Virtual Resources Accessible to Anyone
Need something to do while staying home to help flatten the curve in our community? Visit these recommended freely accessible resources for something great to do right from your desk or couch, or print some puzzles and coloring pages for use away from the computer screen! Please reach out to your family, friends, and neighbors who may not have Internet access, and please reach out if there is something we could provide to make this period of social distancing easier on them: email info@nesmithlibrary.org and we will see what we can do!
Great Stuff to Watch:
- TED Talks from 12 great modern authors
- Chef Liz of Creative Feast is doing free Facebook Live classes on Monday and Friday, about cooking from your pantry! Tune in on Facebook, or view her past videos.
- The Metropolitan Opera is providing free access to Nightly Met Opera streams through their website and their apps. Each performance becomes available in the evening and stays available for the following 24 hours until the next is made available.
- Cincinnati Zoo & Botanical Garden is doing Facebook Live Home Safari videos
- Free workshops, museum tours, and puppet shows from the Center for Puppetry Arts
- Penguin Random House compiled this list of their authors who are sharing virtual content! Visit the page for updates.
- John Krasinski has begun a Some Good News channel on YouTube to highlight people coming together and other good things still happening in the world.
- Google Arts and Culture: Virtual museum tours, artist exhibits, and more!
- US National Parks tours from Google Arts and Culture
- The Frick Collection Virtual Tour
- Library Collections you can tour online: Harvard University, Library of Congress, to the Bodleian Library!
- Museum of Natural History/the Smithsonian tour
- A teacher's collection of Virtual Field Trips: from Yellowstone, to the Louvre, to Mars!
- Printable crossword puzzles, word searches, and sudoku (download a PDF and then print for best results)
- Download this Puzzles Packet we compiled for a mixture of these puzzles!
- Download a few coloring pages from the Smithsonian, or visit Color Our Collections for even more!
- Read freely available collections from Project Gutenberg and Open Libraries, to supplement our digital reading services for library cardholders.
- We also recommend the SimplyE app from the New York Public Library, for reading freely available digital collections.
- AmericanLiterature.com's Short Stories section has free to read short stories, mainly classics.
- Become a Book Sleuth! New York Public Library has a great guide for finding a book when you've forgotten the title.
Looking to get involved with needed efforts during times of crisis? Consider ConnectWindham, a local initiative connecting volunteers with needs in our community, as well as NH Responds, an organization for recruiting skilled volunteers for where they are needed most.
Parents may also wish to visit our Free Virtual Resources for Kids & Parents page for more things to do with kids, and Free Virtual Resources for Young Adults for tweens and teens!
Please visit our Internet Resources for further recommended sites on a variety of topics!