Week 10
I enjoyed this, learned a lot and got some great information.
I think I'll be recommending this for new staff and staff who are doing reference but might not know everything that is out there.
Tuesday, March 26, 2013
Challenge #9 - History and Genealogy Resources - Ancestry Library, Heritage Quest and Sanborn Maps
Basic Discovery Exercise:
#1 - AncestryLibrary
I have my own subscription to Ancestry so am comfortable with it. My family tree does hide living people so it won't pull up unless I log in. So, I did the search for my name using Patricia M. Andersen and Rapid City, SD as my search terms. The first record is a U.S. Public Records Index, Volume 1 (1993) and has my previous address in Rapid, with a correct date of birth.
#2 - AncestryLibrary
I searched Anders Richard Andersen, my grandfather. Since he is the father of 10 (my father was 2nd), there are a lot of records including WWI Draft Registration, Iowa Birth and Christenings, U.S. Public Records. Because he was always called Richard Anders Andersen I checked for both names. I clicked on Census records to narrow the search down. I get better hits with Richard A. than with Anders R. Found him in the 1910 Census, he is living in Clinton, NE with his parents (Fritz and Camille) and six of his siblings. He is around 9 years old. Only two siblings are older, the rest are younger. (And there are more to come!). I clicked on his name and get some more suggestions for the 1920, 1930 and 1940 census as well as his draft card (again). The draft card is the only record that shows his name as Anders Richard.
#3 - AncestryLibrary
Got back 5,000+ images, clicked on one for Dr. Dr. G.W. in Vermillion. It does take quite a while to load, even when on a high speed connection like on campus, my first attempt the Adobe reader crashed. Kept crashing so couldn't get any pictures to open. Might be a problem with my computer I'll try at home tonight to see how it goes.
#4 - HeritageQuest
I tried a couple searches in HeritageQuest books, didn't get any direct hits on Andersen or Grace as a last name. Did a place search and found one family history for Rapid City, SD It is a Genealogy and Family Histories of the Lighter and Wilhelm Families. I opened it to the page image and it looks pretty readable and easy to use for people needing that family.
I have used HeritageQuest to see if their scans of the Census are clearer than those of the AncestryLibrary. It is always best to check both because they scanned them at different times and can have drastically different results. I did a search by name and also browsed some titles. I think my family is too young for a lot of this, I have a hard time finding anything relevant. However, I need to spend some more time with it while on my Ancestry pages to get more names to search.
#5 - Sanborn Maps
Chose Rapid City, 1915. First page shows a mill on the corner of Omaha and 5th. There is still a mill there, maybe slightly different buildings but it has been here at least that long. I also tracked down the Elks Building which still houses the Elks Theatre, where we show our Nostalgia Night film series every year. It was built in 1912 and modernized several times but still has a 50 ft. screen and a balcony for watching movies. Great fun.
I have referred several people to this recourse over the years, they really like it and use it when they need it. Students aren't too interested but our historical researchers in the area are certainly happy to have it.
Advanced Challenge
#1 - AncestryLibrary
Found the listing for passenger ships and searched for Titanic in 1912. There are pictures of all the White Star Ships, Olympic, Titanic, Britannic (no picture here), Majestic and Republic. I opened the Olympic (1911-1934) and got the number of funnels (4), masts (2) and a description of how built it, and the history of the ship. Fascinating reading. Couldn't open the image to full size but did get a thumbnail.
#2 - AncestryLibrary
Found Newspapers & Publications under Stories and Publications. Search Hindenburg. Limited it to just newspapers. Got a lot of Obituaries so redid the search saying Hindenburg dirigible, mostly to get rid of people named Hindenburg. That got me 517 hits, a lot of which are for The Stars and Stripes, talking about the disaster in the past since most of the articles are in the mid to late 1940's. I selected the LeRoy Gazette of LeRoy, New York to see if I could find anything closer to the time of the fire. Since I can't open images I can't read what is said, but it appears that they did cover the story in their May 23, 1934 edition. The airship went down on May 6th of that year. There are also several other stories that follow that date.
#3 - HeritageQuest
I searched Pennington County, SD but got no hits so switched to Woodbury County, Iowa (my home state). The first hit is a Woodbury County history, out of Sioux City, IA. Pulled lots of other counties in Iowa as well. I think adding a name would narrow that down but I didn't for this search.
The whole history thing fascinates me, I enjoyed this "lesson" a lot.
Basic Discovery Exercise:
#1 - AncestryLibrary
I have my own subscription to Ancestry so am comfortable with it. My family tree does hide living people so it won't pull up unless I log in. So, I did the search for my name using Patricia M. Andersen and Rapid City, SD as my search terms. The first record is a U.S. Public Records Index, Volume 1 (1993) and has my previous address in Rapid, with a correct date of birth.
#2 - AncestryLibrary
I searched Anders Richard Andersen, my grandfather. Since he is the father of 10 (my father was 2nd), there are a lot of records including WWI Draft Registration, Iowa Birth and Christenings, U.S. Public Records. Because he was always called Richard Anders Andersen I checked for both names. I clicked on Census records to narrow the search down. I get better hits with Richard A. than with Anders R. Found him in the 1910 Census, he is living in Clinton, NE with his parents (Fritz and Camille) and six of his siblings. He is around 9 years old. Only two siblings are older, the rest are younger. (And there are more to come!). I clicked on his name and get some more suggestions for the 1920, 1930 and 1940 census as well as his draft card (again). The draft card is the only record that shows his name as Anders Richard.
#3 - AncestryLibrary
Got back 5,000+ images, clicked on one for Dr. Dr. G.W. in Vermillion. It does take quite a while to load, even when on a high speed connection like on campus, my first attempt the Adobe reader crashed. Kept crashing so couldn't get any pictures to open. Might be a problem with my computer I'll try at home tonight to see how it goes.
#4 - HeritageQuest
I tried a couple searches in HeritageQuest books, didn't get any direct hits on Andersen or Grace as a last name. Did a place search and found one family history for Rapid City, SD It is a Genealogy and Family Histories of the Lighter and Wilhelm Families. I opened it to the page image and it looks pretty readable and easy to use for people needing that family.
I have used HeritageQuest to see if their scans of the Census are clearer than those of the AncestryLibrary. It is always best to check both because they scanned them at different times and can have drastically different results. I did a search by name and also browsed some titles. I think my family is too young for a lot of this, I have a hard time finding anything relevant. However, I need to spend some more time with it while on my Ancestry pages to get more names to search.
