Posted: 03 Mar 2010 08:17 AM PST

Marathon County Public Library is known for its nine libraries in Athens, Edgar, Hatley, Marathon, Mosinee, Rothschild, Spencer, Stratford, and Wausau.

These are the buildings where people of all ages come. Children come for story times. Teens come for special programs and to play games. Adults come for book discussions. All ages come to check out books, movies, CDs and video games; to use computers; for help with homework and questions.

The buildings are warm and welcoming, and we are always glad to see our customers pass through the doors. However, buildings close, and staff go home at the end of the day.

MCPL has a 10th location that never closes. It's our Web page at www.mcpl.us. Access to many of the same information sources (databases) that staff use to answer questions is available on our Web page. One extensively used resource is EbscoHost, a collection of several databases of magazine articles and other research sources. It is provided to libraries throughout Wisconsin by state funds to give access to quality online information resources to Wisconsin residents.

EbscoHost databases are found near the bottom of MCPL's web page. You need to enter a patron ID, which is your library card number.

Here are some of the EbscoHost resources that you can access any time:

Auto Repair Reference Center has service bulletins, electrical diagrams and other service and repair information for many vehicles from 1945 to the present.

Consumer Health Complete has information on drugs and alternative medicine, diseases and conditions, and access to medical reference books. Health and medical databases are also available in Spanish.

The Home Improvement Reference Center can help you build a deck or fence, install a ceiling fan, lay a tile floor or make other improvements around the house.

Hobbies and Crafts Reference Center has general information, instructions, and videos about such diverse hobbies as birdwatching, bungee jumping, canoeing, knitting and scrapbooking.

Small Engine Repair Reference Center contains repair manuals and guides for ATVs, motorcycles, snow mobiles, and personal water craft.

Literary Reference Center with information on authors and their works, and literary criticism is useful to students and others writing book reports or project papers.

NoveList Plus is a comprehensive tool for finding books in a specific genre or series. It also has discussion guides useful for book clubs.

For help using these and other resources, contact your local library. Business hours, phone numbers and addresses are on under the "About MCPL" tab on our Web site, www.mcpl.us. We can also be contacted through the email link on the Web page.

Phyllis Christensen is director at Marathon County Public Library.

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ATV safety: Investigating the tipping point - Edmonton Journal

Posted: 03 Mar 2010 01:29 AM PST

When Professional Engineer Dr. David Checkel was asked by a national investigative news program to help test the safety of all-terrain vehicles (ATVs), the mechanical engineering professor thought the study would be a useful and interesting opportunity for himself and for his students.

Their mission was to test the lateral stability, or tipping point, of ATVs.

"There was a concern that ATVs were rolling over unexpectedly, even on smooth terrain," said Checkel.

He put out a call for engineering student volunteers, mostly within the automotive group at the University of Alberta, and they soon began the background work. The build-up to doing the tests in the summer of 2009 took a year, and the literature search and reading took a month. They then developed and verified the equipment and test methods using one ATV before the actual testing of eight different ATVs was done over a two-day period.

From their knowledge and field work, Checkel and the team of students were well-equipped to perform the tests.

"We have some expertise in vehicle stability measurement for trucks and race cars and we've developed some testing equipment using grants from the Joseph Beggs Foundation for Kinematics," said Checkel. "We can measure both theoretical and practical values for the lateral stability, or resistance to roll-over, for various sizes of vehicles."

ATVs are interesting, he said, because there is an industry-accepted lateral stability value, but no engineering standard method for testing this stability.

"The industry has a voluntary agreement to meet a particular value, but there has been resistance to having a standard test method specified," he said. "In the end, we measured both the theoretical lateral stability and practical tipping point to show they both had the same trends."

ATVs range in height, width and weight. Some are taller because they are designed to go over rocks and stumps and some are narrower to fit down narrow trails.

Even taking these differences into account, Checkel and the team had anticipated that all the ATVs would pass the industry-agreed tipping point and were surprised when one of the machines had less stability than the others. The manufacturer of this machine disagreed with this, saying they found different results using a different test method that didn't involve any lateral tilting.

"This shows the importance of engineering standards, since different test methods could give a measurement above or below the agreed minimum value," said Checkel.

There are no government regulations about ATV roll-over safety, so the impetus to be safe comes down to personal choice.

"All motor vehicles are useful and fun because we can go faster and farther that we could on our own feet," he said. "They are also dangerous, since they allow us to go faster and hit things harder than our bodies have evolved to withstand, as well as get into trouble far away from anyone who could help us."

ATVs have some inherent hazards because we ride on them rather than in them, and they offer minimal protection in an accident. "Also, when an ATV does roll over, its weight provides another hazard, since it can trap or even crush the rider," he said. "Loading extra weight onto an ATV makes it tip more easily and most riders don't have a good feel for how rapidly this happens."

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Road Test: 2009 Toyota RAV4 Limited 4-cyl. 4WD car review; No V-6 ... - Examiner

Posted: 02 Mar 2010 05:29 PM PST