First of all I would like to thank Jane Healy and Julie Erickson for putting together a fabulous set of discovery lessons for all of us to plow through! Great job ladies!
I think the most fun I had was with CAMIO, which I freely admit I had never used before and probably wouldn't have used if it wasn't for this challenge. I don't know how often I will use it in the future, just because I don't usually have to find the kinds of things it offers, but I like knowing it's there.
Since, I work for the State Library it's kinda my job to help promote our resources. :) Now that I know so much more about them I will be able to chat them up much better when doing site visits and even when I'm at the reference desk (not that anyone usually comes in on my rare shifts up there). I also hope to continually wow the rest of the DOE by whipping out my knowledge of these resources when the opportune moment presents itself.
On a side note, just last week I had a colleague from Oklahoma send out a message over a listserv asking other State Library Children & Youth Consultants what e-resources we provided for children and teens. She had not been keeping up with that over the last couple years and I believe was going to pursue that now. Judging from the few responses I saw that were sent to the entire listserv, I think we have one of the best and most comprehensive collections for this age group. So we should take great pride in that...but we shouldn't let it go to our heads!
Monday, August 30, 2010
Friday, August 27, 2010
History and Genealogy Resources
Ancestry Library
1. Searching for myself with my married name turned nada so I tried my maiden name in the Birth, Marriage, and Death Index. I input my year of birth, country, and state. Got a big fat nothing of results for me but I did find the obituary listing for my paternal grandmother.
2. I have found stuff for both sets of my grandparents before using Ancestry Library. My paternal grandfather is in the 1930 census and I found lots of stuff for his parents in the two previous censuses. He was also listed in the SSDI and the Obituary listings. For the fun of it, I also searched for my maternal great-great-grandmother because I know her family names pretty well (and I've searched for them before). I found the marriage record for her, Olive M. Stiffler and my great-great-grandfather Merrill H. Totten. They were married January 15, 1910.
3. That's a lot of year books! It's intriguing to know that someone has digitized these and put them in a searchable database. The LOC image collection was also interesting. The pictures of the Corn Palace with the swastika always creeps me out though. (I know when it was on the Corn Palace it wasn't associated with the Nazis yet, but they ruined it.) The pictures I liked the best were those of the interior of the S.S. Dakota.
Heritage Quest
4. I tried searching for anything about the town I am originally from - Anderson, Indiana - and once again, came up with nothing useful. Those closest thing was a family history of people from Muncie, Indiana, which is where I was actually born, but I don't know the family the book is about. Knowing I would get a gajillion hits for New Orleans, I did it anyway because I wanted, well anything.... I actually found a book called The Epidemic Summer listing the names of people who died in May - November 1853 from yellow fever. And for those of you who don't include the months of May, September, October, or November in their definition of summer - try spending those months in New Orleans, they count as summer believe me! :) There was a whole lot more but this was pretty neat. Okay, so it is morbid but it was different.
Sanborn Maps
5. I tried searching for the location of the house that my husband and I will soon be buying, or at the very least I wanted to find the street it is located on. So I went to Pierre and chose the most recent map, which was May 1941. Batting 0 for 3 on my first searches...Apparently Pierce Street wasn't around until sometime after 1941. I know the house was build in 1967 but I thought maybe it would have been there anyway. Oh well. I did find the house I used to live on S. Taylor though. I guess that's something.
1. Searching for myself with my married name turned nada so I tried my maiden name in the Birth, Marriage, and Death Index. I input my year of birth, country, and state. Got a big fat nothing of results for me but I did find the obituary listing for my paternal grandmother.
2. I have found stuff for both sets of my grandparents before using Ancestry Library. My paternal grandfather is in the 1930 census and I found lots of stuff for his parents in the two previous censuses. He was also listed in the SSDI and the Obituary listings. For the fun of it, I also searched for my maternal great-great-grandmother because I know her family names pretty well (and I've searched for them before). I found the marriage record for her, Olive M. Stiffler and my great-great-grandfather Merrill H. Totten. They were married January 15, 1910.
3. That's a lot of year books! It's intriguing to know that someone has digitized these and put them in a searchable database. The LOC image collection was also interesting. The pictures of the Corn Palace with the swastika always creeps me out though. (I know when it was on the Corn Palace it wasn't associated with the Nazis yet, but they ruined it.) The pictures I liked the best were those of the interior of the S.S. Dakota.
Heritage Quest
4. I tried searching for anything about the town I am originally from - Anderson, Indiana - and once again, came up with nothing useful. Those closest thing was a family history of people from Muncie, Indiana, which is where I was actually born, but I don't know the family the book is about. Knowing I would get a gajillion hits for New Orleans, I did it anyway because I wanted, well anything.... I actually found a book called The Epidemic Summer listing the names of people who died in May - November 1853 from yellow fever. And for those of you who don't include the months of May, September, October, or November in their definition of summer - try spending those months in New Orleans, they count as summer believe me! :) There was a whole lot more but this was pretty neat. Okay, so it is morbid but it was different.