#5 - Sanborn Maps
Chose Rapid City, 1915. First page shows a mill on the corner of Omaha and 5th. There is still a mill there, maybe slightly different buildings but it has been here at least that long. I also tracked down the Elks Building which still houses the Elks Theatre, where we show our Nostalgia Night film series every year. It was built in 1912 and modernized several times but still has a 50 ft. screen and a balcony for watching movies. Great fun.
I have referred several people to this recourse over the years, they really like it and use it when they need it. Students aren't too interested but our historical researchers in the area are certainly happy to have it.
Advanced Challenge
#1 - AncestryLibrary
Found the listing for passenger ships and searched for Titanic in 1912. There are pictures of all the White Star Ships, Olympic, Titanic, Britannic (no picture here), Majestic and Republic. I opened the Olympic (1911-1934) and got the number of funnels (4), masts (2) and a description of how built it, and the history of the ship. Fascinating reading. Couldn't open the image to full size but did get a thumbnail.
#2 - AncestryLibrary
Found Newspapers & Publications under Stories and Publications. Search Hindenburg. Limited it to just newspapers. Got a lot of Obituaries so redid the search saying Hindenburg dirigible, mostly to get rid of people named Hindenburg. That got me 517 hits, a lot of which are for The Stars and Stripes, talking about the disaster in the past since most of the articles are in the mid to late 1940's. I selected the LeRoy Gazette of LeRoy, New York to see if I could find anything closer to the time of the fire. Since I can't open images I can't read what is said, but it appears that they did cover the story in their May 23, 1934 edition. The airship went down on May 6th of that year. There are also several other stories that follow that date.
#3 - HeritageQuest
I searched Pennington County, SD but got no hits so switched to Woodbury County, Iowa (my home state). The first hit is a Woodbury County history, out of Sioux City, IA. Pulled lots of other counties in Iowa as well. I think adding a name would narrow that down but I didn't for this search.
The whole history thing fascinates me, I enjoyed this "lesson" a lot.
Challenge #8 ArchiveGrid and CAMIO
Basic Discovery Exercise Part 1 - ArchiveGrid
#1 Sitting Bull was a shaman and leader of the Hunkpapa Sioux. Fought against Crow Idnians, wounded in battle several times. Opposed the encroachment of white men. Was at the Battle of Little Bighorn as a leader. Led his tribe into Canada where he lived with his tribe until they surrendered to the U.S. forces. After capture traveled with Buffalo Bill Cody's Wild West Show. Was killed while resisting arrest for his unwillingness to abandon the ritual Ghost Dance.
#2 I search "Homestake" and got 94 results. Topics such as Homestake Mining Company records, Papers from Frances Staunton, and George Hearst letters: Dakota Territory to James B. Haggin, San Francisco, Calif., 1877-1890. Instutions range from University of California Berkeley to Denver Public Library but are scattered all over the world.
There seems to be a lot of really good information here that could help anyone doing research or genealogy on families, companies or just general history. They would have to do a fair amount of follow-up to get access but it looks like some really good stuff. In fact I'm sending some information about this to a local researcher because I found some things that he might be interested in!
Basic Discovery Exercise Part 2 - CAMIO
#1 Items made by Paul Revere, a teaspoon, a sugar bowl and cover, a spoon, a tea urn, a salver, a teapot, a two handled covered bowl, a coffee urn, a sugar urn another couple of teapots, a sugar basket and a sugar urn (all on the first page of results.
#2 Searched "Sioux", got back 63 resulsts none of which are later than 1900! Dates range from 1830 - 1900. Formats covered are oil on canvas, pencil, colored pencil, carved catlinite, buffalo hide, and etching. Wide variety of types of art! Collections are scattered around the country, just looking at the first page of results items are held in Cleveland, New York, Detroit, and Minneapolis. Detroit has the largest number of holdings on the first page. Looked at the Pipe Bowl and Pipe Stem from the Detroit Institute of Arts and liked the "medium" of carved catlinite, wood, horse hair, ribbon, feathers and porcupine quill.
#3 Searched Ansel Adams and got 17 results, most in the George Eastman House, Rochester, NY. but some in Minnesota, California and Ohio. The title "Winter Storm" caught my eye so I opened that one. It is a storm moving into a valley. In the Minneapolis Institute of Arts, Minneapolis MN, photograph date is 1944, came to MN in 1969. Is a gelatin silver print 7-3/8 by 9 inches Gorgeous photograph.
#4 For me and my patrons I see the most useful part as getting images of historical significance that relate to research done in the area. It will be more useful as more places closer to home start adding to the collection.
#5 I pulled out seven items from a search of 14 on Lakota. Three of them are tied to tobacco or pipes so I moved them together and then rearranged the whole bunch just to see how it works. My webpage consisted of all seven but seeing them larger is helpful. I also compared the two pouches to each other but they are both long and thin so cut off part of the bottom of both doing that. I can see some application on this, especially if you were comparing something like battle maps.
Advanced Challenge
#1 Using ArchiveGrid, I would have to go the Iowa State University, Parks Library to read the papers of Theodore William Schultz, 1902 - . Schultz is one of the founding members of Dairymen's League Cooperative Association in New York, New Jersey and Pennsylvania. He is tied to Mary Jean Bowman and economist best known for her work on the economics of education and Arthur F. Burns and Austrian-born economist who was chair of the U.S. Federal Reserve Board from 1970-1978. He was also involved in the Oleomargarine controversy, 1943-1945.
#2 Took a few minutes to get this work well, once I did I got 102 records. I tried first using the search box but it wasn't specific enough, so I selected the advanced search and started using that. First I determined that using "any term" for fashion, dress or clothing would result in the highest number of hits. Then I tried Victorian or Dickens and got little to nothing, so I switched to a date search for 1837-1901, that is when I got my 102. There are some fun pictures here, I can see a community drama club loving this for getting ideas on new costumes! I pulled up a high-resolution full-image of a Harper's Weekly, very nice to look and it is downloadable if you need it for reference purposes.
Basic Discovery Exercise Part 1 - ArchiveGrid
#1 Sitting Bull was a shaman and leader of the Hunkpapa Sioux. Fought against Crow Idnians, wounded in battle several times. Opposed the encroachment of white men. Was at the Battle of Little Bighorn as a leader. Led his tribe into Canada where he lived with his tribe until they surrendered to the U.S. forces. After capture traveled with Buffalo Bill Cody's Wild West Show. Was killed while resisting arrest for his unwillingness to abandon the ritual Ghost Dance.
