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SUMMER OLYMPICS July 12, 2008

Posted by Ms. Klemundt in Reading Recommendations, Web Resources.
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The Opening Ceremonies of the Summer Olympics in Beijing are less than a month away (August 8). The excitement (and the hype) will be increasing in the coming weeks but it doesn’t hurt to start setting some Bookmarks (“Favorites” for you PC users) for good websites and building your knowledge base through books and videos. Your local public library will be showcasing their resources about the Olympics as well, so take a look at their websites and library displays.

Let’s start with some basics:

Blogs: No doubt blogs will be showing up all over the place. NBC has quite a few already (see below) — scroll down the main page to find the link to blogs by athletes as well as blogs about sports. Also check the newspapers listed below. Because the Olympic Games are such a spectacle, usually in an unfamiliar place, reporters often blog about culture and history and politics in addition to sports.

Webcams: I checked the official site and I don’t see anything about webcams at the Olympics. If the Games were in most any other country, I would expect webcams at the major gathering places for visitors in the various cities. However, China can be a little on the paranoid side when it comes to controlling what the world gets to see about the country, so it’s entirely possible there won’t be any webcams. You can always check back closer to the opening of the Games.

TV schedule/coverage : NBC
http://www.nbcolympics.com/
In addition to Channel 5, the main NBC affiliate in Chicago, Olympic programming will also be found on MSNBC, CNBC, USA, Oh! Oxygen, and Telemundo.

Newspapers: Good general coverage of the Games and in-depth coverage of local athletes can be found in the Trib and Sun-Times. The Christian Science Monitor is a good place for stories “around” the Olympics, especially the political and cultural angle. Plus it’s a good place to find a more international slant to the coverage (i.e., they’re not obsessed with the USA medal county). Another good place for that would be the BBC website. I’ve also listed a couple of places that provide links to newspapers all over the world. It’s a fun way to practice your foreign language skills and see how the rest of the world views the Olympics!

If learning about the Beijing Olympics has stirred your interest in the Olympics in general, try some of these books, videos, and websites:

Do a Subject Browse search using “Olympic Games” in your public library catalog and you will get a list of Olympic Games in numerical order. This will help you find even more books and videos about the Olympics.

Use the EBSCO Science Reference Center and FirstSearch databases to help answer your questions about the physics of sports, the physiology of athletic achievement, sports training, and sports equipment and clothing. If you’d like to know about the history and rules of a particular sport, check out Britannica Online.

Biography : The athletic achievement of the Olympics is awe-inspiring, but what usually draws us in is the stories of the athletes. Here are some biographies to get you started, but it’s the tiniest tip of the iceberg! Enter the search phrase “Olympic AND biography” in your library catalog for more ideas. And don’t forget magazine articles. Check the periodical databases subscribed to by Res or your local public library to find more information about your favorite athletes or sports. Browse the magazine rack at a bookstore or your public library as well. The major news weeklies (Time, Newsweek, etc.) will have lots of stories, but so will other magazines.

Culture and Geography : If you watch the Parade of Nations at the Opening Ceremonies, you may find yourself asking, “Where is THAT country?” The TV commentators will give you a little help, but if you want to inquire further, try some of these sources:

Hope this gets you started! Enjoy the spectacle and pay attention — the Olympics may be coming to Chicago in 2016!