Week 8, Thing #18

Way back in Week One we were advised to create a toolkit,and now I see the wisdom of this but of advice! I now have more passwords than a CIA operative has passports, for the many different applications I am trying. The easiest method for me has been to bookmark the web sites in folders on my home computer (too many of them are blocked at work), and email myself passwords and keep those in a folder in my home email. I also printed out lots of "how to" info and the passwords and keep those in a manila folder on my desk. Anyhow, on to online word processing and spreadsheet applications! Very nice, organized list posted on the 2.0 blog, and that was an easy way to explore. Our LMT group in our District is currently working on a Selection policy and we have been emailing long documents back and forth, so my first project will be to post our rough draft on Zoho so we can all collaborate online and have a pretty good idea of where we are going with it once we actually meet in three weeks. Lots of great ideas from other libraries, including links to resources. I am going to try to post my latest "Top 10" web sites I do for students and staff, using my new Zoho account. Stay tuned . . .

Presidential Elections

10 Top Web Sites on Presidential Elections

Cable News Network Election Center 2008

http://www.cnn.com/ELECTION/2008/

“Road to the White House”, blogs “from the Left” and “from the Right”; follow the primaries, the caucuses, the money, the delegates and more. Cable News Network Politics at

http://www.cnn.com/POLITICS/ features polls, top 10 stories daily, blogs, and Road to the White House tracker of delegates – scroll down the entire page to see all of the features.

 

FindLaw Legal News and Commentary

http://news.findlaw.com/

Scroll down the page for links to the latest legal rulings and news categorized by Supreme Court, Politics, Civil Rights, and more.

 

Public Broadcasting System News & Views

http://www.pbs.org/news/

Link to Politics and Government, top news stories, recent political speeches and more. Keep an eye on this site – typically they will put up an entire election web site once the primaries are over.

 

National Archives and Records Administration

www.archives.gov/federal_register/electoral_college/

This Web site is maintained by the National Archives and Records Administration. It offers extensive information about the Electoral College, its constitutional mandate, and presidential elections in the United States, including a new link to Election 2008.

 

American National Election Studies

http://www.electionstudies.org/

Sponsored by the University of Michigan, this site features data about voting, public opinion, and political participation for educational institutions.

 

America Votes: Presidential Campaign Memorabilia from DukeUniversity

http://scriptorium.lib.duke.edu/americavotes/

Search by candidate and election for memorabilia from DukeUniversity’s Special Collections Library, including letters, campaign flyers and buttons, and more. Great source for primary documents.

 

Presidential Museums

http://www.presidentialmuseums.com/

Portal to web sites of Presidential museums, brief biographies of Presidents, and even presidential pets, organized chronologically by eras. Easier reading level.

 

Federal Election Commission

http://www.fec.gov/

Campaign finance laws and information for Presidential, House, and Senate elections.

 

Presidential Libraries

http://www.whitehouse.gov/history/liblinks.html

Part of the official White House web site, this has links to each of the Presidential libraries administered by the National Archives Records and Administration. See also links on the left side of the page for quick facts about Presidents and First Ladies – choose short facts, official portraits, or full biographies.

 

Library of Congress http://www.loc.gov/index.html

A wealth of information on presidents, elections, and specific presidents in the American Memory collection and other special exhibits. A great resource for teachers is Elections: the

American Way

, online at http://memory.loc.gov/learn/features/election/home.html, with quality resources linked to primary source documents from the American Memory Project.