Earlier this fall, a visiting librarian spoke about one of his country’s chief exports – Tanzanite. Although I had seen it, a coworker had not, so I did some quick research and found www.gemstone.org, which is the website of the International Colored Gemstone Association. The website offers a variety of information about gemstones, from specific details about the gems, to birthstones and stories about gems. It was both educational and great advertising for some of these small treasures!

Well, over the weekend, I was thumbing through the November issue of Real Simple (which quickly went onto my Christmas wish list) and saw a several-page spread on gems. Seeing that they had a dedicated webpage on gemstones on the Real Simple webpage, I just took a few minutes to explore the site and see how it contrasted to the ICGA site. The Real Simple information was good – just not as in depth as I had expected from the magazine spread.

But, while I was on the Real Simple webpage, I spent some time exploring, and quickly discovered that my few minutes had turned into an hour. I now have ideas for how I can reorganize my closet, a couple of gift ideas for Christmas, and plans to return to the webpage. I may not have found the gem I went looking for, but I found buried treasure nonetheless.