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Blog Post

Historical Stock Prices

by Van

AADL Select Sites: Money and Investing

With the arrival of income tax preparation season comes the need for historical stock quotations to arrive at the basis for determining gain or loss from the sale of securities.

Two websites may help. Both have historical stock quotations available. The dates of coverage are not uniform for all stocks. Both have symbol lookup searches to help find out the stock symbol.

Big Charts has historical stock quotations available from as far back as January 2, 1970. Just enter the stock symbol and the date to find out the opening, closing, high, and low prices for that date.

Yahoo! Finance has historical stock quotations available from as far back as 1962. Enter the stock symbol in the search window, press "GO". The next screen has a link under "Quotes" for "Historical Prices".

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Blog Post

Snopes.com: "Rumor Has It"

by Sancho Panza

AADL Select Sites: Reference Tools

Snopes is a great site to turn to when you want to make sense of the disconcerting warnings that fill your email inbox, telling tall tales of scams to avoid and free lunch to be had. Is it true, for example, that Bill Gates will send you $1000 for forwarding his email message? (No). Can you really help various charitable causes simply by clicking a button on a website?(Yes). Snopes presents an addicting array of subject headings to explore, including up-to-the-minute issues like Hurricane Katrina, as well as more tried and true topics such as Science, Religion and Politics. Best of all, each entry comes complete with a list of sources, ensuring readers that Snopes isn’t one big urban legend itself.

The Hottest 25 Legends compiles a list of the “25 urban legends currently circulating most widely” such as the rumor that cell phone numbers will soon be available to telemarketers (false), and that the popular Proctor and Gamble product, Swiffer Wet Jet, may be deadly to dogs (also false).

Finally, and perhaps most entertaining, under the Critter Country heading you’ll find the heroic tale of a cat who inadvertently got his head stuck in a garbage disposal attempting to get at the last bits of some smoked salmon. This one, unfortunately, is true.

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Blog Post

Animal Diversity Web

by Van

AADL Select Sites: Science

Great for students, great for general information, the University of Michigan Museum of Zoology’s Animal Diversity Web is written largely by and for college students but has the materials elementary, middle, and high school students might need for reports and that the general public might need to understand the particular animal.

The information section covers the geographic range, the habitat, a physical description, reproduction, lifespan/longevity, behavior, communication and perception, food habits, predation, ecosystem roles, positive and negative economic importance for humans, and conservation status. There is a box listing the kingdom, phylum, subphylum, class, order, family, genus, and species.

There are tabs for pictures (14 for the sandhill crane) and specimens (skeletal structure, teeth, etc.).

Some highlights from the coverage of the sandhill crane: “Five courtship displays have been identified as part of “dancing,” the primary mechanism of pair formation in this species. These displays are the Upright wing stretch, Horizontal head pump, Bow, Vertical Leap and Vertical toss.” The chicks “are able to leave the nest within 24 hours of hatching.”

With the first snow now falling you might think the sandhill cranes have left for southern climes but the Monday count at the Phyllis Haehnle Memorial Audubon Sanctuary was 1902 cranes, the highest count this fall. Based on previous years’ counts, the sandhill cranes should be departing in the next two weeks.

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Blog Post

The Internet Public Library (IPL)

by Sancho Panza

Available through the AADL Select Sites Libraries heading, the Internet Public Library is always available to quench your midnight AADL cravings. First check out the website’s FAQ to learn about the project’s ten-year history, from its beginnings at the University of Michigan School of Information to its current list of full-time paid staff. Then let your informational cravings take you on an adventure through the IPL’s vast collection of online resources. Just dying to learn more about the 1911 theft of the Mona Lisa? Check out the Art Attack link in the Fine Arts section to unveil a brief history of art theft and forgery. (Bonus: Mona Lisa’s googly eyes roll around in her head as you do so). Stressing over the number of cups in a gallon? Explore the IPL’s Ready Reference collection, which includes an online version of the Information Please Almanac. Sigh with relief upon discovering there are 16, and relax, because this library is always open and ready to help.

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Blog Post

Slow Food

by Sancho Panza

AADL Select Sites: Food and Cooking

Hungry? The AADL Select Sites heading Food and Cooking contains a mouth-watering array of websites, including Slow Food.

According to their website, "Slow Food, founded in 1986, is an international organization whose aim is to protect the pleasures of the table from the homogenization of modern fast food and life." Aside from their adorable snail logo, the website offers information on buying, caring for, and enjoying traditionally made foods, such as wine and cheese, as well as opportunities to explore their Taste Education programs, located in Italy, from afar.

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Blog Post

The Internet Movie Database (IMDB)

by Sancho Panza

AADL Select Sites: Movies

Can’t remember who starred in All About Eve? Check out the Internet Movie Database under the AADL Select Sites Movies heading.

The site allows you to search by movie title, characters, actors, and even quotes from dialogue. View complete cast lists and detailed filmographies and get lost in the dizzying possibilities for connections. Once you recall Bette Davis’s name, for example, you’re greeted with a biography of her life, photographs, and her filmography (every movie she ever made). IMDB also gives entertainment news, box office ratings, theaters and show times.

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Blog Post

National Gallery of Art

by Sancho Panza

AADL Select Sites: Art and Art Museums

Through the AADL Select Sites heading Art and Art Museums you can visit the National Gallery of Art online. Learn about their extensive collection of art, plan a visit to the museum (which is always free), and take the web tour of the week.

More than 5,600 objects are available to view online, and many of them are organized into online tours, including 15 paintings by Gerard ter Borch, part of an exhibit that later traveled to the Detroit Institute of Arts. To further satisfy your curiosity, check out the catalogue of the exhibit, available at the Downtown Library.

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Blog Post

Ann Arbor City Tax Assessment Data (Home Values)

by Van

AADL Select Sites: Ann Arbor/Washtenaw County

Look up property in the city of Ann Arbor to find out the owner, the most recent sales price, the assessed value, the square footage, the number of rooms, the real estate taxes, how much of that tax went to support the public library, and to view a photograph of the house.

You can also search for comparables with sales within a certain time period, range of sales price, and range of square footage.

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Blog Post

Washtenaw County Death and Marriage Records

by Van

AADL Select Sites: Ann Arbor/Washtenaw County

Searchable death records from 1960 to the present and searchable marriage records from 1965 to the present can be found on the Washtenaw County Clerk/Register's Office website.

The Ann Arbor District Library (Second Floor of the Downtown Library) has the Ann Arbor News on microfilm. You can search for an obituary using the date of the death as a starting date. If there is an obituary, you will usually find it within the first two or three days after the date of death.

The Ann Arbor News keeps obituaries online for the past 180 days.

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Blog Post

New York Times Historical Database

by amy

Our newest database addition, the New York Times historical database, provides digital reproductions of every page from every available issue between 1851-2001. For full text access to more recent New York times articles, try our New York Times (2000-current).