Sanborn Maps
5. I tried searching for the location of the house that my husband and I will soon be buying, or at the very least I wanted to find the street it is located on. So I went to Pierre and chose the most recent map, which was May 1941. Batting 0 for 3 on my first searches...Apparently Pierce Street wasn't around until sometime after 1941. I know the house was build in 1967 but I thought maybe it would have been there anyway. Oh well. I did find the house I used to live on S. Taylor though. I guess that's something.
Thursday, August 19, 2010
Learning Express Library
Reading Skills Diagnostic 2: Literary Text, College Level
Dang, this was a really looooooong test. I don't remember the last test I took in Learning Express taking that long. I got 37 out of 40 possible points, and if I were in class I think I'd argue that some of my wrong answers were just as valid. But it is nice to have the explanations of why they say the answers are right, even if you did choose the correct one - in case you were guessing or unsure of your answer. I can see how this would be very helpful, and getting explanations about answers from a computer can be much easier to deal with than a snotty English professor :)
Succeeding on the Job
Okay so humorous/snarky comments first...This is part of the course description "You will also learn how to know whether you are ready for a raise or promotion, as well as the most professional way to ask for one." Obviously these folks don't work for state government where raises are entirely out of our hands.
This was actually a helpful little tutorial. The first part of each section has the hints, tips, and tricks, then you answer some questions about yourself, and the behind-the-scenes stuff gives you some personalized feedback. The tutorial is self-paced, and you can save the work to come back later if you need to.
Dang, this was a really looooooong test. I don't remember the last test I took in Learning Express taking that long. I got 37 out of 40 possible points, and if I were in class I think I'd argue that some of my wrong answers were just as valid. But it is nice to have the explanations of why they say the answers are right, even if you did choose the correct one - in case you were guessing or unsure of your answer. I can see how this would be very helpful, and getting explanations about answers from a computer can be much easier to deal with than a snotty English professor :)
Succeeding on the Job
Okay so humorous/snarky comments first...This is part of the course description "You will also learn how to know whether you are ready for a raise or promotion, as well as the most professional way to ask for one." Obviously these folks don't work for state government where raises are entirely out of our hands.
This was actually a helpful little tutorial. The first part of each section has the hints, tips, and tricks, then you answer some questions about yourself, and the behind-the-scenes stuff gives you some personalized feedback. The tutorial is self-paced, and you can save the work to come back later if you need to.
Ebook: 501 Vocabulary Questions
Okay, I may be the biggest English nerd in the whole world, but I could actually have a lot of fun with this book. I was the girl who was given a new Merriam-Webster dictionary at her wedding shower and got really exited about it! Each section has vocabulary words, questions to help you put them in context, and then the answers so you can check to see how you did. I like it!
Wednesday, August 11, 2010
CAMIO
1. Paul Revere - Maybe my history is a little fuzzy or I never learned this about Paul Revere: he's a wonderful silversmith! From tea urns, to salvers, to sugar baskets - what beautiful creations! There was also a hand-painted engraving that looks like it was probably used in a propaganda campaign against the British. Did I miss this part in history class?
2. Sioux - The first result at the top of page 1 was a scalp shirt. There's one of these in the art gallery at Red Cloud School. I know they aren't made of scalps and the hair on them is donated by friends and family...but I still find it kinda creepy. There are lots of artifacts in the results - a lot items with bead and leather work. Most of the items come from the Detroit Institute of Art and the Minneapolis Institute of Art. Interesting that there are no cultural or art institutions from South Dakota listed. I think maybe the Cultural Heritage Center needs to get on this.
3. I don't know if I have a favorite artist so I chose to search for works by Edgar Degas. I have always loved his ballerinas. My hope was to see what all was at the Art Institute of Chicago but after sorting by museum I couldn't find anything. To double check I did searches for Monet and Mary Cassatt, and I know the AIC has items from both artists, but still found nothing. So to triple check I went to the list of museums and collections that have contributed to CAMIO and guess what...no AIC! I'm going there later this month and I guess I'll just have to muddle through. Actually I plan to spend a good deal of my time walking through my favorite part of their collection - the Arms and Armor collection!
4. It's great to be able to have access to good photographs of so many works of art and artifacts. I especially like the idea of being able to access what I think of as "niche" collections - like the Lakota beading and leather work. And what a way to enhance a paper or project on a historical figure like Paul Revere than to show something else he did, besides riding a horse in the dark! I think it's almost more interesting to use the "Browse" feature, personally. I found some very cool things that way.
5. If I hadn't played around with the Browse options, I wouldn't have realized that things like purses and jewelry were in CAMIO. So I did a search for purses. One of the results I chose was a purse mount. I have no idea what that is because it doesn't look remotely like a purse, nor can I tell how it relates to purses. But it was cool looking and old. If I wanted to I could move the images around to put them in an order of oldest to newest or which ones were in the best shape. I'm sorry but I didn't create a web page. The thought of creating web pages that then float around in the Internet cloud forever more just bothers me. But I can see how doing this to go back to my search results would be handy.
