Genealogy Resources Available at the Library

Genealogy has recently been in the media spotlight through two television shows: Who Do You Think You Are? and Faces of America. Both shows delve into the family histories of celebrities and famous Americans.

In NBC’s Who Do You Think You Are?, viewers are invited to take an up-close and personal look inside the family history of some of today's most beloved and iconic celebrities. Featured in the new series are Matthew Broderick, Lisa Kudrow, Spike Lee, Sarah Jessica Parker, Susan Sarandon, Brooke Shields and Emmitt Smith. In a recent episode, Sarah Jessica Parker learned that one of her ancestors was accused of witchcraft during the Salem Witch Trials! The show airs on Friday nights at 8 pm.

The eresource Ancestry.com is NBC's official partner on the series, and is available for free in the Troy Library. The New England Historic Genealogical Society has also been featured on the show. The society’s New England Ancestors database is also available for free in the Library.

In PBS’s Faces of America, Henry Louis Gates, Jr asks, “What made America?” The Harvard scholar turns to the latest tools of genealogy and genetics to explore the family histories of 12 renowned Americans including chef Mario Batali, comedian Stephen Colbert, actress Eva Longoria, musician Yo-Yo Ma, director Mike Nichols, Her Majesty Queen Noor, television host/heart surgeon Dr. Mehmet Oz, actress Meryl Streep, and figure skater Kristi Yamaguchi. Meryl Streep was shocked to discovered that her ancestors were among the first purchasers of land in Pennsylvania along with William Penn! The show airs on Wednesday nights at 8 pm.

In addition to the resources listed above, the Library also offers the Biography and Genealogy Master Index, the Biography Resource Center, Heritage Quest Online, American’s Obituary & Death Notices and Michigan County Histories and Atlases. These eResources are available from home through the library’s website. All you need is a library card to explore your own fascinating family history!

3-D TV?

If high definition television is not life-like enough for you, maybe you are ready to experience 3-D TV. At this year's Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, several TV manufacturing companies including Sony, Panasonic and Vizio, showcased 3-D enabled television sets and other gear for which they hope consumers will clamor. 3-D glasses are still required and the sets face other obstacles as well.

Are they the wave of the future? Read all the pros and cons in this Los Angeles Times article.

Walter Cronkite Broadcasts the Apollo 11 Moon Landing

The Apollo 11 moon landing, as broadcast by Walter Cronkite, 40 years ago on July 20, 1969.




[Thanks, @jrr1234]

Cowabunga! The Simpsons to Be Featured on Postage Stamps

The United States Postal Service has just announced that it is releasing a set of first-class postage stamps featuring Bart, Homer, Marge, Lisa and Maggie Simpson on May 7.

That's right: The stars of he longest-running comedy in television history will soon adorn the corner of your snail mail in a spot once reserved for the likenesses of Washington, Jefferson and Lincoln.

The Simpsons are one of the 20 subjects featured on stamps this year. They were chosen from 50,000 suggestions that the USPS received. The television show, now in its 20th season, is the only show to be featured as the sole subject of a stamp set while still in primetime production.

“We are excited to celebrate The Simpsons on postage stamps,” said USPS Executive Director of Stamp Services David Failor. “[T]his witty, well-written pop icon continues to irreverently satire its parody of a middle-class family as it lampoons American culture. The Simpsons stamps… will serve as a great opportunity to interest youngsters into stamp collecting.”

“This is the biggest and most adhesive honor The Simpsons has ever received,” said Matt Groening, creator and executive producer of The Simpsons.

“We are emotionally moved by the Postal Service selecting us rather than making the lazy choice of someone who has benefited society,” said James L. Brooks, executive producer of The Simpsons.

For some reason, as part of the stamp release, the USPS is encouraging you to vote for your favorite Simpson.

More Bad News for Local Newspapers

As many major big-city newspapers appear ready to collapse, more bad news for the print media industry: according the weekly News Interest Index, conducted March 6-9, by the Pew Research Center for the People & the Press, fewer than half of Americans (43%) say that losing their local newspaper would hurt civic life in their community "a lot." Even fewer (33%) say they would personally miss reading the local newspaper a lot if it were no longer available.

When it comes to local news, more people say they get that news from local television stations than any other source. Sixty-eight percent say they regularly get local news from television reports or television station websites, 48% say they regularly get news from local newspapers in print or online, 34% say they get local news regularly from radio and 31% say they get their local news, more generally, from the Internet.

Internet Overtakes Newspapers as News Source

According to a December 3-7 survey by the Pew Research Center for the People & the Press, the Internet has now surpassed all other media except television as a main source for national and international news.

Currently, 40% of respondents say they get most of their news from the Internet, up from 24% in September 2007. Thirty-five percent say they rely on newspapers for their news, while 70% rely on television.

For Americans under 30, the Internet now rivals television as a main source of news. Fifty-nine percent of young people say they get most of their news online; an identical percentage cites television. In September 2007, twice as many young people said they relied on television for news as the Internet (68% vs. 34%). This mirrors a trend seen earlier this year in campaign news consumption. (See Internet Now Major Source of Campaign News, October 31, 2008.)

According to the survey, 23% of the public says they get most of their news from CNN, while 17% says Fox News; smaller shares mention other cable and broadcast outlets.

Avoiding Online Scams This Holiday Season

The Oprah Winfrey Show recently aired an episode dealing with online scams and how to avoid them. The show covered everything from those infamous emails saying that you won a foreign lottery to common eBay scams. Don't become a statistic! Read more about it here.

More Monty Python?

First, a youtube channel, and now a social networking site for Monty Python, the 1970s -1980s British comedy-troupe.

