting record, expenses claims (my MP, now retired, claimed for a Zone 1-3 travel card and £6.541 for stationery )
Also useful is the UK Parliament site which includes far more than any sane person could possibly want to know about the workings of Parliament including the full text of Hansard, the record of Commons and Lords debates for the last 30 years. If you want to go further back (to 1803 to be precise), you can pay a visit to Westminster Reference Library to check up on some name-calling between Gladstone and Disraeli
One further site of interest can be found on the BBC website http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/election_2010/default.stm.
Just put in a postcode or constituency name to get a profile of the area (my leafy little suburb ‘has been a desirable place for young professionals to live for a number of years’) and a list of candidates
Of course, May 6th isn’t just a general election for Londoners – for the first time since 1979, we’re voting in a local election on the same day. Back to the Gateway and then to the link for Government : Local and you can find links to other councils and to the Greater London Authority and the results of the last local government elections. And check out http://www.westminster.gov.uk/services/councilgovernmentanddemocracy/ for details of the current Westminster representatives
And for a bit of fun, try this quiz on elections in literature (I got 8/10, sadly failing on George Eliot rather than Jeffrey Archer. Oops!)
http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/quiz/2010/apr/06/elections-in-literature
First port of call on the Westminster Libraries Gateway (http://www.westminster.gov.uk/services/libraries/gateway/) is the section on Government and Politics : National & International. A useful site is They Work for You – you can check out an MP’s voting record, expenses claims (my MP, now retired, claimed for a Zone 1-3 travel card and £6.541 for stationery )
Also useful is the UK Parliament site which includes far more than any sane person could possibly want to know about the workings of Parliament including the full text of Hansard, the record of Commons and Lords debates for the last 30 years. If you want to go further back (to 1803 to be precise), you can pay a visit to Westminster Reference Library to check up on some name-calling between Gladstone and Disraeli
One further site of interest can be found on the BBC website http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/election_2010/default.stm.
Just put in a postcode or constituency name to get a profile of the area (my leafy little suburb ‘has been a desirable place for young professionals to live for a number of years’) and a list of candidates
Of course, May 6th isn’t just a general election for Londoners – for the first time since 1979, we’re voting in a local election on the same day. Back to the Gateway and then to the link for Government : Local and you can find links to other councils and to the Greater London Authority and the results of the last local government elections. And check out http://www.westminster.gov.uk/services/councilgovernmentanddemocracy/ for details of the current Westminster representatives
And for a bit of fun, try this quiz on elections in literature (I got 8/10, sadly failing on George Eliot rather than Jeffrey Archer. Oops!)
http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/quiz/2010/apr/06/elections-in-literature
Tuesday, 9 March 2010
I’d just like to thank…
Excitement at Treasure Hunt Towers is at fever pitch because it’s Oscar weekend. Frocks have been dry-cleaned, speeches prepared and tissues bought in bulk. And let us not forget that not only are these the most famous awards in the world (because who really cares about the Nobel Prize?) but they were named by a librarian. Take a bow, Margaret Herrick Anyway it seems appropriate to have a look at a couple of the cinematic offerings to be found on the Gateway – Check out the link for Stage and Screen
The king of all sites cinematic is The Internet Movie Database – your first point of call for any film or tv programmes credits. It’s an enormously powerful database and if you use the Advanced Search features (click on the drop down search box at the top) you can do complex searches for Titles (ever wondered if any Carry On films were shot in Marylebone – wonder no longer, part of Carry On Girls was) or names (did any stars of The Italian Job come from Maida Vale? Why yes, the great Irene Handl did)
We at Treasure Hunt Towers are great fans of British films, the more black and white the better so a favourite site here is Screenonline, produced by the British Film Institute. It’s packed full of articles about genres (B movies, public individual films, animation and so on) as well as information about television programmes and individual actors and directors. And if you use it in a Westminster library, you can access thousands of clips and even whole films and programmes (spend your lunch-hour comparing the first episode of Coronation Street with the first episode of Brookside)
The king of all sites cinematic is The Internet Movie Database – your first point of call for any film or tv programmes credits. It’s an enormously powerful database and if you use the Advanced Search features (click on the drop down search box at the top) you can do complex searches for Titles (ever wondered if any Carry On films were shot in Marylebone – wonder no longer, part of Carry On Girls was) or names (did any stars of The Italian Job come from Maida Vale? Why yes, the great Irene Handl did)
We at Treasure Hunt Towers are great fans of British films, the more black and white the better so a favourite site here is Screenonline, produced by the British Film Institute. It’s packed full of articles about genres (B movies, public individual films, animation and so on) as well as information about television programmes and individual actors and directors. And if you use it in a Westminster library, you can access thousands of clips and even whole films and programmes (spend your lunch-hour comparing the first episode of Coronation Street with the first episode of Brookside)
Friday, 22 January 2010
Exercise, eating and economics
Being a strong-willed sort of person, as all information providers are, you will, of course, be in the 12% New Year Resolution Makers who actually stick to it [1]. And like 99% of people they probably involve Taking More Exercise, Dieting and Sorting Out Your Finances. So how to work on these without actually leaving the comfort of your armchair?
