Photo courtesy of Eric Begin, under a Creative Commons license
At the University of Scranton, we don’t need Punxsutawney Phil to tell us when spring starts. The stream of returning students and faculty is all we needed to see to know that Spring 2010 has officially started!
Still, if you’re a fan of rodents (or just looking to postpone those class readings for another few hours), there’s a lot to learn about Groundhog Day. We poked around and found a few fun resources to share on February 2nd:
- “Groundhog Ways:” a brief article by Thomas P. Mahoney and Paul Rauber explaining the biochemistry behind groundhog weather prognostication (in Sierra magazine)
- Encyclopedia of Life can tell you everything you could ever want know about the groundhog (aka Marmota monax)
- Groundhog Day: Halfway Through Winter: A Huffington Post article by Donna Henes on Groundhog Day as the winter midpoint
- The Official Website of the Punxsutawney Groundhog Club has all the inside info on Phil and his Inner Circle of protectors (did you know that Phil lives at the Punxsutawney Memorial Library when he’s not busy looking for his shadow?)
- VisitPA has webcams set up so that you can watch the action at Gobbler’s Knob live (starting at 3am tomorrow)
And don’t forget, if you just can’t wait to know whether or not Phil sees his shadow, this year you can get his prognostication via text message. Just text “Groundhog” to 247365 (standard rates apply).
Regardless of what Phil predicts, we here at the Library are back on our regular hourly schedule for the Spring 2010 semester. You’ll find us here:
Monday-Thursday 8am – 11:30pm
Friday 8am – 10:00pm
Saturday 12pm – 8pm
Sunday 12pm – 11:30pm