Credo Reference Blog

This week: Airports

This week’s brainteaser is about airports.

1. Name the main airport serving London, situated west of London.

2. There is an airport and flying doctor base near Alice Springs in which country?

3. What was the former name of Kennedy International Airport in New York?

4. What is the name of the Scottish airport 2 miles NNE of Ayr?

5. At which Ugandan airport in 1976 were most of the hostages rescued who had been held aboard an Air France plane?

6. What is the name of the airport which was upgraded in the 1950s as a second London airport?

7. What is the name of Chicago’s international airport?

8. “MAD” is the airport code for which airport?

9. At which airport just outside Paris did Charles Lindbergh land after his historic nonstop flight from New York in 1927?

10. Name the airport in E Newfoundland which became a major North American terminal for flights to Europe.

Find the answers here.

Image “Airport diagram/sketch” from An Illustrated Dictionary of Aviation. See the image here.

Credo Reference is looking to hire a Senior Web Developer - check out the job description and requirements on our website: http://corp.credoreference.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=46&Itemid=64. Send any questions or applications to techjobs@credoreference.com.

Last week, we added 5 new titles to the Credo Reference General Reference Collection. Make sure you check out these new titles and add the MARC records to your catalog.

Encyclopedia of Women’s Autobiography, from ABC Clio. Women have been writing about their lives for hundreds of years, and their autobiographical works are a record of the eras and cultures in which they lived. Through alphabetically arranged entries (from Jane Addams through Zami: A New Spelling of My Name), written by more than 130 expert contributors, this encyclopedia overviews women autobiographers and autobiography from the Middle Ages to the present. Entries discuss individual writers, major works, national and ethnic autobiographical traditions, particular autobiographical genres, and special terms, issues, and themes related to women’s autobiography from around the world. Entries cite works for further reading, and the encyclopedia closes with a selected, general bibliography.

Women have been writing autobiographical works for centuries, and these texts are a valuable source of information about their lives and times. They reflect the personal experiences of their authors as well as the larger cultural, political, and intellectual contexts in which they lived and wrote. Multicultural in scope and the first work of its kind, this encyclopedia overviews more than 400 years of autobiographical writing by women.

Power and Succession in Arab Monarchies, from Lynne Rienner Publications. Power and Succession in Arab Monarchies provides an essential compendium of information regarding the politically charged issue of succession in Bahrain, Jordan, Kuwait, Morocco, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates.

Based on scarce source material and a wide range of inside information, this exhaustive reference:

* traces the rise of each ruling family
* outlines key constitutional developments
* provides details on current rulers and their approaches to succession
* discusses potential contenders to power

The appendixes supply a chronological list of rulers for each monarchy, as well as the text of decrees, private letters, and constitutional provisions related to succession.

The Praeger Handbook of Latino Education in the U.S., from ABC Clio. Latinos in the United States have fought hard to attain equality, especially in the field of education. The Praeger Handbook of Latino Education in the U.S. focuses on this fight for equal educational access and represents a significant addition to American educational literature. The contributors to this volume reveal that many Latino children still face challenges that were present many decades ago. In addition to such obstacles as cultural conflicts and racism, they also face teachers, curricula, and assessments that are not always respectful to their backgrounds.

Educators, parents, policy makers, and communities across the country will find this work a goldmine of detailed historical and current information.

Encyclopedia of Women’s Health, from Springer. Women’s health is a multifaceted subject, and the up-to-date reference book requires considerable social awareness in addition to wide-ranging clinical knowledge. The Encyclopedia of Women’s Health meets this challenge by bringing together an impressive array of experts on topics from reproductive issues to gastrointestinal illnesses. Informed by current health issues and health-care realities, the Encyclopedia offers readers practical information, historical aspects, and future directions, all meticulously researched and conveniently presented.

Key features include:

* Accessible A-to-Z coverage, including AIDS, birth control, hormone replacement therapy, teen pregnancy, sexual harassment, violence, body image, access to health care and more.
* Entries spanning the medical, psychological, sociocultural, spiritual, and legal arenas.
* Medical topics explored from both conventional and complementary perspectives.
* Cross-cultural data illustrate issues as they apply to minority women, rural women, the elderly, and other underserved populations.
* Special chapters on disparities in women’s health and health care.
* Historical overview of women in health - as patients and as professionals.
* Suggested readings and resource lists.

Encyclopedia of Sex and Gender, from Springer. The central aim of this encyclopedia is to give the reader a comparative perspective on issues involving conceptions of gender, gender differences, gender roles, relationships between the genders, and sexuality.

The combination of topical overviews and varying cultural portraits is what makes this encyclopedia a unique reference work for students, researchers and teachers interested in gender studies and cross-cultural variation in sex and gender.

This week: One to Ten

Our brainteasers always have ten questions, but this quiz is about the numbers from one to ten. Each question or answer includes one of those numbers - but they are not in numerical order in the questions.