#2 I search "Homestake" and got 94 results. Topics such as Homestake Mining Company records, Papers from Frances Staunton, and George Hearst letters: Dakota Territory to James B. Haggin, San Francisco, Calif., 1877-1890. Instutions range from University of California Berkeley to Denver Public Library but are scattered all over the world.
There seems to be a lot of really good information here that could help anyone doing research or genealogy on families, companies or just general history. They would have to do a fair amount of follow-up to get access but it looks like some really good stuff. In fact I'm sending some information about this to a local researcher because I found some things that he might be interested in!
Basic Discovery Exercise Part 2 - CAMIO
#1 Items made by Paul Revere, a teaspoon, a sugar bowl and cover, a spoon, a tea urn, a salver, a teapot, a two handled covered bowl, a coffee urn, a sugar urn another couple of teapots, a sugar basket and a sugar urn (all on the first page of results.
#2 Searched "Sioux", got back 63 resulsts none of which are later than 1900! Dates range from 1830 - 1900. Formats covered are oil on canvas, pencil, colored pencil, carved catlinite, buffalo hide, and etching. Wide variety of types of art! Collections are scattered around the country, just looking at the first page of results items are held in Cleveland, New York, Detroit, and Minneapolis. Detroit has the largest number of holdings on the first page. Looked at the Pipe Bowl and Pipe Stem from the Detroit Institute of Arts and liked the "medium" of carved catlinite, wood, horse hair, ribbon, feathers and porcupine quill.
#3 Searched Ansel Adams and got 17 results, most in the George Eastman House, Rochester, NY. but some in Minnesota, California and Ohio. The title "Winter Storm" caught my eye so I opened that one. It is a storm moving into a valley. In the Minneapolis Institute of Arts, Minneapolis MN, photograph date is 1944, came to MN in 1969. Is a gelatin silver print 7-3/8 by 9 inches Gorgeous photograph.
#4 For me and my patrons I see the most useful part as getting images of historical significance that relate to research done in the area. It will be more useful as more places closer to home start adding to the collection.
#5 I pulled out seven items from a search of 14 on Lakota. Three of them are tied to tobacco or pipes so I moved them together and then rearranged the whole bunch just to see how it works. My webpage consisted of all seven but seeing them larger is helpful. I also compared the two pouches to each other but they are both long and thin so cut off part of the bottom of both doing that. I can see some application on this, especially if you were comparing something like battle maps.
Advanced Challenge
#1 Using ArchiveGrid, I would have to go the Iowa State University, Parks Library to read the papers of Theodore William Schultz, 1902 - . Schultz is one of the founding members of Dairymen's League Cooperative Association in New York, New Jersey and Pennsylvania. He is tied to Mary Jean Bowman and economist best known for her work on the economics of education and Arthur F. Burns and Austrian-born economist who was chair of the U.S. Federal Reserve Board from 1970-1978. He was also involved in the Oleomargarine controversy, 1943-1945.
#2 Took a few minutes to get this work well, once I did I got 102 records. I tried first using the search box but it wasn't specific enough, so I selected the advanced search and started using that. First I determined that using "any term" for fashion, dress or clothing would result in the highest number of hits. Then I tried Victorian or Dickens and got little to nothing, so I switched to a date search for 1837-1901, that is when I got my 102. There are some fun pictures here, I can see a community drama club loving this for getting ideas on new costumes! I pulled up a high-resolution full-image of a Harper's Weekly, very nice to look and it is downloadable if you need it for reference purposes.
Monday, March 25, 2013
Challenge #7 - WorldCat and FirstSearch
Basic Discovery Exercise Part 1
#1 Searched "King" as a keyword, got 1590914 results with 894493 of those being books and 16522 being articles. I knew this would be a big set because the search term is so generic. Decided to change it to Stephen King as an author phrase. Results here are 18 all, books 13, no articles (but 2 visual, 2 internet and 1 sound). Next I did it as author and put it in as King, Stephen. The results here are 24714 for all, 15843 books, 65 articles and hits for sound, visual, internet, archival, scores, computer, serials, maps, and updated resources.
#2 I searched a tough one, put in the title phrase "IT" and limited to books. The 2nd title is the Stephen King book, IT. 2721 is the number of libraries that own that book.
#3 Continuing to use IT by Stephen King the class descriptors (call numbers) are LC: PS3561.I483 and Dewey: 813/.54. Clicking on the authors name to see what else he has written I get 13831 for "all", 10183 for books and 27 articles with the other assorted results being smaller. For the subject I selected horror stories, 6392 for all, 5142 for books, 6 for articles. There is even one score (I assume the musical Carrie but didn't go look.)
Basic Discovery Exercise Part 2
#1 Learned something new, didn't know the various FirstSearch databases were available through the drop down in WorldCat, thought you had to go through a different pathway. Thanks, this will be very useful!
Doing the Subject Phrase search of South Dakota got me 945 results and some of the places found are amazing. University of Nebraska/Lincoln DigitalCommons; Wichita State Univ, Ks Archaeology Labs; U.S. Department of Agriculture Library; and letters from Sinclair Lewis to Marcella Powers, May 15, 1942. I think I'll be using this more often, it gives great results!
I've always told students that I use WorldCat as my "database of last resort" when I'm having trouble finding things in other places. My last resort just got much bigger and should have even more information for me. It looks like other bloggers are finding a few things out too but like me have been comfortable with WorldCat in the past, now to get used to the new options I've found on WorldCat.
Advanced Challenge
#1 I started my search with the keyword on Martin Luther, then put a second keyword in as King, but I changed the logical operator to "NOT". That gets a lot of materials, including 159061 for all and 139223 for books. Since that set was so big I went back and added the material type for "biography" to limit to non-fiction and specifically about Martin Luther. Thus all was 4644 and books 3851, internet 716, articles 47 and sound 30. Should be plenty there to help a student and I could teach the student how to look at other subject headings to limit further.
