Saturday, February 11, 2006

Cheapest Fare to Anywhere--FareCompare with Google Maps

With this week's winter weather came news about FareCompare.com. FareCompare has integrated Google Maps with airline fares to provide both comparison charts and a map pinpointing the cheapest flights from New York (or other departure city) to anywhere but here. Starting from the home page, select a city for your departure and destination to bring up a comparison chart of fares across airlines. Then select “My Airport Map” (left frame) to view a Google map with cheapest fares marked for cities across the country, including the highlighted cheapest-of-all destination. Thanks to Google Maps functionality, you can even zoom in to focus on a particular region, such as southern Florida. Or start your search from the “My Airport Map” page by entering another departure city. Wherever you start and end your search, FareCompare provides a visually integrated view of flight costs for planning your next getaway.

Ernster, the Virtual Library Cat

Friday, February 10, 2006

Discuss . . .

I love surfing the web and reporting the neat sites I find. But, I really want to hear from you. What are you researching, what issues have you spotted in the Library, what 21st Century Library workshops would you like to see??? - Let me know by posting a comment. I will respond to all.

Ernster, the Virtual Library Cat

Thursday, February 09, 2006

International Trade: The GATT Digital Library

Those who are interested in the subject of international trade and its history will find the following to be a valuable resource. The GATT Digital Library is a project of Stanford University Libraries, Academic Information Resources, and the World Trade Organization. This digital library offers more than 30,000 public documents and 300 publications of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT). GATT produced almost 60,000 documents during the years of its existence (1947-1994). Not every document has been derestricted, but additional documents will appear as they become available.

The public documents include reports, studies, and meeting records that represent a range of subjects relevant to international trade. Each document has a unique symbol number. Users may search for documents by symbol number, title word, date, full-text keyword, or specific GATT body. Those who wish to browse the library will find the documents organized by the issuing body.

Ernster, the Virtual Library Cat

Wednesday, February 08, 2006

Please "Bus your Trash"

Just a reminder today. While you are welcome to bring drinks into the Library, please either take them out with you or throw away the empty cups in the trash. Do you think we need more trash receptacles in the Library? Let know where you would find them most useful. Thanks.

Ernster, the Virtual Library Cat

Tuesday, February 07, 2006

78th Annual Academy Awards: March 5, 2006

Which films are the final nominees? Which were nominated? How many of the films do you even recognize? The official web site for the Oscar's tells you all you need to know. See clips from the films, test your knowledge of Oscar history, view the styles worn by the stars changing over the years, and more. How many of you think the quality of the Oscar evening depends on the host (Jon Stewart)? Even if you have no plans to watch, you can still know all about it.

Ernster, the Virtual Library Cat

Monday, February 06, 2006

FirstGov Search

FirstGov is the U.S. Government's official web portal. It provides online information, services and resources through both government and other Internet sites. Because of its huge size, searching it had been an issue. Recently, the government granted Vivisimo, the owner of the Clusty search engine, a contract to provide the search engine for FirstGov. You can search from either FirstGov's main page or from its search page. There have been many improvements to the search functionality of this site including clustering of results and a much bigger database. To read much more about this new search engine and the wonderful improvements see Gary Price's article in Search Engine Watch.

Ernster, the Virtual Library Cat

Sunday, February 05, 2006

Super Bowl Ads

It is about 10 minutes to kick off in my world...
For those who like the big league (read big $) commercials as much as the game, seeing them once is never enough. Yahoo!Video, through a partnership with iFilms will be posting the ads to the Yahoo!Video homepage shortly after they air. This is also the place to catch a replay of past Super Bowl favorites. Everything from the 2004 Budweiser commercial of the donkey who wanted to be a Clydesdale to the classic Macintosh 1984 . May your favorite team win!
Ernster, the Virtual Library Cat