2. Sioux - The first result at the top of page 1 was a scalp shirt. There's one of these in the art gallery at Red Cloud School. I know they aren't made of scalps and the hair on them is donated by friends and family...but I still find it kinda creepy. There are lots of artifacts in the results - a lot items with bead and leather work. Most of the items come from the Detroit Institute of Art and the Minneapolis Institute of Art. Interesting that there are no cultural or art institutions from South Dakota listed. I think maybe the Cultural Heritage Center needs to get on this.
3. I don't know if I have a favorite artist so I chose to search for works by Edgar Degas. I have always loved his ballerinas. My hope was to see what all was at the Art Institute of Chicago but after sorting by museum I couldn't find anything. To double check I did searches for Monet and Mary Cassatt, and I know the AIC has items from both artists, but still found nothing. So to triple check I went to the list of museums and collections that have contributed to CAMIO and guess what...no AIC! I'm going there later this month and I guess I'll just have to muddle through. Actually I plan to spend a good deal of my time walking through my favorite part of their collection - the Arms and Armor collection!
4. It's great to be able to have access to good photographs of so many works of art and artifacts. I especially like the idea of being able to access what I think of as "niche" collections - like the Lakota beading and leather work. And what a way to enhance a paper or project on a historical figure like Paul Revere than to show something else he did, besides riding a horse in the dark! I think it's almost more interesting to use the "Browse" feature, personally. I found some very cool things that way.
5. If I hadn't played around with the Browse options, I wouldn't have realized that things like purses and jewelry were in CAMIO. So I did a search for purses. One of the results I chose was a purse mount. I have no idea what that is because it doesn't look remotely like a purse, nor can I tell how it relates to purses. But it was cool looking and old. If I wanted to I could move the images around to put them in an order of oldest to newest or which ones were in the best shape. I'm sorry but I didn't create a web page. The thought of creating web pages that then float around in the Internet cloud forever more just bothers me. But I can see how doing this to go back to my search results would be handy.
Archive Grid
Doing the first search as instructed, I learned that whoever wrote the "Notes & Summaries" has a very limited view of Sitting Bull's life. The word "Sioux" was used instead of "Lakota," "Hunkpapa" was misspelled, the article makes it sound like he was the only leader at Little Big Horn (Crazy Horse & Gall were also major leaders of that battle), and the events surrounding his death were very inaccurate. I expected more from Cornell. So really, I didn't learn anything from this entry in particular.
Ansel Adams has been in the news lately due to the surfacing of some glass plate photos a man bought at a garage sale years ago. It hasn't yet been determined if they really were taken by Adams (last I heard) but they are still really cool photographs. So that's who I did my search on. There were 377 results which mostly seem to be bits and pieces of things he wrote, primarily correspondence. The gentleman who bought these photos should delve into this correspondence if he really wants to prove that the photos were taken by Adams - which he does because if they are Adams' work, they could be worth a pretty penny. One entry was actually for poetry written by Adams. I had no idea he wrote poetry. I wonder if it's any good...I'd had to go to Utah to figure that out though. Holdings were generally archives (both private and state) museums, the Smithsonian, and the Library of Congress.
Ansel Adams has been in the news lately due to the surfacing of some glass plate photos a man bought at a garage sale years ago. It hasn't yet been determined if they really were taken by Adams (last I heard) but they are still really cool photographs. So that's who I did my search on. There were 377 results which mostly seem to be bits and pieces of things he wrote, primarily correspondence. The gentleman who bought these photos should delve into this correspondence if he really wants to prove that the photos were taken by Adams - which he does because if they are Adams' work, they could be worth a pretty penny. One entry was actually for poetry written by Adams. I had no idea he wrote poetry. I wonder if it's any good...I'd had to go to Utah to figure that out though. Holdings were generally archives (both private and state) museums, the Smithsonian, and the Library of Congress.
Thursday, August 5, 2010
WorldCat, part Deux - OAIster
Since WorldCat pronounces OAIster like "oyster" I decided to use the LSU spelling of the French word "two" - as many vowels as possible with an "x" thrown on the end for good measure.
After following all the directions given in the lesson I ended up with 145 possible results. Since my husband is a hunter I thought I would click on the article entitled "Factors affecting road mortality of whitetailed deer in eastern South Dakota," because the more deer that get hit means the fewer there are to hunt. After clicking on the "Access" link, it took me to a digital commons site for the University of Nebraska Lincoln, which puzzled me a bit since this was a report on eastern South Dakota not Nebraska. Oh well. At first I thought only the abstract was available, but eventually I noticed a box on the side that said "Download." This did give me the entire PDF of the document, but that box wasn't immediately obvious as it was off to the side. However, that's UNL's issue not OAIster's.
