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Entry bubble Finding Information About Illnesses and Other Ailments Online

By: Jake | December 03, 2007 | Category: Health

My brother recently did a two week stint in the hospital because he had pancreatitis. He’s fine now, but it was quite a scare.

If you are like most of the people I have talked to (that aren’t doctors or nurses), you probably have never heard of pancreatitis. When I found out my brother had it I scoured the Internet to find out everything I could about it. I found two really good websites that provided insight on the ailment and ways to prevent future cases.

MedlinePlus has information on 740 different diseases and ailments and it is where I found the Pancreatitis link above. This is no surprise since MedlinePlus is maintained by the world’s largest medical health library, the U.S. National Library of Medicine.

I found out at MedlinePlus that there are two forms of pancreatitis, acute and chronic, and it can be triggered by alcoholism and diabetes. My brother had acute pancreatitis and his doctors said his pancreatitis was caused by diabetes, which he was unaware he had.

I know a lot about diabetes since I read Sam’s recent blog post. Still I was able to find more information about diabetes using HealthFinder.gov, a partnership of many federal agencies maintained by the Department of Health and Human Services. HealthFinder.gov focuses more on prevention than MedlinePlus and links to carefully selected information and Web sites from over 1,500 health-related organizations.

While the internet is not the only way to find health information, these two sites can cover a lot of ground for you. And as always the best health expert is your doctor.

| View Comments [0] | envelope E-mail This Entry | Tags: alcoholism   diabetes   health   hhs   library   medical   medicine   pancreatitis  

 

Entry bubble Library Benefits

By: Marybeth | November 27, 2007 | Category: General

I like the idea of having an in-home library with old, built-in bookshelves and rows of hard-bound books, but I don’t have the space, shelves, or books. My collection—if you can call it a collection—consists of tattered paperbacks stored in cardboard boxes.

Photo of library booksOther than reference materials, a few favorite books, and special editions that were gifts, I find that most books end up in storage boxes. So, driven by hopes of reducing clutter and saving money, I’ve gone back to the stacks.

It’s free and easy to sign up for a library card. You can find a library near you by entering your ZIP code in the Library Search box on USA.gov’s Government and Public Libraries page. From here, you can also access federal government libraries, presidential libraries, the Library of Congress’ Ask a Librarian, and more.

Library holdings vary, but in addition to paper books, music, and DVDs, some library systems offer eBooks and eAudiobooks, which you can download to your computer or portable device. If you need help doing research or navigating the catalog, talk to the library’s best resource—the librarian(s).

When I started using the library again, I figured I’d only stick with it if it ended up being convenient. It has been convenient, though I’ll admit that I’ve had to renew every set of books I’ve borrowed (and perhaps had to do a few renewals on a certain Tolstoy novel). Still, such transactions are easily managed online. Taking everything into account, it's been positive and I've ended up doing more than reducing clutter and saving a little money—I’ve made more time to read.

| View Comments [0] | envelope E-mail This Entry | Tags: books   clutter   librarian   library   money   reading  

 

Entry bubble Perfect Sound Forever

By: Jake | October 01, 2007 | Category: Fun

On Saturday I saw Thurston Moore perform his new solo album in Washington, D.C. Moore is better known for being the leader of Sonic Youth and I saw Sonic Youth perform their 1988 album “Daydream Nation” in July.

A 33 album playing on a record player

“Daydream Nation” is one of 225 recordings in the National Recording Registry of the Library of Congress. The National Recording Registry was created by the National Recording Preservation Act in 2000 “to maintain and preserve sound recordings and collections of sound recordings that are culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant.”

The National Recording Preservation Board chooses which recordings are to be submitted every year. They have chosen things you’d expect to see (or hear) such as the “I Have A Dream” speech by Martin Luther King Jr. and President Roosevelt’s address to Congress after Pearl Harbor and things you wouldn’t expect such as recordings of Asian Elephants by Katharine B. Payne and various popular rock, rap and country albums.

The coolest thing about this registry is that the board accepts recording nominations from the public year round. A recording has to be 10 years old and can’t be a video recording to be nominated. I looked over the list to see if there is anything “culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant” that I would nominate and found they really do have a lot covered. Most major historical events I thought of I witnessed on television so they’re not eligible.

Of course one major historical event they don’t have is the first Federal Citizen Information Center campaign “Happy Facts” from 1973, but I'm not too certain it would make the review board's cut. The government still uses radio and television campaigns, but has expanded to use podcasts and blogs to distribute information these days.

While historical event sound recordings were a challenge for me, I had no problem thinking of three albums to put on the list. Suggest your own sound recordings in the comment section so we can discuss them.

“Remain in Light”-Talking Heads (1980)
“Ride the Lightning”-Metallica (1984)
“Slanted and Enchanted”- Pavement (1992)

| View Comments [2] | envelope E-mail This Entry | Tags: congress   government   historical   history   information   library   music   preservation  

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