Library News: Our problems with WebCat may soon be over! Once the routers have been re-set this morning, WebCat should be accessible again. Sorry for the long wait!


Here is a handy little tool -- the One-Look Reverse Dictionary. According to the instructions, if you type in a concept (can either be single keywords, phrases or a question), you will get back a list of words and phrases related to that concept. For example, I input "satirical play" and got a list of words, among them spoof, comedy, parody, burlesque, mime, ridicule, etc. You can also download a neat little utility that works with the Internet Explorer browser. It allows you to right-click on any highlighted word in a web page to get its definition. The definition comes from the OneLook Dicionary which in turn relies on definitions from 964 online dictionaries! To find and download the utility, click here.

Library News: Remote access to WebCat is still a problem. We apologize again and can only say that the problems are being worked on!

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An extremely intuitive and easy-to-use statistics Web site may be found at NationMaster.com. It is indeed a "a handy way to graphically compare nations" with respect to many areas such as health, crime, education, environment, etc. The site also lists some custom graphs that are intriguing, such as "Most Educated" countries and "Most Murderous" countries. I found, for example, that while the United States spends more dollars on the military than the next 12 nations combined, Israel spends the most per person on military expenditures. All sources for the statistics are cited.

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"Assess your beliefs about foreign policy using the American Choices interactive quiz. Find out how your values help define America's role. Lots of links to resources to learn more or get involved. Check it out at American Choices". You may be surprised at how you feel about different aspects of foreign policy when you are asked a direct question about them!

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Library News: If you have tried to use our catalog WebCat in the last few days, you will have discovered that it is not working properly! Technical problems resulting from moving the server behind the firewall are being addressed and we hope to have it back up soon.

FBI Press Room - Press Release - Uniform Crime Reporting Program Releases Hate Crime Statistics for 2002 See also our Subject Guide on the topic of Hate Crimes.

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As soon as the heater comes on in the night or early morning, you know it's soup weather! Have a look at The Joy of Soup for some mouth-watering recipes.