My overall impression of OAIster is favorable compared to other databases, like ProQuest or EBSCO. I wouldn't necessarily say it's any easier to use, but it's not any harder to use. OAIster offers many of the same tools as they do - emailing the article, printing it, exporting it. The only thing I didn't see was a tool about source citing, but it caters to a different clientele.
As a side note, this picture was on the same page as the information about the article...it's rather humorous!
After following all the directions given in the lesson I ended up with 145 possible results. Since my husband is a hunter I thought I would click on the article entitled "Factors affecting road mortality of whitetailed deer in eastern South Dakota," because the more deer that get hit means the fewer there are to hunt. After clicking on the "Access" link, it took me to a digital commons site for the University of Nebraska Lincoln, which puzzled me a bit since this was a report on eastern South Dakota not Nebraska. Oh well. At first I thought only the abstract was available, but eventually I noticed a box on the side that said "Download." This did give me the entire PDF of the document, but that box wasn't immediately obvious as it was off to the side. However, that's UNL's issue not OAIster's.
My overall impression of OAIster is favorable compared to other databases, like ProQuest or EBSCO. I wouldn't necessarily say it's any easier to use, but it's not any harder to use. OAIster offers many of the same tools as they do - emailing the article, printing it, exporting it. The only thing I didn't see was a tool about source citing, but it caters to a different clientele.
As a side note, this picture was on the same page as the information about the article...it's rather humorous!
WorldCat, part Uno
Title search - Well the book I'm currently reading (The Not-So-Great Depression) yielded no results so I tried one of the last ones I read - Ninth Ward. Only 40 libraries have this book world wide. This actually didn't surprise me much because it's a fairly new, fits into a somewhat niche collection of middle grade fiction. The Alameda County Library in California was the top library in the list. The call number for this is pretty easy because it's fiction. The Alameda County Library has it listed as "J RHODES,J" because of author name and the juvenile fiction classification of the title.
Since it wasn't clear if we were supposed to see what else was available for that subject from WorldCat or the top listed library of that title, I did both, but only for one subject descriptor: Hurricane Katrina, 2005 --Juvenile Fiction. The Alameda County Library had 4 total titles for with the same subject descriptor, one being Ninth Ward. There were 22 titles in WorldCat with the same subject heading. Some of the titles in WorldCat were a little hokey (in my opinion), such as Jake and Friends Encounter Hurricane Katrina. I'm sorry, this makes it sound like they took a little road trip somewhere and happened upon a hurricane. Nothing could be farther from the truth. Maybe I'm judging a book by its title, but someone at that publishing company should have raised a little flag about that.
I have always liked using WorldCat and I think it is a very good interface - very user friendly and intuitive.
Since it wasn't clear if we were supposed to see what else was available for that subject from WorldCat or the top listed library of that title, I did both, but only for one subject descriptor: Hurricane Katrina, 2005 --Juvenile Fiction. The Alameda County Library had 4 total titles for with the same subject descriptor, one being Ninth Ward. There were 22 titles in WorldCat with the same subject heading. Some of the titles in WorldCat were a little hokey (in my opinion), such as Jake and Friends Encounter Hurricane Katrina. I'm sorry, this makes it sound like they took a little road trip somewhere and happened upon a hurricane. Nothing could be farther from the truth. Maybe I'm judging a book by its title, but someone at that publishing company should have raised a little flag about that.
I have always liked using WorldCat and I think it is a very good interface - very user friendly and intuitive.
Thursday, July 29, 2010
Net Library
1. I did a search for "travel." My results included a title on Lewis & Clark, an etiquette book to use when traveling in Africa and the Middle East, a book on how to travel alone and not be lonely, and a slew of title on weekend excursions in the country (as opposed to big cities) of pretty much every state in the U.S. I assume every state has one of those books because I readily admit that I did not look through the entire list of titles and count to 50. The only title that I raised my eyebrows a little at was a guide to "e-travel," which was about how to find great deals on vacations online. The title was published in 2000 and I know that a lot has changed since then. It makes me wonder what Net Library's weeding policy is or if they have one. Certainly e-books have a longer "shelf" life than standard print because they are useful for researchers and in theory more accessible, but if this title were on my public library shelves physically I would weed it. I do like the related topics feature on the right side of the page.
2. Not knowing what "more material" means, what materials they already have, or what age group my "students" are, I'm going to recommend some books to my high school seniors that expand on the Constitution and delve into political interpretations. In no particular order, here is my list.
Our Elusive Constitution: Silences, Paradoxes, Priorities
SUNY Series in American Constitutionalism
Representing Popular Sovereignty: The Constitution in American Political Culture
SUNY Series in American Constitutionalism
2. Not knowing what "more material" means, what materials they already have, or what age group my "students" are, I'm going to recommend some books to my high school seniors that expand on the Constitution and delve into political interpretations. In no particular order, here is my list.
Our Elusive Constitution: Silences, Paradoxes, Priorities
SUNY Series in American Constitutionalism
by Hoffman, Daniel N.
Publication: Albany State University of New York Press, 1997.
