Free Reference: AARP.com
Sep 15, 2010
When Bette Davis—verily, one tough broad who knew of what she spoke—famously said "Old age is no place for sissies," she unwittingly provided an anthemic tagline the boomer generation is now coming to embrace. The 76 million American children born between 1945 and 1964, our largest demographic group, are now 46-65 years old and encountering an entire constellation of new health, financial, social, and psychological issues. Among our own librarian brethren well over half now find themselves members of this club. Cue the tape for www.aarp.org, the official electronic mother lode of information for AARP (formerly the American Association of Retired Persons). With over 40 million members, AARP is both one of the largest membership organizations and strongest special interest groups in the United States. As a nonprofit nonpartisan service organization with educational, information, research, service, and advocacy purposes, AARP seeks to improve and enrich the lives of people over the age of 50, whether retired or not.
The website is a densely packed electronic compendium offering a comprehensive range of categories to explore. Upon encountering the home page, the visitor is met with a very busy but clean display of general organizational information, services and discounts, policy statements, and, most important for librarians, a diverse listing of 14 subject buttons including Home, Health, Money, Work, Personal Growth, Politics and Society, Relationships, Home and Garden, Food, Travel, Entertainment, Technology, Giving Back, and Member Benefits. Each subject button has a drop-down menu of specific topics within that category. For example, drilling into Work reveals discrete listings for Job Hunting, Employee Rights, Employee Benefits, Working After Retirement, Self-Employment, Retirement Planning, Social Security, Work Life, and Work and Retirement Tools.
Caught up in this pervasive conflagration of a stagnant economy, diminished investments, and increased financial pressure on fixed income individuals, more retirees are reentering the job market. Investigating the Working After Retirement topic yields an assortment of relevant articles gathered from journals, newspapers, websites, and blogs; featured information in an "In the Spotlight" section; an editor's picks feature profiling successful individuals who returned to work following retirement; and, finally, an expert's advice column. BOTTOM LINE With these cascading levels of detail and information for each broad subject, the AARP site is an extensive and powerful clearinghouse of information and resources. Bette Davis's trenchant old age maxim notwithstanding, even sissies over 50 stand a fighting chance with help from this fine site.—Barry X. Miller, Austin P.L., TX