#2 I know nothing about graphic novels, no one has ever asked for them in our library that I know of, so I started out strangely. First I search for Pride and Prejudice and graphic. Then I looked at one of the records and noticed that it has a Genre/Form for Graphic Novels. So, I went back out and did a search on genre/form graphic novels. That got me 64068 for all, with 60753 for books. Now I have a set I can look at. I did notice while I was on Pride & Prejudice that it was illustrated by Marvel Comics which I thought was cool. I needed to go back and add "classic" to see if I could weed down to the right books. That worked, the first four titles are 20,000 leagues under the sea, Gulliver's travels, Frankenstein and Beowulf. I would probably add the Jules Verne because our students love their science fiction! Publisher is Stone Arch Books.
#3 Okay, first I limited to material type and put in score. Then I used the key words of my fair lady, got the wrong kind of results so changed that to title phrase. That got me lots to choose from! Accession number is 26429906.
Basic Discovery Exercise Part 1
#1 Searched "King" as a keyword, got 1590914 results with 894493 of those being books and 16522 being articles. I knew this would be a big set because the search term is so generic. Decided to change it to Stephen King as an author phrase. Results here are 18 all, books 13, no articles (but 2 visual, 2 internet and 1 sound). Next I did it as author and put it in as King, Stephen. The results here are 24714 for all, 15843 books, 65 articles and hits for sound, visual, internet, archival, scores, computer, serials, maps, and updated resources.
#2 I searched a tough one, put in the title phrase "IT" and limited to books. The 2nd title is the Stephen King book, IT. 2721 is the number of libraries that own that book.
#3 Continuing to use IT by Stephen King the class descriptors (call numbers) are LC: PS3561.I483 and Dewey: 813/.54. Clicking on the authors name to see what else he has written I get 13831 for "all", 10183 for books and 27 articles with the other assorted results being smaller. For the subject I selected horror stories, 6392 for all, 5142 for books, 6 for articles. There is even one score (I assume the musical Carrie but didn't go look.)
Basic Discovery Exercise Part 2
#1 Learned something new, didn't know the various FirstSearch databases were available through the drop down in WorldCat, thought you had to go through a different pathway. Thanks, this will be very useful!
Doing the Subject Phrase search of South Dakota got me 945 results and some of the places found are amazing. University of Nebraska/Lincoln DigitalCommons; Wichita State Univ, Ks Archaeology Labs; U.S. Department of Agriculture Library; and letters from Sinclair Lewis to Marcella Powers, May 15, 1942. I think I'll be using this more often, it gives great results!
I've always told students that I use WorldCat as my "database of last resort" when I'm having trouble finding things in other places. My last resort just got much bigger and should have even more information for me. It looks like other bloggers are finding a few things out too but like me have been comfortable with WorldCat in the past, now to get used to the new options I've found on WorldCat.
Advanced Challenge
#1 I started my search with the keyword on Martin Luther, then put a second keyword in as King, but I changed the logical operator to "NOT". That gets a lot of materials, including 159061 for all and 139223 for books. Since that set was so big I went back and added the material type for "biography" to limit to non-fiction and specifically about Martin Luther. Thus all was 4644 and books 3851, internet 716, articles 47 and sound 30. Should be plenty there to help a student and I could teach the student how to look at other subject headings to limit further.
#2 I know nothing about graphic novels, no one has ever asked for them in our library that I know of, so I started out strangely. First I search for Pride and Prejudice and graphic. Then I looked at one of the records and noticed that it has a Genre/Form for Graphic Novels. So, I went back out and did a search on genre/form graphic novels. That got me 64068 for all, with 60753 for books. Now I have a set I can look at. I did notice while I was on Pride & Prejudice that it was illustrated by Marvel Comics which I thought was cool. I needed to go back and add "classic" to see if I could weed down to the right books. That worked, the first four titles are 20,000 leagues under the sea, Gulliver's travels, Frankenstein and Beowulf. I would probably add the Jules Verne because our students love their science fiction! Publisher is Stone Arch Books.
#3 Okay, first I limited to material type and put in score. Then I used the key words of my fair lady, got the wrong kind of results so changed that to title phrase. That got me lots to choose from! Accession number is 26429906.
Lesson 6 Ebooks on EbscoHost (formerly NetLibrary)
Basic Discovery Exercise:
#1
Did my first search as Forensics with 32 results. The first two titles seem like they are very relevant, DNA Technology and AIDS, Drugs and Prevention. The third title made me smile, it was Greenland Mummies and is a juvenile literature title. This let me know that I probably need to do some limiting so I went to the Subject sections and opened the "show more" box and selected forensic anthropology and infrared spectroscopy, thus limiting my search to two articles. Still got the Greenland Mummies but added the Practcile guide to infrared microspectroscopy. Went back to the 32 results and selected the Category area to limit this time. I selected medical/forensic medicine and medical/public health. That got me five results, all of which are more suited to college students. It also included the two books I first saw that looked promising.
Knowing that your download didn't work I went ahead a clicked on the download button and got the notice to sign into My EBSCOhost account to check availability and download. Now I at least know what to tell students to expect when trying to download the book. Clicking on the ebook full text pulled up the book and provided an easy to use navigation system. I normally tell students to look for a table of contents and/or an index, both of which were available in DNA Technology in Forensic Science.
#2
Searched for constitution day and got no results. Researched using just constitution and got 174 results. Noticed that one of the subjects was constitutional history and decided to use that to limit to a reasonable number of articles for this exercise (3). There is one false drop, it talks of the constitution of Japan but the other two results would work well for someone who wants information for the Constitution Day events.
#3
For my publisher I selected "Nebraska <or> Oklahoma and got back 169 results. Since Oklahoma was dominating the results when looking in relevance order I switched to Title order just to see what all was available. University of Oklahoma has a lot of titles but then there is some U.S. Census stuff, University Press of Colorado and University of Nebraska Press are also represented. Interesting way to search and you get a wide variety of topics from black Elk to Bipolar Disorder! It might get someone thinking outside the "box" for topics they might not have tried with a subject like western history.
Advanced Challenge
#1 Decided to do my visual search on mining and got 123 results. Most results are on data mining which wasn't what I was thinking of but will do as a great example of why being specific matter when searching. Do have to say it isn't my favorite way to navigate but is someone is having trouble with traditional searching I'd be more than happy to show this to them.
#2
Search fairy tales then limited to fairy tales. Found the following:
All by Andrew Lang
The Violet Fairy Book co-author Ford, H.J.
