Academic Earth - Selected lectures from top professors at Berkeley, Harvard, MIT, Princeton, Stanford, and Yale. Subjects range from Astronomy to Religion.

• Be specific: the librarian will only know what you tell him/her, so be sure to give all the necessary information up front. The librarian can work from broad categories down into specifics, but starting with all the information will find better information faster
• Don't wait until the last minute: While a web search only takes a second, the library moves a little slower.

Not scared enough by global recession, terrorism, peanut butter, or nuclear war? Death from the Skies by Philip Plait will give you many new reasons to fear, every time you look up.

Plait covers topics such as asteroid impacts, solar flares, nearby supernovae, gamma ray bursts, black holes, and aliens. He concludes with inevitable scenarios; how the Sun will die, and the cold quiet that will end the Universe.