Scam Alert, Holiday Memories

If you’ve struggled to introduce students to electronic databases, you’ll appreciate the online board game The Defense of Hidgeon—the Plague Years. Created by Professor Karen Markey of the University of Michigan, it’s the first iteration of a project recently tested on 75 undergrads and designed to introduce them to the university’s 1,000 databases, via an engaging (and scary) look at the Black Death, Europe's 14th-century pandemic.

SLJ spoke with Markey, a professor in the School of Information, about the highs—and lows—of her prototype, which is featured on YouTube.com.

How does the game apply to high school students?

Its overall objective is to have students gain knowledge and depth in a real research topic. The topic we chose was the Black Death, which was actually a topic high school students would have liked much more than college students. One of the objectives was to have them navigate through what is written about the Black Death in a systematic way. And that systematic way was following a well-known model for library searching sometimes called the Library Search Strategy Model—piloted at Earlham College (Richmond, IN) back in the 1970s.  read more...

Scam alert: students with gift cards for purchasing online music should take note before they download. There are Web sites out there waiting to ensnare them.

The Center for Technology & Democracy (CDT), a Web watchdog group, has released a list of 30 Web sites that collect subscription or membership fees but do not appear to hold licenses for the rights to distribute the music they offer. That means consumers—many of whom are teens—who pay the fees may still be liable for legal repercussions.   read more...

Audiobooks have hit the big time as a recognized genre in children's literature: Not one but two American Library Association (ALA) divisions will jointly sponsor the first Odyssey Award for Excellence in Audiobook Production at ALA's mid-winter meeting this month in Philadelphia.

Cosponsors for the award are the Association for Library Service to Children (ALSC) and the Young Adult Library Services Association (YALSA), along with Booklist magazine.   read more...

Belly on up to the barre and dance away the dark days of winter with these fun and informative titles. From a leaping cow to a twirling mouse, each of the picture books clearly demonstrate the exuberance their characters feel when dancing, and Durkin’s guide to dancing is a must for schools that want to freshen up their classroom motion activities.

BEAUMONT, Karen. Baby Danced the Polka. illus. by Jennifer Plecas. Dial. 2004. Tr $12.99. pap. $24.95. ISBN 978-0-8037-2587-4.

Birth-PreS–Baby wants to boogie instead of nap, distracting his parents as they try to get chores done around their charming farmhouse. By day’s end, they can no longer resist his charms and join in the fun. Each spread features a fold-out flap revealing Baby’s dance partner, including a polka-dotted pig and a chocolate cow. The laminated pages will hold up to many readings.  read more...

The first Super Bowl took place on January 15, 1967—the Kansas City Chiefs vs. the Green Bay Packers. Do you know who won the game? How about who the MVP was, who sang the national anthem, or who provided the pregame and half-time entertainment? Do you know the game stats, or how many attendees there were? How about the other 41 Super Bowl games?

This great Web site created by the NFL contains tons of Super Bowl trivia—great for those kids who are into the game, as well as those who want to appear they know (or care) more about it than they actually do. Football fans will love all the sports stats, record summaries, and MVP bios. I personally like watching the ads more than the game, but I found the different Super Bowl logos, the list of entertainers who have performed, and the images of the 41 different Super Bowl rings and tickets pretty interesting. (By the way, Super Bowl 42 is on February 3, 2008—just in case you didn’t already know!)—Gail Junion-Metz

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