If you believed it, then you’ve been hoodwinked by that bogus website.

And you might not be alone.

On the 1st of September 2008, The Straits Times published the results of their media literacy test for 35 local teenagers aged from 13 to 19 (article titled “Teen Surfers prey to Web of Deception”)*.

These students were asked to access the “Tree Octopus” website and rate the information within for its credibility.

There was cause for worry.

Out of 35 students, 34 of them rated the website’s information as credible, factual, and well-supported. They believed that such a creature actually existed!

The spoof site was set up as an online hoax back in 1998 but has since now been used by various institutions to test Internet Literacy.

As reported by Straits Times, “the website yielded similar results among youngsters in Connecticut, in the United States, when it was used by University of Connecticut’s Neag School of Education to test levels of online literacy. There, all the 25 seventh-graders - 12 to 13 years old - tested in one study rated the website as very credible”

In this digital age where the Internet reigns, how does one sift through the sea of Information in the online world to find what he/she is looking for? More importantly, to sift through the sea of information for CREDIBLE and AUTHORITATIVE information?

This is where librarians could help.

The librarians in the public libraries regularly conducts Information Literacy workshops for students and adults. 

Those workshops can be customised for schools and are offered free (for hands-on courses, check out the NLBA website). We share with participants tips on evaluating print and online resources, sources for authoritative information, basic seearch techniques.

Alternatively, you can always ASK! a librarian to help verify the information that you’ve found.

Image was extracted from http://zapatopi.net/treeoctopus/sightings.html  on 2 Sep 2008.

*To retrieve the newspaper article, you can access the electronic database Factiva at terminals in NLB Library branches or also remotely from home. (Select the header “eResources” and the option “eDatabases”)

If you have any enquiries or comments, please drop us an email at ask@nlb.gov.sg and we will reply within 3 working days.

Posted by
Mr Justin Tan
Librarian
Adult and Young People’s Services

Description
Its exact source remains unknown. It is believed that the spring’s origin may be north-west of its actual location, possibly at Bukit Timah. Hot springs are formed when groundwater comes into contact with solid igneous rocks. Upon entering the earth’s crust a good 3 km underground, the water is heated up to high temperatures by the hot rock masses. The temperature ranges between 100 and 150 deg C. Consequently, the high pressure causes the water to seep upwards through cracks, thereby forcing itself out of ground into a 6 m spring. At this point, the temperature of the water drops to 70 deg C.Tested by PSB Corporation and SGS Testing & Control Services, the spring water was found to contain 420 mg of chloride per litre, an amount which is evidently higher than the 35 mg to 100 mg in the water from Choa Chu Kang and Bedok waterworks. The samples of the spring water also prove that the sulphide content is three times more than tap water. It is the presence of these minerals that has enticed thousands to the hot spring, in a search for cures for ailments like rheumatism and arthritis, as well as skin conditions like acne and psoriasis. However, medical authorities remain sceptical about the healing powers of the spring water.

(Source:  http://infopedia.nl.sg/articles/SIP_580_2005-01-24.html)

    Contributed by Hwee Chen, Librarian, Adults and Young People’s Services

 Posted by Kweh Soon Huat, Librarian, Adults and Young People’s Services.

According to scientists, a bird that weighs more than 18kg will not be able to fly since it could not have enough muscles to carry it off the ground. Since ostriches are very heavy, weighing up to 150kg, they can only stay on the ground.

Do not worry though, because an ostrich can still get away from its enemies. With its two-toed leg, it can run up to 72km/hr – even faster than lions. It can also defend itself with its sharp and heavy claws.
Source: Miller, S. S. (2001). Bizarre Birds. New York: F. Watts.

For more information, here are some recommended library books on bizarre birds and birds in general:

Bizarre birds by Sara Swan Miller
Publisher: New York: F. Watts, c2001
Summary: Discusses several species of birds that have unusual appearances, habitats, or behavior, such as the ostrich, jacana, and toucan.
Call No.: J 598 MIL

The bird class by Rebecca Stefoff.
Publisher: Tarrytown, N.Y. : Marshall Cavendish Benchmark, c2008
Summary: Explores the habitats, life cycles, and other characteristics of organisms in the bird class.
Call No.: J 598 STE

Ostrich : the world’s biggest bird by Natalie Lunis
Publisher: New York : Bearport Pub., c2007.
Summary: Examines the life of an ostrich, including how it escapes from danger, what it eats, where it lives, and how it raises its young.
Call No.: J P 598.5 LUN

Ostriches by William John Ripple
Publisher: Mankato, Minn. : Capstone Press, c2005
Call No.: J P 598.5 RIP

The Usborne little book of birds by Sarah Khan
Publisher: London : Usborne, 2008
Call No.: J 598 KHA

All websites were last accessed on 1 September 2008. Please check the websites’ homepages for the terms and conditions of use. All book summaries were taken from the book descriptions. All images were extracted from www.amazon.com and www.bn.com.