First exercise – well, obviously you’ve got to put the research in. Fancy taking up a new challenge? The favoured form of exercise at Treasure Hunt Towers is outdoor swimming and by searching at Active Places (go to the Sports section of the gateway), a dull looking but jolly useful site, I was able to find two lidos near my home and of course the Serpentine near my work. And there’s proper link
Having taken some healthy exercise, obviously I’m up for some healthy food. Quite a choice here at the Home and Garden section of the Gateway. There’s not much in my fridge but opening the BBC Food pages and using the Recipe Search, I discover that I can turn my sad-looking courgette, onion and lump of stale cheese into a rather delicious-sounding Mediterranean pasta. There’s some useful videos demonstrating recipes, guides to cooking on a budget and for special dietary requirements and you can specify recipes by your favourite TV chef.
Lastly, having taken out an expensive gym membership, you are probably now vowing to finally get round to sorting out your personally finances. Probably your eyes glaze over at the words ‘insurance’ and ‘endowment’ but ‘received wisdom’ suggests we should all audit our finances occasionally and there’s plenty of help out there. You’ve probably come across Martin Lewis on tv or the radio, bouncing around giving advice and his website MoneySavingExpert (go to the Family and Personal section of the Gateway and scroll down to Personal Finance) is really jolly good. Lots of helpful stuff about finding cheap flights or changing your insurance or getting a new mortgage – frankly it’s worth checking it out every time you want to spend money. And there’s very useful advice there about what to do if financial problems are starting to get on top of you. Plus, the weekly email has all sorts of vouchers and tips about current bargains.
First exercise – well, obviously you’ve got to put the research in. Fancy taking up a new challenge? The favoured form of exercise at Treasure Hunt Towers is outdoor swimming and by searching at Active Places (go to the Sports section of the gateway), a dull looking but jolly useful site, I was able to find two lidos near my home and of course the Serpentine near my work. And there’s proper link
Having taken some healthy exercise, obviously I’m up for some healthy food. Quite a choice here at the Home and Garden section of the Gateway. There’s not much in my fridge but opening the BBC Food pages and using the Recipe Search, I discover that I can turn my sad-looking courgette, onion and lump of stale cheese into a rather delicious-sounding Mediterranean pasta. There’s some useful videos demonstrating recipes, guides to cooking on a budget and for special dietary requirements and you can specify recipes by your favourite TV chef.
Lastly, having taken out an expensive gym membership, you are probably now vowing to finally get round to sorting out your personally finances. Probably your eyes glaze over at the words ‘insurance’ and ‘endowment’ but ‘received wisdom’ suggests we should all audit our finances occasionally and there’s plenty of help out there. You’ve probably come across Martin Lewis on tv or the radio, bouncing around giving advice and his website MoneySavingExpert (go to the Family and Personal section of the Gateway and scroll down to Personal Finance) is really jolly good. Lots of helpful stuff about finding cheap flights or changing your insurance or getting a new mortgage – frankly it’s worth checking it out every time you want to spend money. And there’s very useful advice there about what to do if financial problems are starting to get on top of you. Plus, the weekly email has all sorts of vouchers and tips about current bargains.
