Grant for Community College Librarianship

No one involved with a community college can question their importance to the community.

And what good is a community college without a healthy library supporting the educational needs of the community? If you think you would like to work in a community college library, Mrs. Kim has contributed the following information.

NILRC has a grant opportunity for those folks interesting in becoming community college librarians. The grant is for the education of 20 masters students at the Graduate School of Libraries and Information Sciences at University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and a paid six month internship at a community college in Illinois.

If you would like more information about this opportunity visit http://www.nilrc.org/Introduction.htm

Religion Newswriters Online Library

It it a rough time for the word "religion". For some folks it is right up there with the "F-Word". What? I was going with "faith." What were you thinking?

How do you find information about the various faith based systems. Well for writers and journalists (and info junkies of all permutations) you might want to visit the Religious Newswriters Associations Online Library.

Two items of interest that you might want to put in your tool kit. First, on the right side of the screen is a link to a Adobe PDF book about writing on religion.

It is a 53 page primer on how to find reliable experts, the worlds largest believe systems and information about the three main groups in America. It is a good tutorial on faith based systems and how to locate solid sources.

Second, there is a meta - listing of various religious organizations links. For example if you or a patron was looking for information about religion and ethics as it pertains to medicine there is a link to the Center on Biomedic Ethics from the University of Virginia. Contrast that link with the Stanford Center for Biomedical Ethics.

Definitely worth a visit http://www.rna.org/library.php

I'm sure I've mentioned it before but just in case you also want to visit Beliefnet at http://www.beliefnet.com They have an extensive collection of reports about faith systems, opinions, articles and using the prism of religion to view the contemporary world.

For research, I'd start at Beliefnet but for tips and suggestions on how to find people or books I'd check out the primer at RNA.

Psst... if you just need to know what "Jainism" means then visit the Religion Style Book, click the letter J and get the strait skivvy.

Fact Check.Org - Truth vs. Facts

Fact Check.org is a nonprofit, nonpolitical resource for citizens that have learned to verify before trusting anything from a political, corporate or public resource.

Funded by the Annenberg Center on Public Policy and located at the University of Pennsylvania, Fact Check.org evaluates the truthfulness of statements made by politicians, advocacy groups (both politically left and right) and other organizations that use the media to advance their message. It accepts no monitary donations.

On the day that I visited there was an explanation that a false e-mail is being circulated that members of Congress don't pay Social Security taxes. The site provides the documentation to validate that members of Congress do indeed pay Social Security taxes and can received benefits.

Another section deals with the claim that the Republicans created the Department of Homeland Security when in fact the White House resisted the departments creation. Again there is documentation to support that fact.

The Democrates do not get off easy either, they ran an web video that associated terrorism with undocumented workers. The video has since been removed.

With the political season about to begin this site is a necessary resource.
http://factcheck.org