The Blue Fairy Book
The Yellow Fairy Book
The Red Fairy Book
Basic Discovery Exercise:
#1
Did my first search as Forensics with 32 results. The first two titles seem like they are very relevant, DNA Technology and AIDS, Drugs and Prevention. The third title made me smile, it was Greenland Mummies and is a juvenile literature title. This let me know that I probably need to do some limiting so I went to the Subject sections and opened the "show more" box and selected forensic anthropology and infrared spectroscopy, thus limiting my search to two articles. Still got the Greenland Mummies but added the Practcile guide to infrared microspectroscopy. Went back to the 32 results and selected the Category area to limit this time. I selected medical/forensic medicine and medical/public health. That got me five results, all of which are more suited to college students. It also included the two books I first saw that looked promising.
Knowing that your download didn't work I went ahead a clicked on the download button and got the notice to sign into My EBSCOhost account to check availability and download. Now I at least know what to tell students to expect when trying to download the book. Clicking on the ebook full text pulled up the book and provided an easy to use navigation system. I normally tell students to look for a table of contents and/or an index, both of which were available in DNA Technology in Forensic Science.
#2
Searched for constitution day and got no results. Researched using just constitution and got 174 results. Noticed that one of the subjects was constitutional history and decided to use that to limit to a reasonable number of articles for this exercise (3). There is one false drop, it talks of the constitution of Japan but the other two results would work well for someone who wants information for the Constitution Day events.
#3
For my publisher I selected "Nebraska <or> Oklahoma and got back 169 results. Since Oklahoma was dominating the results when looking in relevance order I switched to Title order just to see what all was available. University of Oklahoma has a lot of titles but then there is some U.S. Census stuff, University Press of Colorado and University of Nebraska Press are also represented. Interesting way to search and you get a wide variety of topics from black Elk to Bipolar Disorder! It might get someone thinking outside the "box" for topics they might not have tried with a subject like western history.
Advanced Challenge
#1 Decided to do my visual search on mining and got 123 results. Most results are on data mining which wasn't what I was thinking of but will do as a great example of why being specific matter when searching. Do have to say it isn't my favorite way to navigate but is someone is having trouble with traditional searching I'd be more than happy to show this to them.
#2
Search fairy tales then limited to fairy tales. Found the following:
All by Andrew Lang
The Violet Fairy Book co-author Ford, H.J.
The Blue Fairy Book
The Yellow Fairy Book
The Red Fairy Book
Lesson 5 Gale Virtual Reference Library
Basic Discovery Exercise #1
Its been about a year since I looked at the title list for GVRL. I pull it each year to do statistics for access to online books (usually in July since we run a fiscal year here). Normally I leave it in publication titles descending order but decided to look at in in publication date descending order putting most recent additions at the top. I'll have to remember the "export" button, didn't notice it before or it is new!
Since the top book was UXL Encyclopedia of Native American Tribes, 2012, I search for Lakota, in all editions. It returned 17 results with titles like Sioux Nations: Lakota; Great Plains; Sioux Nations: Dakota and Assiniboin.
Exercise #2
I typed Lakota in the search box and got 145 results. There is a variety of results ranging from the Lakota titles I found above to things about Oglala Lakota college to Sioux Wars to Black Elk. I choose to look at the Sioux Nations: Lakota and listened to the beginning of the article. I did it via a download because the "listen" part wasn't loading very fast, the mp3 loaded faster.
Exercise #3
I looked at a couple of comments and it seems like everyone can find something to interest them using Gale Virtual Reference. I need to remember to use it more often.
Advanced Challenge
#1
Using the book Junior Worldmark Encyclopedia of World Holidays, 2000 (I found by puling up the title list and then did a page search for the word "holidays") I did a "search within this publication" for the word spring. That got me 25 results with countries like China, Iran, Columbia, Spain, Greece, Poland, Israel. There are also a variety of holidays from New Year to Easter and Karneval to Pascha. Not all are spring because you need to look at the articles to get the dates but it is a good resource for a start to digging into the list. The table of contents has a calendar of selected holidays so you can move into the spring months (April, May? or March, April, May?) There are 14 listed in March, with 4 listed as March/April. Then 10 listed for April and 12 for May and 4 listed for May through June with 2 for May through July.
#1a
Traditions seem most easy to find in the Junior Worldmark Encyclopedia of World Holidays but limiting to spring was more difficult, it can be done but takes a while, or at least it did for me.
#1b
Limiting to foods got fewer results but not much clearer choices on where to look first. I could select various titles by country but that would slow down a search and don't see that students would be encouraged to go this way. If there is an easier/cleaner way I missed it. Maybe I'm over thinking (being too much the reference librarian)
#1c
I think one thing that was frustrating me was the results of an overall search were leading to all festivals, not limiting to spring so titles like Thanksgiving and Halloween appeared near the top. I know there are many good books here, just wasn't happy with my results using spring festivals. When looking in the Junior Worldmark on World Holidays I decided to select China and found a spring festival called Ching Ming, there is information in this article on food and arts/crafts/games. Doing it a country or two at a time would get this type of information I'm just not sure if students would search this way.
#2
I looked at UXL American Decades, 2000-2009 and the Chronology part of the Table of Contents caught my eye. I'm a trivia buff and would love to find this kind of book for the years 1930-1990, it would help a lot with our Nostalgia Night movie series. People love reading about the year the movie was made and we provide it but by searching the net, this would be great for other years. For fun I searched for September and found one that happened on my birthday, September 21, "Barbara Walters extends her contract with ABC News and becomes the highest paid broadcast journalist in history. She receives $12 million annually (2000). The only one for this decade though.
Basic Discovery Exercise #1
Its been about a year since I looked at the title list for GVRL. I pull it each year to do statistics for access to online books (usually in July since we run a fiscal year here). Normally I leave it in publication titles descending order but decided to look at in in publication date descending order putting most recent additions at the top. I'll have to remember the "export" button, didn't notice it before or it is new!
Since the top book was UXL Encyclopedia of Native American Tribes, 2012, I search for Lakota, in all editions. It returned 17 results with titles like Sioux Nations: Lakota; Great Plains; Sioux Nations: Dakota and Assiniboin.
Exercise #2
I typed Lakota in the search box and got 145 results. There is a variety of results ranging from the Lakota titles I found above to things about Oglala Lakota college to Sioux Wars to Black Elk. I choose to look at the Sioux Nations: Lakota and listened to the beginning of the article. I did it via a download because the "listen" part wasn't loading very fast, the mp3 loaded faster.
Exercise #3
I looked at a couple of comments and it seems like everyone can find something to interest them using Gale Virtual Reference. I need to remember to use it more often.
