This excellent website allows you to access historical maps and statistical information about your local area in the 19th and 20th centuries through postcode and placename searches. You also have access to travel writing from as far back as the 1190’s – the Rough Guides of their day! This inlcudes the Giraldus Cambrensis tour through Wales.

You can zoom into the maps for more detail and the Statistical Atlas tab gives you a great overview of life in the UK through the decades under headings like Langauge & Learning, Employment and Social Structure. There are interactive online tutorials under the Learning Resources tab, such as the history of census taking, which help you to get the most from the site. This is a valuable social research tool that gives access to many previously unpublished resources.

The Smithsonian Folklife Festival, which is based in Washington DC, is running an online exhibition of the culture, history and people of Wales. This website offers a preview of the exhibition in the form of slideshows and facts about Wales and is split into sections that include Heritage meets Innovation, Language and Arts in Action and Wales and the World.

Tate Shots – Issue 23

Covering the Venice Biennale including the pavilions of New Zealand, Norway and Denmark and an exhibition featuring artists from Iran, Afghanistan and Pakistan. Turner Prize winner Jeremy Deller is also turning the local residents into a live artwork. Marina Abramović to talk about performance on Twitter.

A German court ruled on Tuesday that schoolchildren may rate their teachers online, rejecting the case of a woman who argued her rights had been infringed by pupils who gave her bad grades on a popular website http://www.spickmich.de/.

The court found that “that pupils had a right to offer an opinion as long as they did not hinder [teachers] professionally”.

Site organizers commented that “The judges clearly said that the teacher herself is not being rated, but rather her job performance. Therefore it’s allowed and students may express this criticism publicly online”. German commentators say the case could set an important precedent for other rating portals such as those for hotels, professors, doctors, and health insurers.

This highlights the issue in the UK with http://uk.ratemyteachers.com/. Pupils in Scotland were banned from using this site – what do you think?

Welsh Journals Online contains access to a selection of Welsh journals dating from 1823 onwards, provided by the National library of Wales with support from JISC. The site is a work in progress that currently contains seven of fifty publications.

Open Culture explores cultural and educational media (podcasts, videos, online courses, etc.) that’s freely available on the web. They sift through all the media, highlight the good and jettison the bad, and centralise it in one place.

Download free audio books, videos and podcasts.

The archives of Gala, Miner’s and Crystal, three cosmetics companies operating during and after the Second World War have been digitised and made freely accessible through the VADS website.

The archives are a valuable resource for the study of the history of cosmetics, advertising photography, fashion promotion and women in the Second World War.

The manga must be between six and eight pages and refer to the ’sun’ in some way. Entrants must be UK residents and aged fourteen by 1st January 2010. The closing date is the 25 September.

See details of the fantastic prizes here. Have a look at previous winners work - click on the embassy’s book cover to view the pages. Contact manga@jpembassy.org.uk for further details.

Good Luck!

お元気で！

A few questions for you.

1. In 2008, when was the shortest day? A. 21st December – The winter solstice.
2. In 2008, when was the earliest sun-set? A. Strangley enough not 21st December, it was the 12th December (Royal Observatory Blog) due to the Earths tilt and the shape of  it’s orbit.
3. If todays date is Thursday 4th October what will tomorrows date be? A. Friday 5th October of course, except in the year 1582 in which case it was Friday 15th October following a decree by the pope . (Pope Gregory XIII)

Why? I hear you cry. Well according to Wikipedia . “Since 45 BCE, when the 25th [December] was established in the Julian calendar as the winter solstice of Europe, the difference between the calendar year (365.2500 days) and the tropical year (365.2422 days) moved the day associated with the actual astronomical solstice forward approximately three days every four centuries” (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Winter_solstice)

This explains why Christmas Day is not held on the winter solstice. It used to be, but that was when the world worked on the Julian calendar.

Why am I wittering on about the winter solstice when we are in the middle of summer? A. because this Sunday will be the summer solstice (in the UK) but in the Southern Hemisphere it will be the winter solstice, a time for much celebration. In the Antarctic this marks the midpoint of the winter darkness and everyone starts to look forward to the return of the sun. In the Northern hemisphere it heralds the onset of shorter days and longer nights and was a very important festival for ancient cultures throughout Europe, Asia and the Americas.

Finally, The Summer Solstice in the UK this year (2009) will be on June 21st as it will next year. What date was it last year? A. June 20th – this confused me at the time and now I know why (see Greenwich Observatory below)…

If you would like to know more about the solstice (and the equinox, rotation of the Earth etc) have a look at the Greenwich Observatory web site.

News, reviews and interviews form the world of children’s and young people’s books………

101 Ways to get your child to read

Diverse Voices Childrens Book Award

Interview with Kaye Umansky