ASK! about Anything & Everything

Basically when you see a rainbow, what you are witnessing is the refraction of sunlight through water droplets. The colours occur because when sunlight passes through the droplets, it “divides” itself into a range of colours.

According to the National Center for Atmospheric Research
“the traditional rainbow is sunlight spread out into its spectrum of colors and diverted to the eye of the observer by water droplets”

“What makes the colors in the rainbow?
The traditional description of the rainbow is that it is made up of seven colors - red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, and violet. Actually, the rainbow is a whole continuum of colors from red to violet and even beyond the colors that the eye can see.

The colors of the rainbow arise from two basic facts:

Sunlight is made up of the whole range of colors that the eye can detect. The range of sunlight colors, when combined, looks white to the eye. This property of sunlight was first demonstrated by Sir Isaac Newton in 1666.
Light of different colors is refracted by different amounts when it passes from one medium (air, for example) into another (water or glass, for example). ”

A shadow is defined by the Merriam-Webster Online dictionary in this context as “1 : partial darkness or obscurity within a part of space from which rays from a source of light are cut off by an interposed opaque body”

As the rainbows are essentially visual phenomena caused by sunlight and water droplets, rather than a physical object that can block light, hence it would not cast a shadow as defined above.

The website provided above has more detailed information regarding rainbows.

In addition, this reference has a fairly straightforward explanation, with diagrams:
Department of Atmospheric Sciences, University of Illinois

The books specifically on rainbows in our library are mainly children’s titles, here are a few:

The rainbow and you written by E.C. Krupp ; illustrated by Robin Rector Krupp
Call No.: J 551.56 KRU
Click here for item availability.

All the colors of the rainbow by Allan Fowler
Call No.: JP 551.56 FOW
Click here for item availability.

Answered by Jillian Lim, Librarian, Adult and Young People’s Services

Found this question interesting? What do you think?
Post your comments, or send further questions about this or any other topic to ask@nlb.gov.sg

What is EBSCOHost?
EBSCOHost houses online research databases with abstracts and full-texts from magazines, academic journals, reference books, images and photographs, serving the information needs of students, working adults, professionals and researchers. The databases are updated on a daily basis.

What are some of the available databases in EBSCOHost?

Academic Search Premier contains full-texts, peer-reviewed titles and cited references from American Journal of Political Science, American Libraries, British Journal of Sociology, Contemporary Literature, International Journal of Psychology, and Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion, etc. in subject areas such as biology, chemistry, engineering, physics, religion, arts and sociology

Business Source Complete contains peer reviewed business-related journals in marketing, management, accounting, and finance.

CINAHL provides nursing and health journals, health care books, nursing dissertations, selected conference proceedings, standards of practice etc. Some of the available journals are: the AANA Journal, California Hospitals, Gastroenterology Nursing, Maternal and Child Health Journal, Paediatric Nursing, Parents.

EBSCO Animals provides indexes, abstracts or full-texts on a variety of topics relating to animals.

Novelist contains fiction reviews, recommendations, author read-alikes, biographies, book discussion guides etc.

Searchasaurus is a database designed for children.

How and where can I access EBSCOHost?
EBSCOHost can be accessed via the multimedia stations in NLB libraries. You need to register for a free digital library account and make pre-payment for the account using cashcard before you proceed to use the multimedia service. The service is charged at $0.03 per minute (or $1.80 per hour).

EBSCOHost can also be accessed from your home PC via NLB website. You still need a digital library account before you can log into the eDatabases. Citrix plugin is required.

ASK! about Pets & Animals

After reading Wild animals in Singapore, continue your reading journey with Protecting the Wild. Here are some books on wildlife conservation in our library collection. For more titles, you can search our library catalogue, using subject search such as “wildlife conservation” and “endangered species”.

Wildlife Protection by Yael Calhoun, series editor
Philadelphia, Pa.: Chelsea House Publishers, c2005
Call No.: Y 333.95416 WIL
Click here for item availability.

Endangered Species by Karin Vergoth and Christopher Lampton
New York: Franklin Watts, c1999
Call No.: Y 578.68 VER
Click here for item availability.

Endangered Species by Russell Roberts
San Diego, CA: Lucent Books, c1999
Call No.: Y 333.9522 ROB
Click here for item availability.

Saving Wildlife by Rufus Bellamy
London: Franklin Watts, c2004
Call No.: J 639.9 BEL
Click here for item availability.