Wednesday, 30 December 2009
Playbills, pantomimes and patent medicines
As the festive season still has another week to run, my mind naturally turns to panto (‘Oh no, it does’nt’). And indeed the history of pantomime. One treasure trove of all matter Victorian, Christmassy and theatrical is the John Johnson Collection. You can browse by subjects – human freaks, minstrels, dioramas, flea-circuses or whatever else takes your fancy – or search by keyword. If you look for pantomimes, you’ll find literally hundreds of adverts, playbills, songsheets, newspaper cuttings and more. And it’s not just about entertainment – there are sections devoted to crime (‘Trial and execution of William Crouch, for the murder of his wife at Marylebone’) and advertising. Which of course is where the patent medicines come in. If only the NHS weren’t so hide-bound we could all be using Dr De Jongh's (Knight of the Order of Leopold of Belgium) light-brown cod liver oil, prescribed by the most eminent medical men throughout the world as the safest, speediest, and most effectual remedy for consumption, bronchitis, asthma, coughs, general debility, rheumatism, gout, neuralgia, diseases of the skin, rickets, infantile wasting, and all scrofulous affections and I’m sure we’d all be better for it.
The John Johnson Collection can be found at the Exclusive Resources page at http://www.westminster.gov.uk/services/libraries/247/exclusives/. Scroll down to Art. And if your interest has been aroused by any of the Wonderful Phantasmagoria or Terrible Crimes you’ve read about, you can always check The Times or Guardian (see the same page under Newspapers) for the real story (William Crouch was not just a murderer but a bigamist too and there was a lively argument in The Times letters page about whether he was insane or not).
The John Johnson Collection can be found at the Exclusive Resources page at http://www.westminster.gov.uk/services/libraries/247/exclusives/. Scroll down to Art. And if your interest has been aroused by any of the Wonderful Phantasmagoria or Terrible Crimes you’ve read about, you can always check The Times or Guardian (see the same page under Newspapers) for the real story (William Crouch was not just a murderer but a bigamist too and there was a lively argument in The Times letters page about whether he was insane or not).
Friday, 11 December 2009
Gender, genetic modification and guinea-pigs!
‘Have you got anything on gender issues?’ Or climate change or pornography or alcoholism or abortion or homelessness or gambling or any of the other hobbies Young People have nowadays? We’ve all had these questions from teenagers doing projects and we’ve all wandered over to the shelves hoping that all the books on animal rights aren’t out. Wouldn’t it be nice if there was a single site you could use for all your homework needs on these issues? Well now there is and, imaginatively it’s called Issues Online. Some of you may know the Issues series of books – useful A4 sized volumes full of excellent articles on subjects like euthanasia and global warming. Well, this is the online version and jolly useful it is too with topics ranging from one-parent families to cloning.
You can find it on the Gateway in the Society & Citizenship section and also on the Exclusive Resources page (http://www.westminster.gov.uk/services/libraries/247/exclusives) under Social Issues.
‘This is all very find and dandy but where are the guinea-pigs?’ I hear you cry! On the Westminster Advent Calendar (linked from the library homepage), that’s where. Click on the link for the 2nd of December and sit back and enjoy the legendary Guinea Pig Theatre’s moving adaptation of A Christmas Carol.
You can find it on the Gateway in the Society & Citizenship section and also on the Exclusive Resources page (http://www.westminster.gov.uk/services/libraries/247/exclusives) under Social Issues.
‘This is all very find and dandy but where are the guinea-pigs?’ I hear you cry! On the Westminster Advent Calendar (linked from the library homepage), that’s where. Click on the link for the 2nd of December and sit back and enjoy the legendary Guinea Pig Theatre’s moving adaptation of A Christmas Carol.
Friday, 2 October 2009
Bonfire of the library books
As you may know, Treasure Hunt Towers shares premises with Marylebone Library, and we’ve been helping the staff in the Information Service to build up a pile of books for a good bonfire. After all, what’s the point of them? They age faster than a superannuated Spice Girl, and the stuff in them is out of date before the ink is dry. As I splash the paraffin about, I’ll go through a few of them, explaining why they won’t be missed.Toss them on the pile
This is a good one – The Oxford English Dictionary, published before many of our readers were born, and updated with a few measly supplements. What sort of a way is that to keep up to date with the language? You’re far better off with the online version, which was last revised three weeks ago!