Advanced Challenge
#1
Using the book Junior Worldmark Encyclopedia of World Holidays, 2000 (I found by puling up the title list and then did a page search for the word "holidays") I did a "search within this publication" for the word spring. That got me 25 results with countries like China, Iran, Columbia, Spain, Greece, Poland, Israel. There are also a variety of holidays from New Year to Easter and Karneval to Pascha. Not all are spring because you need to look at the articles to get the dates but it is a good resource for a start to digging into the list. The table of contents has a calendar of selected holidays so you can move into the spring months (April, May? or March, April, May?) There are 14 listed in March, with 4 listed as March/April. Then 10 listed for April and 12 for May and 4 listed for May through June with 2 for May through July.
#1a
Traditions seem most easy to find in the Junior Worldmark Encyclopedia of World Holidays but limiting to spring was more difficult, it can be done but takes a while, or at least it did for me.
#1b
Limiting to foods got fewer results but not much clearer choices on where to look first. I could select various titles by country but that would slow down a search and don't see that students would be encouraged to go this way. If there is an easier/cleaner way I missed it. Maybe I'm over thinking (being too much the reference librarian)
#1c
I think one thing that was frustrating me was the results of an overall search were leading to all festivals, not limiting to spring so titles like Thanksgiving and Halloween appeared near the top. I know there are many good books here, just wasn't happy with my results using spring festivals. When looking in the Junior Worldmark on World Holidays I decided to select China and found a spring festival called Ching Ming, there is information in this article on food and arts/crafts/games. Doing it a country or two at a time would get this type of information I'm just not sure if students would search this way.
#2
I looked at UXL American Decades, 2000-2009 and the Chronology part of the Table of Contents caught my eye. I'm a trivia buff and would love to find this kind of book for the years 1930-1990, it would help a lot with our Nostalgia Night movie series. People love reading about the year the movie was made and we provide it but by searching the net, this would be great for other years. For fun I searched for September and found one that happened on my birthday, September 21, "Barbara Walters extends her contract with ABC News and becomes the highest paid broadcast journalist in history. She receives $12 million annually (2000). The only one for this decade though.
Challenge #4 - Basic Discovery Lesson #1
ProQuest and I are old friends. I actually teach students to use this resources every semester, especially now that we have added the Sci/Tech database to our ProQuest holdings.
My topic of interest for today is Stephen King, I check out what is happening in this authors writings every few months, mostly to catch up on short stories or magazine articles he might have written that I have missed.
I didn't limit to any "field" just started typing in the search box.
Using "Stephen King" I get 11217 results, by clicking on the Full text limit button I knock it down to 8776. I then scrolled down to the dates bar graph and chose 2010-2019 for a limiting factor getting 1739 results. To limit it further I selected only 2013, getting 86 results.
Scanning through the results I find articles on his stories, books, politics and business life as well as movies and potential sequels, all things I might want to check into when I have some free time.
Lesson #1a
I read through several blog posts on the ProQuest lesson. Interesting the diversity of what is searched and also the level of knowledge about the database itself. I did post a comment on one page about dog training, just because I knew of a good place to look for dog training help.
Lesson #2
Fascinating, I decided to try some genre fiction headings to see what magazines are available full-text. Science Fiction/Fantasy has quite a few, Mystery or Mysteries have none. Crime does get some titles but has nothing to do with fiction. Western netted one title that seems to deal with fiction, Western Folklore. Not necessarily what a western fan would be looking for. This isn't the best way to find journals unless you already know the titles. Still, helpful if you have a citation and want to find out if the full-text article is available here.
Advanced Challenge, Lesson #1
Search "Les Miserable" with full text and got 4144 results. Limited to "review" or "commentary", got 526 results. Limited again to "novels" or "literary criticism" and got 47 results. Did pick up at leas tone review of the audio of the book which was interesting. For someone looking for literary criticism this should get them plenty to look at, if they wanted to limit it more just take out the "novels" part and it would give a few less items to look through.
Lesson #2
I put in "hurricane sandy" library impact and got 72 results, all full text. I then sorted the information in date order with the most recent first so articles showed in date order. The most recent article is dated 26 Oct 2012. Some of the more interesting topics discussed are limits on services, impact on customers and strengthening the library support.
ProQuest and I are old friends. I actually teach students to use this resources every semester, especially now that we have added the Sci/Tech database to our ProQuest holdings.
My topic of interest for today is Stephen King, I check out what is happening in this authors writings every few months, mostly to catch up on short stories or magazine articles he might have written that I have missed.
I didn't limit to any "field" just started typing in the search box.
Using "Stephen King" I get 11217 results, by clicking on the Full text limit button I knock it down to 8776. I then scrolled down to the dates bar graph and chose 2010-2019 for a limiting factor getting 1739 results. To limit it further I selected only 2013, getting 86 results.
Scanning through the results I find articles on his stories, books, politics and business life as well as movies and potential sequels, all things I might want to check into when I have some free time.
Lesson #1a
I read through several blog posts on the ProQuest lesson. Interesting the diversity of what is searched and also the level of knowledge about the database itself. I did post a comment on one page about dog training, just because I knew of a good place to look for dog training help.
Lesson #2
Fascinating, I decided to try some genre fiction headings to see what magazines are available full-text. Science Fiction/Fantasy has quite a few, Mystery or Mysteries have none. Crime does get some titles but has nothing to do with fiction. Western netted one title that seems to deal with fiction, Western Folklore. Not necessarily what a western fan would be looking for. This isn't the best way to find journals unless you already know the titles. Still, helpful if you have a citation and want to find out if the full-text article is available here.
Advanced Challenge, Lesson #1
Search "Les Miserable" with full text and got 4144 results. Limited to "review" or "commentary", got 526 results. Limited again to "novels" or "literary criticism" and got 47 results. Did pick up at leas tone review of the audio of the book which was interesting. For someone looking for literary criticism this should get them plenty to look at, if they wanted to limit it more just take out the "novels" part and it would give a few less items to look through.
Lesson #2
I put in "hurricane sandy" library impact and got 72 results, all full text. I then sorted the information in date order with the most recent first so articles showed in date order. The most recent article is dated 26 Oct 2012. Some of the more interesting topics discussed are limits on services, impact on customers and strengthening the library support.
Monday, February 4, 2013
SIRS Discoverer Basic #2 -
Country - Selected Australia (used the A to Z listing to get there.
