The Library of Congress offers tons of great primary source information on its website, linking to photographs, diaries, interviews, letters, pamphlets and more. Now the Library of Congress presents an interactive map of the U.S. with examples of primary source content for each state. Of course you can find a whole lot more primary sources at the LOC’s American Memory site.

Some examples from Wyoming include a Works Progress Administration poster of Yellowstone (above) and a street scene of early Laramie. Can you identify the buildings?

The JSTOR database unveils a new interface on April 4, 2008.

Some of the improvements:
- “My JSTOR” allows you to manage and store citations. With your My JSTOR account, you can save or email citations or send them to bibliographic software like Endnote.
- Limit searches by discipline or specific journal title.
- Try the new “search within results” to narrow your original search.

For more information on the JSTOR upgrade, visit their sandbox.

About once a semester or so, we share with our library searchers and researchers the latest innovations from Google.

New this month:
- Gmail’s custom time feature allows you to meet those missed deadlines.
- Google calendar offers wake-up alert options, no need for that pesky alarm clock!
- In libraries we talk a lot about the quest to categorize all human knowledge. Now Google turns its famed algorithm toward categorizing all human ignorance.
- Google Books aims to provide the real touch, feel and smell of the printed reading experience.

[via google blogoscoped]

Do you have big research questions? Or would you like some one-on-one time with a librarian to figure out your search strategy? Now you can Book a Librarian for some individual attention to your research needs.

Schedule time now and your paper will be perfect by midterms!

If you are a Facebook addict, the beginning of the semester is a great time to add some new Facebook apps that can aid your research.

JSTOR: Search the full text of over 117 humanities and social sciences journals. Note: to use the JSTOR app off-campus, you will need to set up a link to the UW Libraries proxy server. It will look like this http://proxy.uwlib.uwyo.edu/login?url=

WorldCat: Discover what the world’s libraries hold when you search the most comprehensive bibliography in existence. The WorldCat app links to fun features, allowing you to make booklists and find book recommendations.

[via tametheweb]

Every year, more works leave copyright and join the public domain for anyone to use and copy. This month the writings of J. M. Barrie, Jean de Brunhoff, H. P. Lovecraft, Maurice Ravel, and Edith Wharton all entered the public domain.

Interpretations of copyright and public domain can be complex and confusing, but one thing is certain. The public domain is chock full of great writings, many of which are available for free online.

You can find full text online of public domain works lots of places, including:

Google Book Search

Project Gutenberg

The Internet Archive

[via acrlblog, thanks to reader Kaijsa]

Flying over the holidays? Google just improved their flight status search results.

According to the Official Google Blog:

For the latest information on a flight’s status, simply search for an airline and flight number, and the first result will tell you whether your flight is on time or delayed as well as the estimated departure and arrival times. Here’s a quick example for a specific American Airlines flight:

Wishing you safe and happy travels!

[via Phil Bradley]

Interested in automatic notification of new articles by your favorite authors, in your favorite journals, on your research topics? EbscoHost databases just made it easier to subscribe to RSS updates for all of those searches. (For a quick refresher on making the most of RSS feeds and feed readers, click here.)

After you enter your search in an Ebsco database, you will see the following screen:

After you click on “create alert for this search” you will see the following screen which offers a link to the RSS feed and options to enable email delivery:

Questions about using RSS to automate your searches? We are happy to help you at the reference desk.