Greenpeace: how a Group of Journalists, Ecologists and Visionaries Changed the World by Rex Weyler
[Emmaus, Pa.]: Rodale, c2004
Call No.: 363.7006 WEY
Click here for item availability.

Answered by Lim Li Sa, Librarian, Adult and Young People’s Services

Found this question interesting? What do you think?
Post your comments, or send further questions about this or any other topic to ask@nlb.gov.sg

ASK! about Pets & Animals

Upon checking with the Zoology Department from the Singapore Zoo:
the wild pig is the largest mammal found in Singapore. A wild pig can grow to be 1 to 2 metres long and weigh between 125 to 270 kilograms.
the crocodile is the largest reptile and can grow to be 1.5 and 7.5 metres long.
Heron is the tallest bird which stands at about 1 metre tall and despite its large size, it only weighs 0.5 to 1.5 kilograms.
(Source: Singapore Zoo and Encyclopedia of Animals via EBSCO Animals)

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ASK! about Anything & Everything

“This is a result of the preponderance of right-handed people, coupled with the tradition of ladies being dressed by a lady’s maid rather than dressing themselves. Men’s clothes are designed to be buttoned by the wearer and as such the button is on the right (from the point of view of the person wearing the garment) in order to benefit the right-handed majority when buttoning up. Women’s clothes have the button on the opposite side, making it easier for the person who is dressing the lady. Until the 20th century, no lady of any standing would have been expected to suffer the chore of dressing herself.”
Source: Shirt buttons - Questions answered - Letter - The Register, The Times, 23 May 2002, retrieved from Factiva database, last accessed 10 August 2006

“Some say this is done because many years ago women were dressed by their servant, slave, hand-maiden, or lady-in-waiting, and men usually dressed themsleves. In earlier days, women usually had their buttons in the back, that’s why they had to have someone button them up. This made it easier for both parties, since 90% people are right-handed it was easier to button a shirt if the button was on the right.”
Source: What Side Are The Buttons On?, last accessed 10 August 2006

“This goes back to the days of royalty and servants. A women’s servant would stand in front and button the women’s shirt for her. Buttons were put on the left to make this easier for the servant. Therefore, having the buttons on the left side of your shirt also indicated you were a women of means.”
Source: Why are the buttons on a women’s shirt on the left?, last accessed 10 August 2006

You can find more articles via Factiva Database, using search terms such as “shirts button”, “shirts button and opposite”, “button and opposite”.
Check out our Factiva Quickie on how to use the database.

Answered by Sharon Ong, Librarian, Adult and Young People’s Services

Found this question interesting? What do you think?
Post your comments, or send further questions about this or any other topic to ask@nlb.gov.sg

ASK! about Anything & Everything

“This is a result of the preponderance of right-handed people, coupled with the tradition of ladies being dressed by a lady’s maid rather than dressing themselves. Men’s clothes are designed to be buttoned by the wearer and as such the button is on the right (from the point of view of the person wearing the garment) in order to benefit the right-handed majority when buttoning up. Women’s clothes have the button on the opposite side, making it easier for the person who is dressing the lady. Until the 20th century, no lady of any standing would have been expected to suffer the chore of dressing herself.”
Source: Shirt buttons - Questions answered - Letter - The Register, The Times, 23 May 2002, retrieved from Factiva database, last accessed 10 August 2006

“Some say this is done because many years ago women were dressed by their servant, slave, hand-maiden, or lady-in-waiting, and men usually dressed themsleves. In earlier days, women usually had their buttons in the back, that’s why they had to have someone button them up. This made it easier for both parties, since 90% people are right-handed it was easier to button a shirt if the button was on the right.”
Source: What Side Are The Buttons On?, last accessed 10 August 2006

“This goes back to the days of royalty and servants. A women’s servant would stand in front and button the women’s shirt for her. Buttons were put on the left to make this easier for the servant. Therefore, having the buttons on the left side of your shirt also indicated you were a women of means.”
Source: Why are the buttons on a women’s shirt on the left?, last accessed 10 August 2006

You can find more articles via Factiva Database, using search terms such as “shirts button”, “shirts button and opposite”, “button and opposite”.
Check out our Factiva Quickie on how to use the database.

