April 22 is the 50th anniversary of Earth Day! Earth Day 1970 marked the beginning of the environmental movement in the United States: By the end of 1970, the first Earth Day led to the creation of the United States Environmental Protection Agency and the passage of other first of their kind environmental laws, including…
News from the Research Desk - Page 9 of 16
Tinker with Your Car with Library Resources
If you're like me, you aren't driving a lot lately. I love cars and driving about in my comically small SmartCar. So I was thinking about finding activities to do with my car that don't involve driving in circles. Mount Prospect Public Library has two auto resources. One is Auto Repair Source. This is one…
Snow Peas and Radishes
Living here in the Midwest, an April day can be sunny and warm or cloudy and snowy--we have experienced lots of extremes in the past few weeks! But regardless of what's going on outside, you can start to get cool weather vegetable seeds in the ground. Snow peas, radishes, greens, and lettuce can all be…
National Geographic History
National Geographic History magazine is coming to our subscription of the National Geographic Virtual Library which contains every page of every issue ever of National Geographic & National Geographic Travel. As of the time of publishing this blog post, History is not yet part of the browse function but will show up in search results.…
Facial Recognition Activity
FamilySearch has a fun new feature as a part of their free family tree service. It uses facial recognition software to compare one face with another. Results vary depending upon quality of the picture, angle of the head, and age of the subjects, but it can help answer the question, "Do I actually resemble my…
Flour, Yeast and Time?
Flour, yeast, time AND water? You've got bread! It's a great time to experiment with no-knead breads--they take longer to rise, but do not require much hands on. Here's one basic technique: Mix 6 1/2 cups flour With 3 cups lukewarm (about 100 degrees) water, 1 1/2 T yeast and 1 T salt in a…
Last Call for Starting Tomato Plants
There's still time to start your warm weather vegetables for this season: tomatoes, peppers, eggplant, basil--they all need a head start before planting out in the garden. Seeds need to be planted in the next few days/week to be strong/big enough to set out in the garden by the mid/end of May. For detailed instructions,…
New Genealogy Television Show
Are you looking for ways to further your family history research? One of the best ways to do this is to learn how others are facing their genealogy challenges. Ancestry, the company which makes the online resource Ancestry.com available, has announced it is sponsoring a new television show debuting on NBC which features real people…
Time to Start Vegetable Gardening
Now that we are past the Vernal equinox, the sun is stronger and it's time to start planting/planning for the 2020 growing season. If you have pepper, tomato, eggplant or basil seeds, you should be starting them now to transplant outside in 6-8 weeks. Plant them in small containers/flats, a few seeds in each container/cell…
Free Photo Colorization from MyHeritage
Would you like see your family's black and white photographs in a new light? You may want to look into a service offered by the genealogy online resource MyHeritage. The company revolutionized the world of online genealogy web sites recently when the company announced that anyone could upload black-and-white photographs to MyHeritage.com and then the…