For the availability of the above book titles, please check the library catalogue.

Answered by Mr Lim Sieu Pin
Children’s Librarian
Children’s Services

Posted by Ms Elizabeth Lee
Children’s Librarian
Children’s Services

Found this post interesting? What do you think? Post your comments.If you have a different question, please email to ask@nlb.gov.sg instead of sending a comment.

Back in my school days, whenever a kid turned up for school wearing sunglasses, we knew immediately to avoid that person. Whispers and rumours were spread that we should not look at that kid’s eyes for any reason and avoid all contact as well. Even one quick glance into his or her eyes would assure anyone of being in the same boat with the poor kid.

So, is this medical condition, conjunctivitis, commonly known as pink eye, really spread from human to human, with just one rapid look into the infected eye?

“A child can get pinkeye by touching an infected person or something an infected person has touched, such as a used tissue. In the summertime, pinkeye can spread when kids swim in contaminated water or share contaminated towels. It also can be spread through coughing and sneezing. Doctors usually recommend keeping kids diagnosed with contagious conjunctivitis out of school, day care, or summer camp for a short time.

Someone who has pinkeye in one eye can also inadvertently spread it to the other eye by touching the infected eye, then touching the other one.”
Source: (2007, January). Pinkeye (Conjunctivitis). Retrieved September 1, 2008, from KidsHealth Web site: http://kidshealth.org/parent/infections/
bacterial_viral/conjunctivitis.html

So, as long as there’s no direct contact with the infected eye, water droplets or nasal fluids, spreading of the pinkeye condition will not occur.

For more information, here are some recommended library books on eyes:

Sight by Mandy Suhr
Publisher: London : Wayland, 2007
Call No.: J P 612.8 SUH

Eyes : injury, illness and health by Carol Ballard
Publisher: Oxford : Heinemann Library, c2003
Call No.: Y 612.84 BAL

Why do my eyes itch? and other questions about allergies by Angela Royston.
Publisher: Oxford : Heinemann Library, 2002
Call No.: J 612.8 ROY

Eyes and ears by Seymour Simon
Publisher: New York : HarperCollins Publishers, c2003
Summary: Describes the anatomy of the eye and ear, how those organs function and some ways in which they may malfunction, and how the brain is also involved in our seeing and hearing.
Call No.: J 612.8 SIM

All websites were last accessed on 1 September 2008. Please check the websites’ homepages for the terms and conditions of use. All book summaries were taken from the book descriptions. All images were extracted from www.amazon.com and www.bn.com.

For the availability of the above book titles, please check the library catalogue.

Answered and posted by Ms Elizabeth Lee
Children’s Librarian
Children’s Services

Found this post interesting? What do you think? Post your comments.If you have a different question, please email to ask@nlb.gov.sg instead of sending a comment.

NLB’s annual Teen Signature Program is back, and it’s inviting all teens between the ages of 13-17 to participate.

For more information about the program, go to Y.O! blog

 Posted by Yen Yen Toh, Librarian, Adult and Young People’s Services

If you have a different question, please email to ask@nlb.gov.sg instead of sending a comment

There are billions of galaxies in the universe! Each galaxy consists of stars, gas and dust held together by gravity. The galaxy that we are living in is called the Milky Way and it is just one of the billions of galaxies in the universe.

Scientists have predicted that our galaxy, the Milky Way, has about 400 billion stars. Therefore, our solar system is only a tiny part of the Milky Way.

Just imagine - if you are given a chance to travel beyond the Milky Way, how does our Milky Way look like? It will probably look like a gigantic pinwheel with a bright center and a thin disk of stars spiraling outward. Our solar system will only look like a tiny, almost invisible speck.

Source: Berry, R. (2008). Milky Way. The New Book of Knowledge®. Retrieved August 26, 2008, from Grolier Online http://nbk.grolier.com/cgi-bin/article?assetid=a2019280-h

Read more about galaxies and the Milky Way:

The Milky Way and other galaxies by Dana Meachen Rau
Call Number: J 523.1 RAU

Earth’s journey through space by Trudy E. Bell
Call Number: Y 525 BEL

Space by Alan Dyer
Call Number: J 520 DYE

Astronomy: every galaxy has a black hole by Bryson Gore
Call Number: J 520 GOR

Galaxies by Dan Elish
Call Number: J 523.1 ELI

For the availability of the above book titles, please check the library catalogue. 