1. What number in Downing Street is the residence of the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom?

2. What is a “one-horse town”?

3. A horizontal figure of which number is the symbol for infinity in mathematics?

4. A tetrahedron is a solid figure with how many triangular faces?

5. The ancient city of Rome was built on or about how many hills?

6. A dyad is a social relationship involving how many participants?

7. In cricket, how many runs are scored by a hit which makes the ball clear the boundary without touching the ground?

8. The Three Kingdoms is a period from 220 to 581 in the history of which country?

9. In the song about the twelve days of Christmas, how many drummers were drumming?

10. “The Five” was a group of Russian composers who joined together in about 1875 to create a Russian national music. Name three of these composers.

Find the answers here.

Credo Reference, the award winning online reference library, has signed an agreement to include National Gallery images and information in the Credo General Reference Collection.

Credo has licensed high resolution images of the paintings of the National Gallery, London. Students and library patrons will now be able to find the beautiful images of these national treasures whenever they search their library’s online resources.  In addition to the images, Credo will include the National Gallery Companion Guide, If the Paintings Could Talk… and the National Gallery Visitor’s Guide to complement the images and provide descriptive information about the artists and their works.  Credo has also licensed two Pocket Guides to enable researchers to further understand artistic themes:  Myths & Legends and Narrative.

The National Gallery images will be featured in all relevant searches in Credo.  Users will be able to follow their research into Credo’s other valuable reference content or visit the National Gallery website which feature a wealth of resources, from a virtual tour to explanation of artistic movements and a full glossary.

John Dove, President of Credo said “We are proud to be able to incorporate such an esteemed collection of images into Credo.  We hope that by making these paintings more visible to library users, they will be encouraged to not only visit the National Gallery’s own web resources, but to visit these national treasures in person at the Gallery in London.”

“Incorporating our paintings into Credo Reference enables the National Gallery collection to become much more widely accessible”, said Louise Rice of the National Gallery. “There are many people who are unfamiliar with these works and taking them into the library environment will mean that many more people will be able to see and understand such important paintings as works by Leonardo, Rembrandt, Constable and Cézanne – the list goes on. We hope that this sparks new interest in art amongst people who had perhaps not thought about it before. ”

About The National Gallery, London
The National Gallery, London houses the national collection of Western European painting from the 13th to the 19th centuries. The Collection is on show 361 days a year, free of charge. The Gallery aims to study and care for the Collection, while encouraging the widest possible access to the pictures. It provides lectures, courses and workshops as well as research into the paintings and their preservation.  For further information visit: www.nationalgallery.org.uk.

The 2010 ALA Midwinter Meeting was in Credo’s hometown of Boston earlier this month, and we were thrilled to have this gathering of librarians, vendors and ideas in our own backyard. Having the conference here meant that many Credo staff could attend and we all took away some great ideas, interactions and memories.

Product Manager Nancy King attended LITA’s semi-annual Top Technology Trends discussion Sunday morning. The five forward-looking librarians on the panel started with a discussion of trends like mobile technologies, augmented reality, user experience and discovery systems. The second half of the session focused on the reinvention of the book. To get the discussion started, Gregg Silvis, the moderator, held up a Rocket eBook reader from 1998 and a Kindle. (The two devices look surprisingly similar – see a photo of the Rocket eBook here.) For more on the discussion, see Library Journal’s write-up at http://www.libraryjournal.com/article/CA6715484.html?industryid=49157.

CEO Mike Sweet enjoyed the presentation by Carrie Page of EDUCAUSE. Her work centers on the Net Gen Learner, and she focused on what the library community needs to do to make sure we stay in touch with this demographic. EDUCAUSE is clearly thinking about the challenges we face in the right way and we would do well to pay close attention to the implications of their research.

President John Dove and others from Credo attended the Independent Reference Publishers Group Meeting, hosted by CHOICE, on Friday afternoon. The meeting brought together a panel of librarians who provided the group with detailed accounts of where they turn when evaluating or sourcing reference works. Among the questions the panel answered was which types of reference works still work better in print than they do in electronic form? Credo Reference handles a broad array of reference content types, but it is always helpful to know that there is still work ahead of us to continue our work of re-inventing reference online.

Many of us spent time in the Credo booth and enjoyed hearing from our enthusiastic subscribers as well as meeting and talking with potential customers.

Our exhibit allowed us the opportunity to introduce our newest initiatives – Topic Pages and Publisher Collections. Topic Pages are our new approach to organizing information resources and are designed to provide contextualized, orderly access to authoritative content from the library as well as the open web. Publisher Collections are available now – read about our Sage, IGI-Global and CABI collections — and Topic Pages and will be available later this spring.

A highlight of the weekend was our event Sunday night to celebrate the launch of Credo Topic Pages and Publisher Collections. Joining us were many customers, publishers, partners and friends. Mike Sweet took a few minutes to welcome everyone and introduce our newest initiatives . It was an evening of great conversation with friends new and old and an opportunity to enjoy the beautiful views from the SkyWalk at the Prudential Tower.

Credo’s final ALAMW event was our presentation at the Technology Showcase Monday afternoon. Al Stevens, Credo CTO, spoke about our approach to the presentation of related content, focusing on our use of semantic information in the development of our Topic Pages.

It was a full and rewarding weekend and we look forward to meeting and talking with you all again at ALA Annual in June in Washington D.C.

