Jottify

Jottify is a new space for writers to share, read and sell their work. It’s a very friendly community where budding writers can share their work and even commercialise it by selling  it in ereader format in their store. Jottify gives a generous 70% of the selling price to the writer!

If you’re not a budding writer you can read other peoples stories and support the writers you like.

http://jottify.com/

Volcanoes

Volcanoes are both beautiful and terrifying and you can find out all about them as well as watch some awesome videos at this BBC microsite

http://www.bbc.co.uk/science/earth/natural_disasters/volcano

 

Movember

This month you may have seen more men sporting moustaches this month than you may normally would. This is for Movember, a charity movement during the month of November that encourages the growing of moustaches to raise money and awareness for men’s health charities. We have been marking this at the Library with a display on the top floor of moustaches and articles about men’s health. Here is some further information about Movember:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Movember

Freddie Mercury, 1946 – 1991

Today marks the twentieth anniversary of the death of Freddie Mercury. In a career of twenty years, Freddie Mercury was one quarter of the groundbreaking rock band, Queen and was arguably one of the greatest showmen in music with one of the most distinctive and unique singing voices ever heard.

Now, as much as we at Thing of the Day would like to play Queen’s music at full blast, we probably wouldn’t be too popular with other people in the Library trying to work! Anyway, here is Queen’s website with information on Freddie Mercury and the other members:

http://queenonline.com/

China

Today, Thing of the Day is at another Cultural Awareness course, this time discussing working with Chinese Students. Here is a World Heritage site about the Terracotta Warriors that were exhibited at the British Museum a few years ago in what was a blockbuster exhibition:

http://whc.unesco.org/pg.cfm?cid=31&id_site=441 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/China

Nigeria

Bawoni!

Recently, Thing of the Day went to a very interesting workshop about Working with Nigerian Students. This workshop discussed the people, customs and culture of Nigeria and we also learned a few phrases in the Nigerian dialects of Yoruba, Hausa and Ibo, and were introduced to Nigerian Broken English. Here is the British Museum’s site about their African collections:

http://www.britishmuseum.org/explore/cultures/africa/africa_arts_and_cultures.aspx

And here is some information about Nigeria:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nigeria

Flying Monsters 3D

Here is a film that has won a BAFTA and an award for Best Science Programme at the Association of International Broadcasting. It also had a team of palaeontologists from the University of Portsmouth that acted as advisors to the film makers:

http://www.flyingmonsters3dmovie.com/

VADS

VADS (Visual Arts Data Service) is the online resource for visual arts, comprising over 100,000 images that are freely available and copyright cleared for use in learning, teaching and research in the UK. The images cover a wide range of subjects such as fashion, ceramics, furniture, plastics, posters and stained glass.

http://www.vads.ac.uk

LEGO Minecraft

Here’s an interesting idea that might appeal to fans of both LEGO and the hugely popular sandbox construction game Minecraft.

http://lego.cuusoo.com/ideas/view/2594

Battery University

TOTD has just received an alert from Apple stating that, in very rare cases, the battery in the iPod nano (1st generation) may overheat and pose a safety risk. This site should provide you with more than enough information about battery safety, the history of the battery and how they work.

http://batteryuniversity.com/