Answered by Sharon Ong, Librarian, Adult and Young People’s Services

Found this question interesting? What do you think?
Post your comments, or send further questions about this or any other topic to ask@nlb.gov.sg

ASK! about Anything & Everything

Here are a few sources which may suggest the answer:

1. The reason that clocks turn clockwise has to do with sundials, which were the first clocks. In the northern hemisphere, the earth rotates counter-clockwise, which means that from our point of view the sun appears to move across the sky in a clockwise direction. Therefore, if you build a sundial to tell time, the shadows will move across it in a clockwise direction. With mechanical clocks, you could of course make them go around either way, but the earliest ones were presumably designed to turn the same way the shadows on a sundial do, simply because that’s what people were used to.
Source: Curious about Astronomy, last accessed 22 August 2006

2. Clocks were invented in the Northern Hemisphere where the Sun goes ‘clockwise’ (left to right) across the sky. If clocks had been invented in the Southern Hemisphere, where the Sun goes from right to left across the sky, clocks would have 9 where 3 is and 3 where 9 is.
Source: SunShip 2006 , last acessed 22 August 2006

Answered by Michelle Kwok, Librarian, Adult and Young People’s Services

Found this question interesting? What do you think?
Post your comments, or send further questions about this or any other topic to ask@nlb.gov.sg

ASK! about Fiction

Questions:
I’d like to verify if the following account is true — where opposing forces hold a temporary truce on Christmas Day, and then resuming hosilities the day after. Could be during WWI or WWII (e.g. was there a similar passage in the book, “Band of Brothers”?)

I’m also looking for Fiction titles/ stories that has that same plot.

Answers:
Here are some online resources which I managed to find for you. According to the articles retrieved, the event where opposing forces hold a temporary truce on Christmas Day or commonly known as “Christmas Truce of 1914″ is true. It happened in 1914 during the World War I. You can try keyword search “christmas turce” on Google.

The Christmas Truce of 1914
“One of the most remarkable, and heavily mythologised, events concerns the ‘Christmas Truce’ of 1914, in which the soldiers of the Western Front laid down their arms on Christmas Day and met in No Man’s Land, exchanging food and cigarettes, as well as playing football. The cessation of violence was entirely unofficial and there had been no prior discussion: troops acted spontaneously from goodwill, not orders. Not only did this truce
actually happen, but the event was more widespread than commonly portrayed…” (The Frank Richards material comes from the December 2000 edition of BBC History Magazine)
Source: The Christmas Truce of 1914/ , last accessed 15 September 2006

The Christmas Truce
“The Christmas truce of 1914 really happened. It is as much a part of the historical texture of World War I as the gas clouds of Ypres or the Battle of the Somme or the Armistice of 1918. Yet it has often been dismissed as though it were merely a myth. Or, assuming anything of the kind occurred, it has been seen as a minor incident, blown up out of all proportion, natural fodder for sentimentalists and pacifists of later generations…” (The article is adapted from the book Christmas Truce by Malcolm Brown and Shirley Seaton)
Source: The Christmas Truce, last accessed 15 September 2006

You can also check out this book
Silent Night: the Remarkable Christmas Truce of 1914 by Stanley Weintraub
New York; London: Pocket, 2002
Call No.: 940.4144 WEI-[WAR]

Click here for item availability.

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ASK! about Travel

Here are some books about various aspects of Tibet. For more titles, you could try seaching our online catalogue. For more relevant searches, add in additional keywords. For example, if you are looking for books on Tibetan buddhism or religion, try the following keywords: [tibet religion] or [tibet buddhism]. For travel guides, they are shelved in the TRAVEL section, you can find guides on Tibet under the Call Number: 915.1504. Most travel guides also provide a brief writeup about the country’s people/culture/history etc.

A beginner’s guide to Tibetan Buddhism : notes from a practitioner’s journey by Bruce Newman
Ithaca, N.Y. : Snow Lion Publications, c2004
Call No.: 294.3923 NEW
Click here for item availability.

Monk dancers of Tibet, text and photographs by Matthieu Ricard ; translated by Charles Hastings
Boston, Mass. : Shambhala, 2003
Call No.: q294.3437 RIC
Click here for item availability.
Description: “In the midst of the devastation that has been wrought on their culture, the monk dancers in the Shechen monastery in Kathmandu, Nepal, are devoted to preserving the sacred dances central to the Tantric tradition of Tibetan Buddhism. The dances, which originated in India and flourished for centuries in Tibet, are teaching stories: each mask, costume, movement, and gesture has a specific significance and embodies the values of Buddhism.”

Sacred landscape and pilgrimage in Tibet : in search of the lost kingdom of Bon by Geshe Gelek Jinpa, Charles Ramble and Carroll Dunham ; photographs by Thomas L. Kelly
New York ; London : Abbeville Press, 2005
Call No.: q299.54 GEL
Click here for item availability.
Description: “Before Buddhism, there was Bön. This book is a fascinating journey, visually and spiritually, through western Tibet by a monk of the little-known Bön faith, who is searching for the lost, sacred Bön homeland of Zhangzhung. Including a DVD of the Pilgrimage.”