Here’s another multi-volume white elephant from Oxford, the Dictionary of National Biography. Nice to hold, well produced, I’ll give you that. But rather a lot of notable people have died since 2000, and some of us might have passed gently on waiting for the updates if it weren’t for the online version. This has admittedly not been updated since May – shock! horror! – but that was a pretty impressive update, with 87 new biographies (mostly of people who died in 2005), together with loads of corrections and additions.
We’ve been filling the smaller spaces on the bonfire with these one-volume dictionaries and handbooks – look, hundreds of them. No tears to be shed over any of them. Not only are they frequently updated online, they’re also collected together in mega-databases, like Credo Reference, Gale Virtual Reference and Oxford Reference Online. Which of course means that one search covers the lot. So you get quick service while we build up our flammable pile.
While we’re talking about reference books, these Encyclopedia Britannica volumes are bulking up the bonfire very nicely. Who will miss them? Where’s the multimedia? Where are the links and the slide-shows? Online of course. Now, what else shall we add to the blaze?
First-rate fuel
Things are really starting to hot up now. These old Grove Music and Grove Art tomes should really make our conflagration visible from space. Both of them have been made obsolete by – again – Oxford, who’ve renamed them Oxford Music and Oxford Art, and of course added lots more content and brought them bang up to date.
Don’t just stand there – pass me those Who’s Whos and that pile of newspapers. Then we’ll start on the directories. What? Oh yes, they’re all in KnowUK, so we can get rid of the lot. What else? Any more useless paper for our lovely, lovely bonfire?
[At this point, gentle reader, the author of the above words was led away, while the books were retrieved from the pile, rinsed of paraffin, and returned to the shelves, where they will be available for reference as soon as they have dried out. Rest assured that we recognise the continuing need for hard-copy as well as online sources of information, and we have no intention of allowing any bonfire of our books. Still, makes you think, doesn’t it?]
(Many of the links in the Gateway to websites are to Exclusive Resources for Westminster Libraries members. Outside a Westminster library, you will need to enter your library card number to get free access to the resource.)
No books were harmed in the composition of this message.
Friday, 11 September 2009
So a man comes to me...
…and he says he’s got a simple question about getting married to his girlfriend just round the corner at the register office. He popped in there but they’d looked at him funny and sent him to see me. What’s going on? Turns out his girlfriend is from South America, living in an EU country and doesn’t have a visa to visit the UK. After that, it gets complicated. Could I just sort it out for him?Questions beget questions
The obvious place to start is the Passports & Immigration part of the Home Office website, which directs you to a separate visas site, which starts to ask you questions. Don’t get mad – answer the questions, because then you start to get the facts relating to your particular case.
Firstly, you get a “yes” or “no” on whether you (or your girlfriend or whoever) needs a visa. If the answer’s “yes”, you are offered more information in the form of Frequently Asked Questions. If those three words make the blood run cold, give the website a chance. I thought that most of the questions were probably asked frequently, and they certainly included questions on the lips of my anxious enquirer.
I’m not saying it’s easy. This is a complicated area, and government departments have a fine tradition of making this sort of thing more complicated (see Dickens’ “Circumlocution Office”). The early government websites upheld this tradition, with the Home Office leading the way. They have got much better.
Persist, take a deep breath now and again, and deal with them on their own terms. If you are asked questions, try to answer them. If you take the view that all the information should be available without you showing your hand at all, you will defeat all their efforts to focus on your query and minimise the distractions.
Remember (he says, pedantically): there is no such thing as a general enquiry. At least, not if you want a useful answer. If the website tries to be specific, be grateful and give a little. And if you don’t quite like the answers you get, try a bit of reading around…
(From the Gateway to websites, select “Advice & help”. The Home Office’s Passports & Immigration pages are under “Immigration & nationality”.)
Take a CAB
My chum with the girlfriend problem had also visited the Citizens Advice Bureau, but they couldn’t see him because he had the wrong colour tee-shirt on and there was an “r” in the month. OK, it was some other set of reasons, but he got no joy. But the CAB Adviceguide is open to all, at any time. This website is updated regularly and is divided into four main sections, “your money”, “your family”, “your daily life” and “your rights”.
