BUT FIRST teach them to protect themselves

Make sure they know that nobody is in charge of the Internet, that any fool or villain can put up a site, that the Internet is full of misinformation and outright fraud. Teach them to ask these questions about anything they see there.

• Sez Who? Who wrote it? Who sponsored it?

• Why they are giving this away for free? Free to the user does not mean free for the people who maintain the page; a website can be quite expensive. What are they hoping to gain from posting the information?

• How do they know that, and does it make sense in terms of what they already know.

• How recent is the information?
  
  
  

  SITES FOR NEWBIES: TUTORIALS

• Mouse Tutorial http://northville.lib.mi.us/tech/tutor/welcome.htm
  In case you ever have to teach people who've never used a mouse before, check this out -- it allows your users to advance from screen to screen by hitting "enter" while illustrating basic mouse position.

• SeniorNet: Computers and Internet Education for Seniors and Older Adults
  http://www.seniornet.org/
  "SeniorNet's mission is to provide older adults education for and access to computer technologies to enhance their lives and enable them to share their knowledge and wisdom."
  
  
  

  EXCELLENT ALL PURPOSE SITES

• AARP http://www.aarp.org/
  One-stop shopping for information of importance to seniors -- health, law, finances, research, etc. Includes a Spanish-language version.

• About.com http://about.com/
  A great place to find a home on the web. Every topic covered has a personal guide who selects and organizes the most useful web sites for that topic, writes an e-mail newsletter, and answers your questions. It also provides a forum where you can chat with others who share your interests.

• Elderweb http://www.elderweb.com
  Another starting site for a variety of topics of interest to seniors.

• Google http://google.com/
  A good search engine for web sites, images, news, and more.

• Librarians' Index to the Internet http://lii.org/
  Links to vetted, high quality information on almost any topic.

• YOUR LIBRARY'S WEB SITE AND ONLINE CATALOG
  
  
  

  EXCELLENT ALL-PURPOSE HEALTH SITES

  If somebody said, "Cut to the chase, give me just a few sites that will measurably improve my understanding of health issues and maybe my health," these are the ones I'd go with.

• Medline Plus http://medlineplus.gov/
  The best single one-stop source. Includes authoritative info chosen by the National Library of Medicine for laypersons on medical conditions, drug info, medical dictionaries and encyclopedias, and how to find doctors and hospitals.

• Health News Directory http://www.healthnewsdirectory.com/ healthNews/directory/
  Links you to reliable health news sites for a variety of medical conditions as well as to news on fitness, nutrition, pain, and men's, women's, and seniors' health; also includes finders for doctors, hospitals and clinical trials. Important since so much health news in the mass media is poorly reported and sensationalized.

• Medicare.gov http://www.medicare.gov/
  Answers questions about billing, appeals, plan choices, and more.

• SupportPath.com http://www.supportpath.com/
  A central spot for finding support groups, bulletin boards, FAQ files and primary organizations for a wide variety of medical conditions. Use with caution and beware of claims of medical miracles, but support groups will tell patients what doctors cannot: what it's like to have the disease, and how it, and the treatments, affect day to day life.

• Diagnostic Tests: the Family Health Guide http://www.health.harvard.edu/fhg/diagnostics.shtml
  Answers the doctors rarely have time to give you about the test they've scheduled you for: what it's for, how to prepare for it, what will happen, what risks there may be, what you have to do afterward, and how long before you get the results.
  
  
  

  LOCAL RESOURCES

• Davenport Public Library http://www.davenportlibrary.com/

• KWQC TV 6 http://www.kwqc.com/

• Iowa Tourism Office http://www.traveliowa.com/

• Quad City Times http://www.qctimes.com/

• State of Iowa Official Web site http://www.iowa.gov/state/main/index.html
  
  
  

  SOME SITES THAT MAY APPEAL TO MEN

• Army Times http://www.armytimes.com/
  Daily army news with searchable archive. Includes links to Navy Times, Air Force Times, Marine Times.

• Department of Veterans' Affairs http://www.va.gov/

• eHow.com - How Things Get Done http://www.ehow.com/
  15,000 how-to solutions, for virtually every area of daily life.

• Men's Health Issues at MedlinePlus http://www.nlm.nih.gov/medlineplus/menshealthissues.html

• NASA http://www.nasa.gov/home/index.html?skipIntro=1
  Great pix, animations, videos, and interactive multimedia experiences in space.

• SciTech Daily Review http://www.scitechdaily.com/
  Selects and links to a few articles and book reviews every day from hundreds of science publications and news stories.

• Shockwave.com - Games for Everyone http://www.shockwave.com/sw/home/
  Action games, mind games, jigsaw puzzles, films, music and more.

• Sports Illustrated http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/
  
  
  

  SOME SITES THAT MAY APPEAL TO WOMEN

• AllReaders.com Book Reviews http://www.allreaders.com/
  Use their database to find reviews or recommendations of books similar to those you already know and love.

• ArtCyclopedia http://www.artcyclopedia.com/

• Better Homes and Gardens http://www.bhg.com/
  Articles on food, gardening, crafts, health, family, etc., with message boards, slideshows, a decorating gallery, a home improvement encyclopedia, and more.

• Cooking with Google http://researchbuzz.org/archives/001404.shtml
  Tell this site what ingredients you have, and it will find recipes that use those ingredients.

• Elderhostel http://www.elderhostel.org/welcome/home.asp
  Search for opportunities to learn while you travel.

• Genealogy.com http://www.genealogy.com/index_n.html

• Women's Health Issues at MedlinePlus http://www.nlm.nih.gov/medlineplus/womenshealthissues.html
  
  
  

  MISCELLANEOUS TOPICS

• Amazon http://amazon.com/
  Whether or not you buy anything (books, records, toys, electronics, etc.), its recommendation system, reviews, and reader lists will be helpful.

• American Memory Collection Finder from the Library of Congress http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/collections/finder.html
  The Library of Congress has put thousands of its photos, documents, manuscripts, letters, and recordings on the web.

• Arts & Letters Daily http://aldaily.com/
  Selects and links to a few articles and book reviews every day from hundreds of good online magazines and newspapers.

• Bartleby - Great Books Online http://bartleby.com/
  a terrific place to search through online reference books as well as poetry, classics, the King James Bible, etc.

• CNN http://www.cnn.com/ and Google News http://news.google.com/

• Epinions.com http://www.epinions.com
  Readers' reviews of just about any kind of product, book, movie, CD, etc.

• How Stuff Works http://www.howstuffworks.com/
  Explains to laypersons how machines and processes operate, with diagrams and pictures.

• Internet Movie Database http://www.imdb.com/

• Mapquest Driving Directions http://www.mapquest.com/directions/

• National Park Service http://www.nps.gov/

• PBS http://www.pbs.org/
  A wealth of video and audio clips from years of PBS programming, keyword searchable and browsable by broad category.

• Virtual Religion Index http://religion.rutgers.edu/vri/
  A good place to get a basic understanding of the tenets and the core documents of virtually every religion.