According to Bouglas Quenqua, writing in The New York Times:

Pythonline.com, a social network and digital playground, offers clips of old material that people can use to make mash-ups, perhaps inserting their own pet in the killer-rabbit scene from “Monty Python and the Holy Grail.” The home page has a blog format with news about the surviving Pythons; elsewhere there are chat boards and e-mail forums. Membership is free.

Television vs. The Internet

According to Jon Stokes, writing on Ars Technica, Americans still watch television more hours per week, then they spend on the Internet:

"If a new study by Nielsen is accurate, reports of the video star's death at the hands of the Internet have been greatly exaggerated. The ratings company tracked the time that Americans spend with the three main "screens" in their life — TV, Internet, and the mobile phone — and found that TV still rules. The study claims that Americans broke new records in TV watching during the 2007-2008 season: households averaged 8 hours and 18 minutes per day, or an average of 4 hours and 45 minutes per person per day. These figures are the highest on record, and they represent a quarterly increase in addition to a yearly increase.

Both regular and time-shifted TV viewing are on the rise, with time-shifted viewing posting a whopping 52.5 percent year-over-year increase from the third quarter of 2007 to the third quarter of 2008; regular viewing was up only 4.1 percent."

[via Stephen's Lighthouse]

The Librarian on TNT

Not really technology-related, but:

The third episode in The Librarian series -- Curse of the Judas Chalice, staring Noah Wyle -- is on TNT on December 7, at 8 p.m. ET.

Beyond Television?

Further evidence that the Internet has reached into every area of our lives:

More people have now watched Tina Fey’s impersonation of Republican Vice-presidential candidate Sarah Palin on the Internet, or to a lesser extent on digital recordings or through on-demand stations, than on the original Saturday Night Live (SNL) broadcasts themselves.

According to Integrated Media Measurement Inc. (IMMI), a research firm that measures media exposure, only one-third of the people who have seen at least one of the skits watched it first live on Saturday night. The vast majority have seen it on nbc.com, youtube.com, or other political or comedy web sites.

Writes AP reporter David Bauder, in Turning beyond TV for Tina Fey:

“[IMMI] has never seen anything expand its reach beyond the first-run broadcast quite to this extent.

"I don't know if we would have seen this sort of viral activity a year ago, if people didn't think of their computer as a place to turn to for video entertainment," said Amanda Welsh, IMMI's head of research. "I really believe that we are seeing a change in consumer behavior on a very profound level."

Rather than jealously guard Fey’s skits for live TV, NBC has actively encouraged the activity…

NBC perfected "widget" technology only a few months ago, allowing video of its material to be captured across the Internet while retaining a tie to the network's Web site. It has aggressively marketed the Fey skits to political and comedy blogs. Her skits are posted on NBC's Web site almost immediately after they air on the East Coast — a fan in California can see them online before it's on TV.

The idea is to create buzz; if people see the clips online they might find them funny and tune in to SNL regularly, said Vivi Zigler, president of NBC Universal digital entertainment, owned by the General Electric Co. Lapsed viewers might return, or even people who have never seen the show might watch, she said.

The danger to this approach is that more viewers might decide not to watch SNL on Saturday night, and advertising revenue could suffer. So far the opposite is true: The show's audience for its first three episodes is 49 percent higher than last year's.

The experts expect that pattern to continue.

"The more platforms you make available to consumers, the more consumers you capture," Welsh said…

It's not the only sign this fall of how the typical habits of watching TV — making an appointment with your easy chair at a given time each night — are rapidly becoming obsolete…

[According to Welsh], consumers are in the midst of a behavioral change where they are increasingly looking to the computer for video.... The computer is shaping up as a more popular choice than DVRs, she said.

"It is a tipping point for entertainment companies," Zigler said. "It is exactly what we expected would happen."

It's nice to be able to watch what we want, when we want it, but SNL's opening line just won’t pack the same punch if it is changed to “From New York it's …the show?”

Networked Families

The Internet and cell phones are now central components of modern family life, according to the Pew Internet and American Life Project, in its recent study, Networked Families.

According to the study, the traditional nuclear family – two parents and minor children – has the highest rate of technology use, higher than other household types – such as single adults, homes with unrelated adults, or couples without children.

In these networked families, 76% of the spouses use the Internet, as do 84% of their children under age 18. Almost 60% of married-with-children households own two or more computers, and 88% own multiple cell phones.

Such wired families feel more connected with each other through cell phone use and shared Internet experiences. A majority of adults say technology allows their family life today to be as close, or closer, than their families were when they grew up. Part of this may be due to the fact that 25% of those interviewed says that the Internet has diminished the importance of television in their lives.

The connectedness felt by these families is different than in the past, however: Technology-using families are less likely to share meals and less likely to report satisfaction with their leisure time.

In addition, 20% of those interviewed say that that being wired has blurred traditional lines between “work” and “home,” and has resulted in them doing more work from home. And, as people spend more time working, they are less satisfied with the amount of time they can spend on their hobbies or relaxing.

To read the entire Pew report, go to Networked Families.

Watch Videos on Your Computer with MyLibraryDV

Is the high cost of movie rentals keeping you out of Blockbusters? Are you bored with reruns on TV? Well, first-rate entertainment is as close as your computer screen with MyLibraryDV!

MyLibraryDV is a unique video-on-demand service, available to you with your Troy Public Library card. You can download from a collection of over 1,000 movies, TV shows and lifestyle programs, 24/7, anywhere you have a broadband internet connection.

You have to first install the download manager, which is a one-time process. Once the manager is installed, you launch the video player by clicking on the MyLibraryDV icon on your desktop. Then it’s just a matter of choosing the video in which you are interested. Movies from Tootsie to The Count of Monte Cristo are just a mouse click away!

To get started, visit the Troy Public Library homepage and click on the MyLibraryDV icon.