[OPLINLIST] Website recommendations

[Harry Searles]

Hi All,

As editor of OPLIN's Discover Ohio pages and director of multimedia development at the Ohio Historical Society, I have had many opportunities to browse nearly all of the fine websites created by Ohio's public libraries. Many of you have pages with external links to useful sites. For those of you who provide this great service to your visitors I would like to recommend a few websites for consideration.

Ohio History Central (http://www.ohiohistorycentral.org/) is the Ohio Historical Society's online encyclopedia of Ohio history. This continually evolving site features over 2,000 entries related to Ohio's natural history, prehistory, and history. It also contains hundreds of images and multimedia files. The site is searchable and browseable by topics and subtopics. It is a great resource for people needing a quick reference to Ohio history topics or for students getting started on a homework or research project.

OhioKids (http://www.ohiokids.org/) is a history-focused website developed by the Ohio Historical Society for kids. The site features hundreds of Flash and Shockwave history-related games, a large homework helper section, online exhibits, information about OHS sites and much more.

Finally, another site you may be interested in is the Ohio Social Studies Resource Center (http://www.ossrc.org/). Created by a consortium of Ohio social studies organizations, the OSSRC website was provides Ohio's social studies teachers with resources directly tied to Ohio's social studies teaching standards. The site currently provides access to 9th and 10th grade resources, with plans to add 6th and 8th grade resources beginning in the fall.

I hope that you can find time in your busy schedules to visit these sites and that you will consider adding links to them on your external resources pages.

Thanks.

Harry Searles