All websites were last accessed on 26 August 2008. All images were extracted from www.bn.com.

Originally answered by Azizah Osman, Librarian, Children’s Services.

Posted by Adeline Tan, Librarian, Children’s Services.

 Found this post interesting? What do you think? Post your comments.
If you have a different question, please email to ask@nlb.gov.sg instead of sending a comment.

There is currently only one educational institute in Singapore providing a postgraduate education in library science, and that is Nanyang Technological University of Singapore (NTU).

Also known as ‘Masters in Information Studies’, this postgraduate course is run by the Division of Information Studies, which is in turn under the auspices of the Wee Kim Wee School of Communication and Information.  One can find out more about the course details here.  

You might also wish to visit the Library Association of Singapore webpage for more information.

You might be interested in librarianship overseas:

American Library Association

Australian Library and Information Association

Canadian Library Association

All websites last accessed on 22 Aug 2008

Originally answered by Chan Wai Ling, Librarian, Adult and Young People’s Services.

 Posted by Yen Yen Toh, Librarian, Adult and Young People’s Services

Found this question interesting? What do you think? Post your comments.
If you have a different question, please email to ask@nlb.gov.sg instead of sending a comment

The Internet has changed the way we do things—it has become so much a part of our lives that it is nearly impossible to imagine living without it. But tell me, have you ever wondered how the Internet came about? Sure, you have read about the invention of computers but how about the Internet specifically, what inspired it and when did it become reality?

I picked up this question from a fellow librarian (Chee Boon – you can read about him here) and remembered a dusty article I had from a long time ago (ok not that long – 4 years) about the history of the Internet. After some sneezes and digging through piles of information, I found what I was looking for… Here is the story of what we call the Internet.

The Internet is a product of war technology, more specifically, nuclear war. In the early 1960s, the U.S. authorities were worried that in the event of a nuclear war, the various command posts in the various cities will lose their ability to communicate as switches and wiring can and will likely be damaged by atomic bombs. They would need a command-and-control center that can withstand the atomic bomb and had no specific location so that it cannot be targeted. It was a strategic problem.

That was when RAND Corporation (America’s Cold War think-tank) came up with a proposal, the brainchild of one of its staff, Paul Baran. The year is 1964. The proposal is to have a network that is inherently unreliable. The network will have multiple nodes that have the exact same ability to be a beginning or an end point for the transmitting and receiving of messages. The messages themselves are made up of many packets and each packet will find its way through the network to the end point it is addressed to. The route taken by the packet is inconsequential. What matters is the final destination. Having such a system means that even if pieces of the network is destroyed by a bomb, the message packets in the air will still find its way to its destination with whatever nodes that are left.

In 1969, the first node was installed in UCLA (University of California, Los Angeles) and by the end of the year there were 4 nodes in total. The first version of the Internet was formed and it was called ARPANET.

It was good. Scientists could share one another’s notes and soon enough, it became an electronic post office. So much for military technology… ARPANET was used for exchanging research, for chatting and even gossiping. The first mailing list had nothing to do with the military, it was, “SF-LOVERS”.

Through the 70s, the network grew and grew. The message packets switching system also became streamlined and more sophisticated. Eventually, for reasons of control and security, the military segment broke off and became MILNET. The technology was replicated and ARPANET became one network of many though they were all linked. As the 80s came, computers became more common and there was nothing to stop people from linking up to one another as the very nature of such a network system is anarchic and decentralised.

ARPANET died officially in 1989, consumed by its own success, taken over by what we now know as the Internet. The rest, they say, is history.

Reference:
Sterling, B. (Feb 1993). Short History of the Internet. The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction.

If you want to read more about the Internet, here are books you can check out at our libraries.

For Children:

Image retrieved from www.amazon.ca

Computers then and now by Rebecca Weber
Publisher: Minneapolis, Minn. : Compass Point Books, c2005
Call Number: J English 004 WEB

The incredible story of computers and the Internet by Greg Roza
Publisher: New York : Rosen Pub. Group’s PowerKids Press, 2004
Call Number: J English 004.67 ROZ

The computer : passport to the digital age by Joanne Mattern
Publisher: New York : PowerKids Press, c2003
Call Number: J English 004 MAT

All websites are last accessed on 22 August 2008. Please refer to the terms and conditions on the homepages for use.
For the availability of the above book titles, please check the library catalogue.