Publication: Albany State University of New York Press, 1997.
Representing Popular Sovereignty: The Constitution in American Political Culture
SUNY Series in American Constitutionalism
by Levin, Daniel Lessard.
Publication: Albany State University of New York Press, 1999.
A Companion to the United States Constitution and Its Amendments
Publication: Albany State University of New York Press, 1999.
A Companion to the United States Constitution and Its Amendments
by Vile, John R.
Publication: Westport, Conn. Greenwood Publishing Group, 2001.
3. As suggested, I searched for "Nebraska" in the publisher field. Results yielded titles with subjects that I expected to see, such as Lewis & Clark, various Native American leaders, places where history was written like Fort Laramie and Wounded Knee. Some surprises (pleasant ones, I might add) were titles such as: The American Indian Integration of Baseball, The Hoe and the Horse On the Plains: A Study of Cultural Development Among North American Indians, and Assimilation's Agent: My Life As a Superintendent in the Indian Boarding School System. I did not go through all 6 pages of results but from what I could tell most of the titles were published by Lincoln University of Nebraska Press. For the heck of it, I clicked on a few of the "related topics" ideas but didn't find anything as useful or pertinent as my original search.
Publication: Westport, Conn. Greenwood Publishing Group, 2001.
3. As suggested, I searched for "Nebraska" in the publisher field. Results yielded titles with subjects that I expected to see, such as Lewis & Clark, various Native American leaders, places where history was written like Fort Laramie and Wounded Knee. Some surprises (pleasant ones, I might add) were titles such as: The American Indian Integration of Baseball, The Hoe and the Horse On the Plains: A Study of Cultural Development Among North American Indians, and Assimilation's Agent: My Life As a Superintendent in the Indian Boarding School System. I did not go through all 6 pages of results but from what I could tell most of the titles were published by Lincoln University of Nebraska Press. For the heck of it, I clicked on a few of the "related topics" ideas but didn't find anything as useful or pertinent as my original search.
Wednesday, July 28, 2010
Gale Virtual Reference Library
Just clicking around...
I'm something of a modern day hippy and decided to click into "Endangered Species" under the Environment section. This particular title has three volumes. Professionally I'm not sure how I would use this, because even though libraries have been drastically reducing staff numbers over the last year or so, I'm not sure we qualify as an endangered species. However, I did read an article this morning on CNN.com about giant catfish that could face extinction if the Mekong River is dammed as a power source. It seems that its habitat has been threatened in 2003 due to slated dynamited navigation channel improvements. Other than the standard habitat and life cycle information about the giant catfish, I learned that there are villagers in Northern Thailand who believe that catfish are sacred. Now they must be crazy because catfish are the most ugly fish I have every encountered in my life. I appreciated reading more about the giant catfish and I hope that there doesn't have to be an updated entry on them because they are even more endangered.
Basically Searching...
Since I don't know what foods have zinc in them, I thought I might start with searching for answers to that question. My search resulted in one useful article that told me that the best food to find zinc in are "lamb, beef, leafy grains, root vegetables such as potatoes and carrots, shellfish, and organ meats such as liver or kidneys."*
I then looked up an article on Hindu gods because while wracking my brain for a question, I realized I could remember how to spell Shiva (random, I know). The article I found told me all about Devi, the wife of Shiva. Devi has numerous other names and incarnations including Kali, which was familiar from Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom. I tried the Read Speaker feature for this article....when it came to the pronunciations in parentheses I had to laugh. Half of the time the reader pronounced them differently than in the main article or spelled out part of the pronunciation. So I wouldn't say that was entirely helpful, but I wasn't expecting perfection.
*Brody, Tom, and Samuel Uretsky. "Minerals." The Gale Encyclopedia of Children's Health: Infancy through Adolescence. Ed. Kristine Krapp and Jeffrey Wilson. Vol. 3. Detroit: Gale, 2006. 1186-1188. Gale Virtual Reference Library. Web. 28 July 2010.
I'm something of a modern day hippy and decided to click into "Endangered Species" under the Environment section. This particular title has three volumes. Professionally I'm not sure how I would use this, because even though libraries have been drastically reducing staff numbers over the last year or so, I'm not sure we qualify as an endangered species. However, I did read an article this morning on CNN.com about giant catfish that could face extinction if the Mekong River is dammed as a power source. It seems that its habitat has been threatened in 2003 due to slated dynamited navigation channel improvements. Other than the standard habitat and life cycle information about the giant catfish, I learned that there are villagers in Northern Thailand who believe that catfish are sacred. Now they must be crazy because catfish are the most ugly fish I have every encountered in my life. I appreciated reading more about the giant catfish and I hope that there doesn't have to be an updated entry on them because they are even more endangered.
Basically Searching...