Origins of Tibetan culture illustrated by Feng Ge ; translated by Geraldine Goh
Singapore : Asiapac, 2002
Call No.: 398.209515 FEN
Click here for item availability.
Description: The black and white cartoons of the Asiapac Comic series continue to open many eyes to the personalities and ideas of Asia’s different countries. This slim book introduces Tibet and includes its legends, arts and lifestyle and also offers explanations for some rites and habits which may appear bizarre to the outsider.

Tibetan phrasebook by Sandup Tsering, Melvyn C. Goldstein
Hawthorn, Vic., Australia ; Oakland, CA, USA : Lonely Planet Publications, 1996
Call No.: 495.483421 SAN
Click here for item availability.

Tibet, Tibet : a personal history of a lost land by Patrick French
New York : Alfred A. Knopf, 2003
Call No.: 951.5 FRE
Click here for item availability.
Booklist review: “Prizewinning British author French does not allow his compassion for the long-suffering people of Tibet to cloud his sharp perceptions or derail his quest for facts and his commitment to telling the truth, however painful. And there is a great deal of pain in this finely woven blend of travelogue, reportage, and political analysis.”

Sky burial by Xinran ; translated by Julia Lovell & Esther Tyldesley
London : Vintage, 2005
Call No.: 915.150456 XIN -[TRA]
Click here for item availability.
Description: “In March 1958, a Chinese woman learns that her husband, an idealistic army doctor, has died whilst serving in Tibet. Determined to know what has happened to him, she sets off courageously to join his regiment. To her horror, instead of finding a Tibetan people welcoming their Chinese ‘liberators’, she walks into a bloody conflict, with the Chinese subject to terrifying attacks from Tibetan guerrillas. Before she can know her husband’s fate, she is taken hostage and embarks on a life-changing journey through the Tibetan countryside - a journey that will last twenty years and lead her to a deep appreciation of Tibetan culture in all its beauty and brutality.”

Tibet and China in the twenty-first century : non-violence Versus State Power by John Heath ; [foreword by HH The Dalai Lama]
London : Saqi, 2005
Call No.: 951.505 HEA
Click here for item availability.
Description: “John Heath’s overview lends perspective to this conflict through an impartial examination of the situation as it stands, as well as to how it has arrived at the present state of affairs.”

Web resources:
Official Website of the Central Tibetan Administration
BBC country profiles
Lonely Planet

All websites last accessed 19th Sep, 2006.

Answered by Jillian Lim, Librarian, Adult and Young People’s Services

Found this question interesting? What do you think?
Post your comments, or send further questions about this or any other topic to ask@nlb.gov.sg

[last updated Sep 25, 2006]
ASK! about Singapore

Images taken from Channel News Asia

1933 : Became a teacher at C. E. Z. M. S or Church of England Zenana Mission School (currently, St. Margaret’s school)

1935 : Transferred to St. Andrew’s Boy’s School, probably the only untrained teacher at that time.

1949 : Began a stint as an artist’s model, when she was 39 years old and was working in London. She posed for the famed sculptress, Dora Gordine, who did two works of her entitled Serene Jade and Flawless Crystal.

1950s : Returned to Singapore as Senior Assistant, or Deputy Principal at St Andrew’s School.

End 1953 - beginning 1954 : Conducted a lecture tour of Malaya in the US and Canada at the request of the Foreign Office in London. Prior to the tour, she took time to visit Malaya to get a better understanding of the country. At that time, it was in the throes of Emergency.

1956 - 1960 : Became the first principal of the Singapore School for the Blind.

1960 - 1974 : Returned to St Andrew’s Junior School and promoted to Deputy Principal in 1964.

Source: Singapore Infopedia

A timeline of the major achievements of Elizabeth Choy (entitled “An extraordinary life”) was published in the Straits Times on 16 Sep 2006. Access this article online using Factiva in the libraries.

Web resources:
Access to Archives Online: Search the National Archives for pictures, oral history interviews (you can view the transcipts by downloading a plug-in) and more
1943: The Double Tenth Massacre
Interviews Page 1 Page 2 Page 3
93.8 Radio interview
One blogger’s tribute
Another blogger’s tribute
Yesterday.sg

All websites last accessed on 16 Sep, 2006.

For books and newspaper articles on Elizabeth Choy, read on.

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