Liked the easy to read and find "facts" part of the display. The history was also helpful if looking for that information. The map is bright, colorful and easy to read.
Picked a map from 1860-65 on Civil War battles, the thing I noticed first is that there were a lot of battles in Tennessee and Mississippi but nothing compared to the number in Virginia where most of the Confederate battles were won. Was impressed with the very long list of maps available, this could be very helpful at some point for some of our students.
Went to the Skills Discoverer and opened the portion on Computers, then clicked on the "see more webfind sites on computers, which led back to the Discoverer search feature, so backed back out. Clicked into the "Safety" game. I'm not much of a gamer so didn't go very far but I can see where this would interest many kids and help them learn about Interned safety at the same time.
SIRS Issues Researcher #1
I selected Cellular Phones as my Top 10 issue. Loved the "Pro and Con" section, actually have a professor who will enjoy seeing this feature, even if the topics are below college level discussion she can use the example of how to prepare a pro/con argument. Articles linked look like they are taken from very good sources like local newspapers or magazine. Nice.
#2 Went to curriculum pathfinders for Cellular Phones and looked at the various topics offered, loved the Game Theory stuff, would fascinate our students. Also the tie-in to math, equations, logic and probability. Some stuff here that might interest some of our freshmen. Opened Probabilities and took note of the variety of sources used including newspapers, magazines and (my favorite) government documents. Had to open one of those just to see what it linked too. There are two titles and they couldn't be more different topics, one covers breast cancer, the other the threat of large scale earthquakes. Fascinating.
I'll have to tackle the Advanced Challenge when I get back from Pierre, so expect more on either Wednesday or Thursday.
Country - Selected Australia (used the A to Z listing to get there.
Liked the easy to read and find "facts" part of the display. The history was also helpful if looking for that information. The map is bright, colorful and easy to read.
Picked a map from 1860-65 on Civil War battles, the thing I noticed first is that there were a lot of battles in Tennessee and Mississippi but nothing compared to the number in Virginia where most of the Confederate battles were won. Was impressed with the very long list of maps available, this could be very helpful at some point for some of our students.
Went to the Skills Discoverer and opened the portion on Computers, then clicked on the "see more webfind sites on computers, which led back to the Discoverer search feature, so backed back out. Clicked into the "Safety" game. I'm not much of a gamer so didn't go very far but I can see where this would interest many kids and help them learn about Interned safety at the same time.
SIRS Issues Researcher #1
I selected Cellular Phones as my Top 10 issue. Loved the "Pro and Con" section, actually have a professor who will enjoy seeing this feature, even if the topics are below college level discussion she can use the example of how to prepare a pro/con argument. Articles linked look like they are taken from very good sources like local newspapers or magazine. Nice.
#2 Went to curriculum pathfinders for Cellular Phones and looked at the various topics offered, loved the Game Theory stuff, would fascinate our students. Also the tie-in to math, equations, logic and probability. Some stuff here that might interest some of our freshmen. Opened Probabilities and took note of the variety of sources used including newspapers, magazines and (my favorite) government documents. Had to open one of those just to see what it linked too. There are two titles and they couldn't be more different topics, one covers breast cancer, the other the threat of large scale earthquakes. Fascinating.
I'll have to tackle the Advanced Challenge when I get back from Pierre, so expect more on either Wednesday or Thursday.
Time for Challenge #3 -- online magazines, newspapers in SIRS Discoverer and Issues Researcher.
SIRS Discoverer
First I did a "keyword" search on armadillo, got back 84 total articles, 7 were newspaper, 45 were magazine articles, 22 were references, 8 were graphics (yea! pictures), but zero were websites..
I looked at a couple of newspaper articles, magazine articles, references and graphics just to get an idea of what is out there.
Newspaper articles, the first one that caught my eye was the State Quarters project. Seems that there were original plans to have the armadillo on the quarter. Didn't happen, the flag's star made the cut. Second one I looked at was called "These wrinkles are all wet". Interesting article about why fingers and toes wrinkle when in water but the rest of the body doesn't (you'd end up looking like an armadillo). Fascinating.
Magazine articles, the first one I looked at was The Strange Armadillo by Freda K. Routh, she describes an armillo as a strange animal it has a nose and face like a rat, a shell-shaped body of an alligator and claws like a leopard. Pretty good visual image there! Second one was Where Do You Keep Your Skeleton? by Alice Andre-Clark, talks about the differences between excoskelton (skeleton on the outside of the body like some insects, lobsters and crabs; and endoskeltons, like humans and most mammels. Turtles and armadillos have both and exco and endo skelton.
References, plenty of things from Compton's by Britannica including the article on armadillos with definitions, descriptions and a picture. Nice. Scrolled down to get something from SIRS Discoverer that also included armadillos and went to the Texas (Archive). This is a fairly extensive overview Texas history, facts and figures. The armadillo show up as the State Symbol for Animal. The nice thing about this is there is plenty of other information if you want to know more about Texas as well as armadillos
Graphics. First one I looked at was the "defensive" pose, I saw it referred to a couple of times in the information above and wanted to see what it looked like. Fascinating, it looks like an armored ball! Second one I looked at was Giant Armadillo (didn't know they came in a giant size) so I clicked back to the article after looking at the picture, Since they are from South America it probably isn't too surprising I didn't know about them.
Summary of SIRS Discoverer. Fascinating things here, other than some basic background in Compton's or if looking for images it probably would not be a site I refer many college students too, but I enjoyed visiting it.
SIRS Discoverer
First I did a "keyword" search on armadillo, got back 84 total articles, 7 were newspaper, 45 were magazine articles, 22 were references, 8 were graphics (yea! pictures), but zero were websites..
I looked at a couple of newspaper articles, magazine articles, references and graphics just to get an idea of what is out there.
Newspaper articles, the first one that caught my eye was the State Quarters project. Seems that there were original plans to have the armadillo on the quarter. Didn't happen, the flag's star made the cut. Second one I looked at was called "These wrinkles are all wet". Interesting article about why fingers and toes wrinkle when in water but the rest of the body doesn't (you'd end up looking like an armadillo). Fascinating.
Magazine articles, the first one I looked at was The Strange Armadillo by Freda K. Routh, she describes an armillo as a strange animal it has a nose and face like a rat, a shell-shaped body of an alligator and claws like a leopard. Pretty good visual image there! Second one was Where Do You Keep Your Skeleton? by Alice Andre-Clark, talks about the differences between excoskelton (skeleton on the outside of the body like some insects, lobsters and crabs; and endoskeltons, like humans and most mammels. Turtles and armadillos have both and exco and endo skelton.