Since I don't know what foods have zinc in them, I thought I might start with searching for answers to that question. My search resulted in one useful article that told me that the best food to find zinc in are "lamb, beef, leafy grains, root vegetables such as potatoes and carrots, shellfish, and organ meats such as liver or kidneys."*
I then looked up an article on Hindu gods because while wracking my brain for a question, I realized I could remember how to spell Shiva (random, I know). The article I found told me all about Devi, the wife of Shiva. Devi has numerous other names and incarnations including Kali, which was familiar from Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom. I tried the Read Speaker feature for this article....when it came to the pronunciations in parentheses I had to laugh. Half of the time the reader pronounced them differently than in the main article or spelled out part of the pronunciation. So I wouldn't say that was entirely helpful, but I wasn't expecting perfection.
*Brody, Tom, and Samuel Uretsky. "Minerals." The Gale Encyclopedia of Children's Health: Infancy through Adolescence. Ed. Kristine Krapp and Jeffrey Wilson. Vol. 3. Detroit: Gale, 2006. 1186-1188. Gale Virtual Reference Library. Web. 28 July 2010.
Thursday, July 15, 2010
ProQuest
My husband and I are in the process of purchasing our first house. So my first search was for "home ownership." I checked the "full text documents only" box to narrow my results. I was hoping for a few articles about tips about what kinds of inspections to have done, hidden costs to watch out for, etc. With the current state of our economy and the concurrent housing crisis, I should have known I wouldn't get anything useful. After 10 pages of nothing that I was looking for, I decided there wouldn't be much to blog about.
My next search was for "adolescent brain." This yielded much better results (in terms of usefulness). I just love everything about ProQuest: how it helps me expand or narrow my search (Suggested Topics About), how I can take my search results and save them for later by emailing them, the citation builder, etc. Though I've never used it, I appreciate the RSS feed and Alert features. I find ProQuest easy to navigate and well laid out. I've also used the Advanced search many times to look for book reviews. A shout out goes to Jean Peterson in Tech Services for showing me how to do that my second day on the job!
I've used the Publications tab many times to search for a specific article I've seen in a print version of a magazine. For the heck of it I tracked down the issue of American Libraries that came out right before the 2006 annual conference in New Orleans. My mom wrote a French Quarter restaurant guide for that issue and I always enjoy reading it. Maybe that's cheating, but I don't care :)
My next search was for "adolescent brain." This yielded much better results (in terms of usefulness). I just love everything about ProQuest: how it helps me expand or narrow my search (Suggested Topics About), how I can take my search results and save them for later by emailing them, the citation builder, etc. Though I've never used it, I appreciate the RSS feed and Alert features. I find ProQuest easy to navigate and well laid out. I've also used the Advanced search many times to look for book reviews. A shout out goes to Jean Peterson in Tech Services for showing me how to do that my second day on the job!
I've used the Publications tab many times to search for a specific article I've seen in a print version of a magazine. For the heck of it I tracked down the issue of American Libraries that came out right before the 2006 annual conference in New Orleans. My mom wrote a French Quarter restaurant guide for that issue and I always enjoy reading it. Maybe that's cheating, but I don't care :)
Wednesday, July 7, 2010
SIRS Issue Researcher
Leading Issues - "Drilling for Oil" caught my eye. My parents live in New Orleans, went through Katrina, and are now dealing with more crap from the BP fiasco. I went down to visit them last month and we drove out to where "land" ends and the marshes begin. We saw a group of people loading boom onto a fishing boat (pictures at the bottom). But I digress...
What I liked best about all the information and options under the topic was the fact that if a PDF of an article isn't available, SIRS has still provided a color copy of any accompanying graph, charts, or tables. I was also intrigued by the fact that they give a file size for each article. My computer doesn't play nicely with Quicktime so I didn't get to listen to the Audio MP3 of the article - bummer! The Timeline feature under Research Tools was very in depth. One of the features of Issue Researcher I find the most helpful is the Pro/Con box with pre-selected articles for both sides.
Curriculum Pathfinders - I chose Language Arts and what I liked right away was the tag cloud of possible/popular research topics. The Lord of the Flies interactive game was...different....I also like the list of related subject terms linked to each article description. Most of the articles were at a fairly high Lexile level.
All in all, I liked the experience of exploring Issues Researcher better than yesterday's experience of Discoverer.
What I liked best about all the information and options under the topic was the fact that if a PDF of an article isn't available, SIRS has still provided a color copy of any accompanying graph, charts, or tables. I was also intrigued by the fact that they give a file size for each article. My computer doesn't play nicely with Quicktime so I didn't get to listen to the Audio MP3 of the article - bummer! The Timeline feature under Research Tools was very in depth. One of the features of Issue Researcher I find the most helpful is the Pro/Con box with pre-selected articles for both sides.
Curriculum Pathfinders - I chose Language Arts and what I liked right away was the tag cloud of possible/popular research topics. The Lord of the Flies interactive game was...different....I also like the list of related subject terms linked to each article description. Most of the articles were at a fairly high Lexile level.
All in all, I liked the experience of exploring Issues Researcher better than yesterday's experience of Discoverer.