This week: Winter

Britain and parts of the United States have been suffering a severe winter. Try to answer these questions, each of which is about winter or has an answer that includes the word “winter”.

1. What is the title of Shakespeare’s play about Leontes, who is married to Hermione and becomes consumed by an insane jealousy?

2. In the Northern Hemisphere, is the winter solstice in November, December or January?

3. Name one of the two US brothers surnamed “Winter”: one a rock musician born in 1946; the other a rhythm and blues guitarist born in 1944.

4. Were the first separate, self-contained Winter Olympic Games held in 1904, 1914 or 1924?

5. Which poet wrote the line “If Winter comes, can Spring be far behind”? Was it Keats, Shelley or Wordsworth?

6. Name one of the two countries which fought the “Winter War” during the 1939-40 winter.

7. Is “Winter’ the first or last of the four violin concertos by Vivaldi called “The Four Seasons”?

8. What was the first name of the man whose first marriage was to Rebecca de Winter, the eponymous character in Daphne Du Maurier’s 1938 novel “Rebecca”?

9. In which Russian city was the Winter Palace, the former Russian imperial residence which was stormed by the Bolsheviks in November 1917?

10. Which composer wrote a song cycle called “Winter Words” based on poems by Thomas Hardy?

Find the answers here.

Image “Winter”, by Jacob Grimmer. Find it on Credo Reference: http://www.credoreference.com/entry/bridgeart/winter/7

Credo Reference, the award winning online reference library, recently signed an agreement to integrate a key glossary of computing from BCS, The Chartered Institute for IT into the Credo General Reference collection.

The BCS Glossary of Computing and ICT is an international bestselling guide to computer terms. Now in its 12th edition, and containing over 3,000 terms arranged by theme and defined in context, the Glossary is fully indexed and cross-referenced throughout.

“We’re very pleased to integrate this bestselling guide into Credo Reference”, said Elaine Boyes, Head of Publishing at BCS. “Credo’s unique technology is particularly well suited to this sort of title, where look-up capabilities and cross referencing are so valuable. It is a testament to the wide range of interests and substantial expertise of our members who are at the forefront of enabling the information society and the IT profession that the Institute has been able to contribute in this way. We are delighted that this resource will be included in a dynamic and intuitive online resource.”

John Dove, President of Credo Reference said, “We are delighted that BCS has chosen to add this great computing glossary to Credo’s platform. This title will add depth and clarity to our computing coverage, and breadth to Credo’s content in general, which currently contains over three million cross-searchable entries from over 70 publishers.”

About BCS
BCS, the Chartered Institute for IT, promotes wider social and economic progress through the advancement of information technology science and practice. It brings together industry, academics, practitioners and government to share knowledge, promote new thinking, inform the design of new curricula, shape public policy and inform the public. It serves over 70,000 members including practitioners, businesses, academics and students, in the UK and internationally, and publishes a range of books and journals for practitioners and employees. See: www.bcs.org

Credo Reference, the award-winning online reference library, has signed an agreement with Hodder Education to incorporate three major subject references into the Credo collection. These will be the first Hodder Education titles licensed to Credo.

Hodder Education publishes for the educational market at all levels. It is the second largest publisher for secondary and further education in the UK and is also a major publisher of higher education and health sciences textbooks and reference works. The three titles that will be added to Credo Reference’s collection of over 440 titles are:

• The Essentials of Global Politics
• The Essentials of Philosophy and Ethics
• Encyclopaedic Dictionary of Psychology

Philip Shaw, Director Tertiary and Health Sciences, Hodder Education said, “We are really pleased to incorporate these resources into the Credo Reference platform. Credo has some truly innovative technology that will enhance the use of these reference works for students and researchers internationally.”

“We’re thrilled to be adding another prestigious UK publisher to our collection. These resources will enhance our offering in the political, philosophy and psychology areas a great deal,” added John Dove, President of Credo Reference. “Credo is very careful about the titles we choose to incorporate into our resource to ensure quality and balance. These Hodder titles are a perfect fit and bring us ever closer to creating the ultimate fully functional subject encyclopaedias in these disciplines.”

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About Hodder
The Hodder Education Group is part of Hachette Livre UK the largest and one of the most diversified book publishers in the UK. Formerly known as Hodder Arnold, the Group was formed after the merger of Hodder & Stoughton Educational with Arnold Publishers in 2001, and the subsequent acquisitions of the John Murray educational lists and Robert Gibson in 2002, Philip Allan Updates in 2005 and Chambers Harrap in 2006. See www.hoddereducation.co.uk

This week: Where?

This brainteaser asks where particular places or things can be found. But beware! You may find some of the questions are not as

straightforward as you might think.

1. Where is Ayers Rock or Uluru?

2. Where are the Urals?

3. Where is Guantanamo Bay?

4. Where is the Auteuil viaduct?

5. Where would you find a Plimsoll line?

6. Where would you find Gozo and Comino?

7. Where would you find Virginia Plain?

8. Where is the metatarsus?

9. Where is the Mare Orientale?

10. Where are the Islets (or Islands) of Langerhans?

Find the answers here.