The advice you get will be impartial, with printable factsheets and pointers to sources of further advice.
Naturally neither the Home Office nor the CAB will tell you whether it’s a good idea to get married. For that you may turn to Mr Punch (“don’t”).
(From the Gateway to websites, select “Advice & help”. CAB Adviceguide is a Key Link.)
Tuesday, 1 September 2009
Clubs, cabals and captains of England
You know what it’s like: new people move in, and the first thing they do is change the colour of the front door. It happens to information databases too…
Magic ingredients
When the Oxford University Press took over the Dictionary of National Biography, renaming it the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (ODNB), they promised benefits galore: rewritten entries, many new entries and “added value” features. It was quickly apparent that they had delivered on the first two. Thousands of entries have been revised or completely rewritten, and the ones I’ve dipped into are mostly a pleasure to read, the dry-as-dust elements replaced by attractive prose. Hagiography is off the agenda: subjects come over as real people with good and bad aspects. Complete b*st*rds are dealt with as they deserve. But what of the bells and whistles?
The stand-out feature is the collection of “themes”. Each consists of an essay on a given theme, with links to the individual entries in the main Dictionary. There is a vast range of themes, starting (alphabetically) with the Aberdeen Philosophical Society (joke removed on grounds of racial harmony), and ending with Yorkists (not chocolate bar lovers – Yorkists supported the House of York against the House of Lancaster).
Apart from being often interesting in their own right, these themes are really useful if one or more of them chimes in with some research you are doing. Antarctic explorers, bluestockings, captains of England (cricket, naturally) – the range is wide and wonderful.
When I saw “Patrons of the Mermaid Tavern”, I had a look to see if they’d covered the distinguished denizens of my own local, but sadly not. Still writing the essay, I expect.
Roll up and try your luck
Another great piece of “added value” which Oxford have brought to the DNB is a terrifically versatile search function. The “people” search allows you to specify a name, obviously, but you can also find people alive or active between certain dates, or people born, educated, or buried at particular times or places. There are several more search criteria. Try it –it’s strangely addictive, like a sort of biographical fruit-machine.
(From the Gateway to websites, select “Biography”. The Oxford Dictionary of National Biography is a Key Link. This is an Exclusive Resource for Westminster Libraries members. Outside a Westminster library, you will need your card number to log in.)
Magic ingredients
When the Oxford University Press took over the Dictionary of National Biography, renaming it the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (ODNB), they promised benefits galore: rewritten entries, many new entries and “added value” features. It was quickly apparent that they had delivered on the first two. Thousands of entries have been revised or completely rewritten, and the ones I’ve dipped into are mostly a pleasure to read, the dry-as-dust elements replaced by attractive prose. Hagiography is off the agenda: subjects come over as real people with good and bad aspects. Complete b*st*rds are dealt with as they deserve. But what of the bells and whistles?
The stand-out feature is the collection of “themes”. Each consists of an essay on a given theme, with links to the individual entries in the main Dictionary. There is a vast range of themes, starting (alphabetically) with the Aberdeen Philosophical Society (joke removed on grounds of racial harmony), and ending with Yorkists (not chocolate bar lovers – Yorkists supported the House of York against the House of Lancaster).
Apart from being often interesting in their own right, these themes are really useful if one or more of them chimes in with some research you are doing. Antarctic explorers, bluestockings, captains of England (cricket, naturally) – the range is wide and wonderful.
When I saw “Patrons of the Mermaid Tavern”, I had a look to see if they’d covered the distinguished denizens of my own local, but sadly not. Still writing the essay, I expect.
Roll up and try your luck
Another great piece of “added value” which Oxford have brought to the DNB is a terrifically versatile search function. The “people” search allows you to specify a name, obviously, but you can also find people alive or active between certain dates, or people born, educated, or buried at particular times or places. There are several more search criteria. Try it –it’s strangely addictive, like a sort of biographical fruit-machine.
(From the Gateway to websites, select “Biography”. The Oxford Dictionary of National Biography is a Key Link. This is an Exclusive Resource for Westminster Libraries members. Outside a Westminster library, you will need your card number to log in.)
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