Tuesday, July 6, 2010
SIRS Discoverer
1. Armadillos - Personally I'd like to know if was Jane or Julie who decided on armadillos :) I've actually been about 2 feet away from an armadillo once. They're kinda cute!
But on with the lesson...First of all I have to say that some of the article titles made me laugh: "Hard Body," "Boinngg! Here Come the Armadillos," and "Real Animals or Magic?" are among my favorites. It was nice that in the search results list articles with photographs had the little camera icon and the Lexile level listed. The articles were generally good and age-appropriate; but one entitled "The Face Only a Mother Could Love" from Southern Living caught me a little off-guard with the first sentence: "Beauty may be skin-deep, but when you're talking about an armadillo, ugliness goes all the way to the bone. What other animal looks like it was fashioned from leftover parts after God finished making everything else?" Ouch!!!!! So they may not be a delicate humming bird or a powerful tiger, but let's not teach our kids to be so snarky! I'll admit that armadillos seem a bit unfortunate, but have you seen Sphynx cats? Give me an armadillo any day over those!
2.a. Country Facts - I checked out both the Dominican Republic and Haiti. Along with maps and pictures of the flags, there were general facts about the geography and population, as well as a listing of important historical events. But more than that I like the fact-finder worksheets at the top of each article. I appreciate that each of these is created by professionals using reliable sources, but the articles referenced from the two countries I looked up are, frankly, old. The newest one from either is 2006. I'm sorry but in that respect Wikipedia's gotcha beat!
2.b. Maps of the World - I started out using some of the 7 boxes of map choices listed along the top of the page...maybe I'm just a negative Nelly today, but I was not impressed with these maps for the most part. It's nice that you can print the map out in color, but it bothers me that all the maps I looked at had dates of 1998 or older. Most teachers wouldn't look favorably on print information that old, so to have it in an electronic resource is disappointing. When I started using the alphabet options & the search options, I was amazed to see how many more options for maps there were. Many of these were much more interesting and informative. However, I was still disappointed by the timeliness of some of them. One map of the US for "Immigrants Admitted by Intended State of Residence" was from 1992! This is way too old!
2.c. I decided to explore the "Fiction" area. Not bad, not too bad at all. It's nice that most of the stories are short so they aren't hard to read on a computer, if you don't want to print them. These would be useful things to have for summer reading extras.
I also found the overall layout of this database to be rather unappealing.
But on with the lesson...First of all I have to say that some of the article titles made me laugh: "Hard Body," "Boinngg! Here Come the Armadillos," and "Real Animals or Magic?" are among my favorites. It was nice that in the search results list articles with photographs had the little camera icon and the Lexile level listed. The articles were generally good and age-appropriate; but one entitled "The Face Only a Mother Could Love" from Southern Living caught me a little off-guard with the first sentence: "Beauty may be skin-deep, but when you're talking about an armadillo, ugliness goes all the way to the bone. What other animal looks like it was fashioned from leftover parts after God finished making everything else?" Ouch!!!!! So they may not be a delicate humming bird or a powerful tiger, but let's not teach our kids to be so snarky! I'll admit that armadillos seem a bit unfortunate, but have you seen Sphynx cats? Give me an armadillo any day over those!
2.a. Country Facts - I checked out both the Dominican Republic and Haiti. Along with maps and pictures of the flags, there were general facts about the geography and population, as well as a listing of important historical events. But more than that I like the fact-finder worksheets at the top of each article. I appreciate that each of these is created by professionals using reliable sources, but the articles referenced from the two countries I looked up are, frankly, old. The newest one from either is 2006. I'm sorry but in that respect Wikipedia's gotcha beat!
2.b. Maps of the World - I started out using some of the 7 boxes of map choices listed along the top of the page...maybe I'm just a negative Nelly today, but I was not impressed with these maps for the most part. It's nice that you can print the map out in color, but it bothers me that all the maps I looked at had dates of 1998 or older. Most teachers wouldn't look favorably on print information that old, so to have it in an electronic resource is disappointing. When I started using the alphabet options & the search options, I was amazed to see how many more options for maps there were. Many of these were much more interesting and informative. However, I was still disappointed by the timeliness of some of them. One map of the US for "Immigrants Admitted by Intended State of Residence" was from 1992! This is way too old!
2.c. I decided to explore the "Fiction" area. Not bad, not too bad at all. It's nice that most of the stories are short so they aren't hard to read on a computer, if you don't want to print them. These would be useful things to have for summer reading extras.
I also found the overall layout of this database to be rather unappealing.
Wednesday, June 30, 2010
Laissez Faire my Lesson 1C!
Can you guess which version of World Book Foreign Language Edition I chose to play with? :)
Well, other than if a French child needed to do some homework while traveling in the U.S., I'm not sure how this would really benefit the average library user. I got excited by the guinea pigs, but then backtracked to antelope. It's conceivable that children could discern what other types of antelope exist across the ocean, which this article seem to feature. However, I then did a search in the PL Research version and got tons more information than in the French version.
