This coming Sunday, March 9, at 2:00 a.m. the time will become 3:00 a.m. and Daylight Saving Time will begin and will continue until Sunday, November 2.

Under the provisions of the Energy Policy Act of 2005, Daylight Saving Time, starting in 2007, began on the second Sunday of March and ended the first Sunday in November. Before 2007, Daylight Saving Time had started on the first Sunday in April and ended on the last Sunday of October.

You can no longer call 665-1212 to hear “At the tone, the time will be…” but you can go to the Official U. S. Time to make sure you set your clocks correctly.

This website, plus a WebExhibits article on Daylight Saving Time, are among the websites listed in the Time, Calendar, and Holidays section of the AADL Select Sites (a guide to useful and interesting websites).

For more on Daylight Saving Time consult Seize the Daylight: the Curious and Contentious Story of Daylight Saving Time by David Prerau, published in 2005.

It's time for gardens and summer activities. The following web sites can help kids FIGURE OUT how to reduce, reuse, and recycle. Texas Agriculture Extension Service provides a nice slide show sequence of kids setting up a compost bin. Learn how garbage can become new and treasured at EEK! Recycling and Beyond. At The Imagination Factory an Indiana waste management company has a site full of fun and artisitic ideas on how to reuse materials.

Frustrated that you could never get to those unbelieveable low airfares advertized by the airlines? You are not alone.

Michelle Higgins's recent article in the New York Times "If It’s Good, Is It Too Good to Be True?" explains why.

The real bonus of the article is its tips on great websites that help consumers navigate through the maze of advertized come-ons and "special fares". She especially likes Airfarewatchdog.com which scours the Internet for the best bargains; FareCompare.com shows the lowest prices offered by month for the next 11 months between 77,000 North American and 200,000 international cities; and Farecast.com which predicts domestic ticket prices for air travelers. Happy Clicking.

The internet is a challenge and there are web sites that provide safety tips for parents raising kids to use the internet wisely. The following web site is from the American Library Services for Children (ALSC). GetNetWise offers "web sites for kids", "Tools for Families", and an "Online Safety Guide".

WARNING! Don't go here if you are not, or do not intend to be, an involved Dad. The graphics are not intended for adults with no children.

If you are an expecting or new Dad, Daddy Brad and Daddy Clay will lead you through the pride and pitfalls of "Building a Good Dad" on their blog. Go to DadLabs.Com. If you are in range of a new birth, diaper pails, breast-feeding, or food faces, to name a few .... these real-life Dads have "Dadvice" for you. They are PROS. The evidence is lab coats WITH company logo on the chest, AND they wear goggles when necessary.
NOTE: Moms, this site can be a lift for you too. Enjoy!

Parents need all the help they can get! looking for credibility? For blogging parents, the following recommendations were noted in the March 2007 issue of School Library Journal. Parenthacks provides "Sound practical advice served up in straightforward entries that still manage to be smart". Sample articles are "Email for the Underage", "Sleep (ours and theirs)", "Recording your kids promises with a digital camera". Parentography is a recently launched "online forum for families on the go, with excursion ideas, ratings, and family-friendly places".

Sue Stauffacher http://www.suestauffacher.com/ has done it again, and she's a Michigan Author! Laugh out loud funny, combined with heartfelt issues!! Donuthead was the first book, and Donutheart is the pefect companion and follow-up. Franklin Delano Donuthead and his friend/nemesis Sarah Kervick enter sixth grade and Middle School. For what it's worth, life fits a bit smoother, by the end of the tale.

Do have dirt? Do you have kids? Do you want a summertime project to do at home? There are good Kids and Garden sites to give you inspiration. Try
"Gardening With Children or "The Great Plant Escape".

For Earth Day 2006, lessons on global warming were developed by Google and publisher Scholastic. They built a site that "lets students literally fly across the world and see for themselves how the earth is changing" using satellite imagery. It is designed for 6th to 8th grade students, and can be found at "Explore Your Earth". Educators need to download Google Earth in order to use the lesson plans but the basic version of the virtual globe is free.

AADL Select Sites : Ann Arbor / Washtenaw County

Use Ann Arbor’s page on craigslist to find a job, an apartment, or an antique, milk glass parlor lamp (see photograph) and more. You can look for love on the personals pages, and even post messages on the missed connections page, in hopes of recreating the special moment from last Tuesday with that super cute barista at Starbucks on State and Liberty.

Craigslist is user-friendly and no frills, and best of all, it’s free. You don’t even have to register with them to send or read postings (hello, annoying digital camera picture websites!), and a flagging system helps keep out the inappropriate and sneaky commercial stuff. Craigslist can even be entertaining—check out best of craigslist for reader-nominated posts of variable merit—everything from misspelled rants to stunningly off-target personal ads.

Happy craigging!

AADL Select Sites : World

The recent resignation of CIA Director Porter Goss has followed a string of a high-profile personnel changes in the Bush administration. Other changes include replacing the Press Secretary Scott McClellan with Fox News and radio pundit Tony Snow and Joshua Bolten stepping in as Chief of Staff, a position previously held by Andrew Card.

With all these changes, it can be dificult to keep the people in power straight here in the U.S., to say nothing of what's occuring worldwide. That's where Rulers.org, one of our handy AADL Select Sites, steps in. This website details how leadership has changed in countries over their histories. For instance, you can see the powerful people in France throughout history, including its kings, emperor, and presidents.

Rulers.org also tracks recent changes in country officials and royalty. May 2006 has seen not only Goss's resignation, but also new cabinets in Israel and Afghanistan and a reshuffling of the British cabinet. Simply click the the month and year in which you're interested from the Rulers.org homepage.

AADL Select Sites:Art and Art Museums

Just a few more weeks to visit the University of Michigan Museum of Art before it moves into its temporary home on South University. The final exhibition before the move, Rethinking the Photographic Image, presents “a fresh and expansive look” at the history of photography. While the State Street site is renovated, the museum will store many of the objects in its permanent collection, and instead display focused, theme-based exhibitions. Check out the website for information about visiting the museum while it’s under construction, as well as an FAQ about the project as a whole.

AADL Select Sites:Books & Reading

First Lines: “A sort of literacy test.”

Bibliophiles test your memory of hundreds of first lines, from children’s books to murder mysteries. From easier than easy: “We called him Old Yeller;” to a bit more challenging: “Once upon a time there was a Martian named Valentine Michael Smith;” (Stranger in a Strange Land by Robert Heinlein), First Lines beats another tired game of Solitaire and serves as great fodder for the booklover’s eternal question: “what should I read next?”

Did you know?
The actress Danica McKellar (better known as Winnie from The Wonder Years television show), graduated with highest honors from UCLA with a Bachelor of Science degree in mathematics, and is the co-author of a mathematical research paper published in the Journal of Physics A: Mathematical and General. Her accomplishments in mathematics have been profiled in the New York Times.

Wanna know some more about women in math? The website Biographies of Women Mathematicians features some 200 entries with information on women mathematicians who are not mentioned in standard histories of science. The articles are backed up with links to scholarly research.

AADL Select Sites:African Americans

Officially incorporated as a Research Library of the New York Public Library in 1972, the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture offers several online collections with a focus on primary documents for those scholars of African American history. In Motion: The African American Migration Experience documents 400 years of migrations to, within, and out of the United States; providing extensive commentary as well as primary texts, photographs, maps, and other documents in a searchable, thematically arranged collection.