Answered by Felicia Chan,

Librarian, Children’s Services

Do you face difficulties in creating small talk during a party? Or the conversation falls flat halfway? You might wish to check out some of the recommended books below:

1) The art of mingling: proven techniques for mastering any room by Jeanne Martinet

Call no.: 158.27 MAR

2) The fine art of small talk: how to start a conversation, keep it going, build networking skills and leave a positive impression! by Debra Fine

Call no.: 177.2 FIN

 3) The fine art of small talk: how to start a conversation in any situation? by Debra Fine

Call no.: 177.2 FIN

4) The art of talking to anyone: essential skills for success in any situation! by Rosalie Maggio

Call no.: AV 808.56 MAG

5) How to start a conversation by Don Gabor

Call no.: AV 153.6 GAB

For availability and locations of the above titles, please use our online catalog.

Originally answered by Ms Grace Leong, Librarian, Adult and Young People’s Services

 Posted by Yen Yen Toh, Librarian, Adult and Young People’s Services

Found this question interesting? What do you think? Post your comments.
If you have a different question, please email to ask@nlb.gov.sg instead of sending a comment

I must confess that part of my motivation for this post is an undying fascination with the exotic and mysterious. I first heard of El Dorado as a teenager, when I watched the cartoon movie, The Road to El Dorado, and for a time, I wondered very much if such a city really existed. It was a city believed to be made completely of gold. A few times every year, there would be a ceremony where the natives would coat their chief with gold dust and he would make offerings on their behalf to the gods by throwing gold and jewels into a lake.

Fascinating is it not? To have so much gold to throw into the lake and so much wealth… the idea of boundless gold captured the imagination of the public and the western explorers of the 1500s. In the hope of striking rich, many people have risked their lives to find this legendary city of gold.

Historically, the term El Dorado, refers to a person—el hombre dorado—not a city. It means the Golden Man. The tale of the golden man and the ceremony of throwing gold into the lake was first recorded by a Spanish Monk by the name of Pedro Simón. However, this was fairly late as by the early 1500s, the Spanish were already robbing the Indians in the New World. Large amounts of gold were stolen from the Incas of Peru and the Aztecs in Mexico.

Imagine when word of a city of gold got out, teams of explorers were just racing to get to all that gold first. There were three initial teams of explorers and they all endured terrible hardships that included falling ill to diseases from mosquito bites, snake bites, dangerous animals and Indians with arrows coated with poison. The rain, which never seemed to end, also caused their clothes to rot away. The first team took 10 months to reach Lake Guatavitá, the lake the chief of El Dorado was believed have held his gold-throwing ceremony, and only 166 people were left alive out of 700 who set out on the journey.

There was no city of gold. There was some gold dust and emeralds in the Lake Guatavitá, but not enough to justify all the hard work getting to the place and the lost of lives. When they discovered there was no city of gold at Lake Guatavitá, the teams tried to look elsewhere. Some thought the city was in Venezuela but that too turned out to be false. More and more teams tried to look for the city in the 50 years that followed but none came back with gold and most were fortunate if they even got back alive.

Not too long ago in 1965, after a few attempts of trying to drain the Lake Guatavitá to retrieve any gold that may be at the bottom of it (one company did manage to drain the lake and find a few golden ornaments), Colombia turned the lake into a historical site and henceforth, all efforts to find the treasure of the Golden Man became banned.

Does the city exist? To read the full version of this story, you can check out this book from the library,

Image retrieved from www.amazon.ca

Legends or Lies by Gary L. Blackwood
Publisher: New York : Marshall Cavendish Benchmark, c2005
Call Number: J English 398.2 BLA -[FOL]

Reference:
Blackwood, G. L. (2005). The City of Gold. Legends or Lies. New York : Marshall Cavendish Benchmark

If you want to read more about El Dorado and Lost Cities, here are books you can check out at our libraries.

For Teens & Children:

Image retrieved from www.amazon.co.uk

Lost cities by Sue Hamilton
Publisher: Edina, Minn. : ABDO Pub. Co., c2008
Call Number: Y English 398.234 HAM

Image retrieved from www.amazon.ca

Cities of the dead: finding lost civilizations by Denise Rinaldo
Publisher: New York : Franklin Watts, c2008
Call Number: Y English 930.1 RIN

Image retrieved from www.amazon.ca

Lost cities by Neil Morris
Publisher: London : Franklin Watts, 2007
Call Number: J English 930.1 MOR

All websites are last accessed on 18 August 2008. Please refer to the terms and conditions on the homepages for use.
For the availability of the above book titles, please check the library catalogue.

Answered by Felicia Chan,

Librarian, Children’s Services