While listening to an article in the Spanish language version it was nice to have whatever section or feature highlighted as it was read aloud.
Well, other than if a French child needed to do some homework while traveling in the U.S., I'm not sure how this would really benefit the average library user. I got excited by the guinea pigs, but then backtracked to antelope. It's conceivable that children could discern what other types of antelope exist across the ocean, which this article seem to feature. However, I then did a search in the PL Research version and got tons more information than in the French version.
While listening to an article in the Spanish language version it was nice to have whatever section or feature highlighted as it was read aloud.
Lesson 1B
So I decided to knock it off with the wombats and porcupines, to check out coyotes. In World Book Online for Kids (PL version), the information is simple but effective for the age group. I do wish they would use real photos for this age group though. I don't really see the point of using drawings for little kids. I also listened to the coyote sound...not impressed really. Let's see what we have in Info Finder...
Ahh, much more information on coyotes in Info Finder, and once again a real photograph and Latin as well. I also just noticed the "double click on a word to define it" feature. Pretty neat. It's also interesting to me that there is no mention of the articles for the K-5 grades being aligned with the SD content standards. I wonder why that is? Hmmm....
Okay, so when I went into World Book Reference Center I totally got distracted by a picture of Mount Raupehu on the North Island of New Zealand - I'm a huge LOR fan. Then I thought I might as well look up New Zealand as my country. I like the feature on the left that just gives a bunch of pictures. I would think this would be very helpful for a student doing research on a country. The e-book feature on the right is also interesting. Also, primary sources are also very helpful to many people doing research. I think people will like the general layout and graphic nature of the articles. It's laid out very nicely.
Ahh, much more information on coyotes in Info Finder, and once again a real photograph and Latin as well. I also just noticed the "double click on a word to define it" feature. Pretty neat. It's also interesting to me that there is no mention of the articles for the K-5 grades being aligned with the SD content standards. I wonder why that is? Hmmm....
Okay, so when I went into World Book Reference Center I totally got distracted by a picture of Mount Raupehu on the North Island of New Zealand - I'm a huge LOR fan. Then I thought I might as well look up New Zealand as my country. I like the feature on the left that just gives a bunch of pictures. I would think this would be very helpful for a student doing research on a country. The e-book feature on the right is also interesting. Also, primary sources are also very helpful to many people doing research. I think people will like the general layout and graphic nature of the articles. It's laid out very nicely.
Lesson 1A
World Book Kids...Well, I wanted to learn some more about wombats but they are only briefly mentioned in an article about Australia. I know wombats aren't the most popular mammal in the world, but they are really interesting! So picking up the pieces of my disappointed heart I looked up porcupines instead. I've always been tempted to stop on the highway when I see one that has been hit to take a few of its quills, but I've never had the guts to follow through. I was actually a bit disappointed in the article on porcupines though. The picture was an old, faded drawing and other than mentioning they spend a lot of time in trees, that's all the habitat information that was given.
World Book Student pulls it out! I found an article on wombats! Hey, wait a minute...they're marsupials! I didn't know that! I'd always read they were a lot like a large badger. The information in the article was much more thorough than the "Kids" edition. So onto porcupines...also a much more detailed article with a real photograph this time. They even threw a little scientific classification (Latin!) in there for good measure!
World Book Advanced didn't disappoint with information on Luxembourg! I especially like the way the article is outlined on the left side of the page for easy navigation. The "Facts in Brief" table was very nice. I think this would be very useful for someone doing a report. Also interesting is that Reagan and JFK seem to have the most presidential papers mentioning Luxembourg.
In World Book Explorer I browsed until I got to an article on the National Park system. I did notice that you can translate the article into many different languages. While it notes that the translation won't be perfect, a general sense of the information will be intact. I tried translating the article I found into Arabic...I think some of the text gets cut off on the right side of the screen. I don' t know if this is a big problem. Not having the ability to read Arabic but knowing it's reads from right to left, it looks abrupt to me.
World Book Student pulls it out! I found an article on wombats! Hey, wait a minute...they're marsupials! I didn't know that! I'd always read they were a lot like a large badger. The information in the article was much more thorough than the "Kids" edition. So onto porcupines...also a much more detailed article with a real photograph this time. They even threw a little scientific classification (Latin!) in there for good measure!
World Book Advanced didn't disappoint with information on Luxembourg! I especially like the way the article is outlined on the left side of the page for easy navigation. The "Facts in Brief" table was very nice. I think this would be very useful for someone doing a report. Also interesting is that Reagan and JFK seem to have the most presidential papers mentioning Luxembourg.
In World Book Explorer I browsed until I got to an article on the National Park system. I did notice that you can translate the article into many different languages. While it notes that the translation won't be perfect, a general sense of the information will be intact. I tried translating the article I found into Arabic...I think some of the text gets cut off on the right side of the screen. I don' t know if this is a big problem. Not having the ability to read Arabic but knowing it's reads from right to left, it looks abrupt to me.
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