References, plenty of things from Compton's by Britannica including the article on armadillos with definitions, descriptions and a picture. Nice. Scrolled down to get something from SIRS Discoverer that also included armadillos and went to the Texas (Archive). This is a fairly extensive overview Texas history, facts and figures. The armadillo show up as the State Symbol for Animal. The nice thing about this is there is plenty of other information if you want to know more about Texas as well as armadillos
Graphics. First one I looked at was the "defensive" pose, I saw it referred to a couple of times in the information above and wanted to see what it looked like. Fascinating, it looks like an armored ball! Second one I looked at was Giant Armadillo (didn't know they came in a giant size) so I clicked back to the article after looking at the picture, Since they are from South America it probably isn't too surprising I didn't know about them.
Summary of SIRS Discoverer. Fascinating things here, other than some basic background in Compton's or if looking for images it probably would not be a site I refer many college students too, but I enjoyed visiting it.
Monday, January 28, 2013
Learning Express Library
Basic Discovery Challenge
1. Setting up an account is painless and really easy, so that part was no problem.
2. Interesting, I've been referring people to this resource for years but haven't ever tried one of the tests. Only missed one of the 5 questions I answered but the point was that I now understand how it works a little better and will be able to show that to students when they ask.
3. I picked the "Determining What You Want from Your Career." I could have used that about 30 years ago when I was first trying to decide what I wanted to do with my life. Now it is interesting to look back and see how to make those decisions based on logic and choices rather than guesswork and luck.
4. In the search box I put in "fractions" because I know it is a weakness of mine. The first ebook was Express Review Guides: Fractions, Percentages, & Decimals. I clicked on "download" and got a PDF of the book, all 256 pages of it! It's been a long time since I studied this so the pretest was a challenge!
Advanced Challenge
1. 4th Grader would need to be shown:
How to set up an account with login and password so as to be able to save their work and come back to work at their own speed
Elementary School Reading Skills Improvement section, including practice and diagnostic tests, the practice portions will all be very helpful
How to search for ebooks on reading for 4th grade reading
2. High school student doing a report on careers would be shown:
Job Search & Workplace Skills section
How to search for ebooks on Careers (actual search nets 55 items), if a specific career is being looked at then have that student at that career to the search to narrow down choices. (adding Nurse gets 8 ebooks, and pharmacist gets one book). One that caught my eye for nursing is the Spanish/English Terms for Nurses.
As usual I'm not doing the Common Core stuff, it is really outside my everyday work.
Basic Discovery Challenge
1. Setting up an account is painless and really easy, so that part was no problem.
2. Interesting, I've been referring people to this resource for years but haven't ever tried one of the tests. Only missed one of the 5 questions I answered but the point was that I now understand how it works a little better and will be able to show that to students when they ask.
3. I picked the "Determining What You Want from Your Career." I could have used that about 30 years ago when I was first trying to decide what I wanted to do with my life. Now it is interesting to look back and see how to make those decisions based on logic and choices rather than guesswork and luck.
4. In the search box I put in "fractions" because I know it is a weakness of mine. The first ebook was Express Review Guides: Fractions, Percentages, & Decimals. I clicked on "download" and got a PDF of the book, all 256 pages of it! It's been a long time since I studied this so the pretest was a challenge!
Advanced Challenge
1. 4th Grader would need to be shown:
How to set up an account with login and password so as to be able to save their work and come back to work at their own speed
Elementary School Reading Skills Improvement section, including practice and diagnostic tests, the practice portions will all be very helpful
How to search for ebooks on reading for 4th grade reading
2. High school student doing a report on careers would be shown:
Job Search & Workplace Skills section
How to search for ebooks on Careers (actual search nets 55 items), if a specific career is being looked at then have that student at that career to the search to narrow down choices. (adding Nurse gets 8 ebooks, and pharmacist gets one book). One that caught my eye for nursing is the Spanish/English Terms for Nurses.
As usual I'm not doing the Common Core stuff, it is really outside my everyday work.
Friday, January 25, 2013
Time Lesson 1C
World Book Foreign Language Edition
Basic Discovery Exercise
I'm sticking with Enciclopedia Estudiantil Hallazgos, my lack of knowledge about foreign languages is bad enough but my basic knowledge of some Spanish is much better than French!
Hmmm, looks a lot like the Kids versions earlier, bet I can get to Plants and Animals. Found service animals, the pictures help a great deal here. I think I might mention this to our language department, could be useful to some of them, especially the beginning students. Visual dictionary is the same as in the English language version, will be very helpful in learning some new Spanish words. Found a scale, or del peso [m]. Interesting. My computer isn't cooperating for listening to an article being read but I'll bet that would help a lot with pronunciation! Very interesting.
Advanced Challenge
The word "house" gets 8 articles in the spanish edition, articles are listed in English but text is in Spanish. Could be very useful for those who are struggling with the language and want help.
Using the browse was harder for me, needed to remember what the word for "house" was in Spanish, finally came up with casa, then the browse worked much better and I got some accurate results. Als, many more results using the browse, the results showed many more terms that could be used instead of "casa". Fascinating.
Aha, reached the end of the week one lessons. I think I learned a few things, I know I had fun and I will probably use the resources for some things when I happen to work Reference. Thanks!
World Book Foreign Language Edition
Basic Discovery Exercise
I'm sticking with Enciclopedia Estudiantil Hallazgos, my lack of knowledge about foreign languages is bad enough but my basic knowledge of some Spanish is much better than French!
Hmmm, looks a lot like the Kids versions earlier, bet I can get to Plants and Animals. Found service animals, the pictures help a great deal here. I think I might mention this to our language department, could be useful to some of them, especially the beginning students. Visual dictionary is the same as in the English language version, will be very helpful in learning some new Spanish words. Found a scale, or del peso [m]. Interesting. My computer isn't cooperating for listening to an article being read but I'll bet that would help a lot with pronunciation! Very interesting.
Advanced Challenge
The word "house" gets 8 articles in the spanish edition, articles are listed in English but text is in Spanish. Could be very useful for those who are struggling with the language and want help.
Using the browse was harder for me, needed to remember what the word for "house" was in Spanish, finally came up with casa, then the browse worked much better and I got some accurate results. Als, many more results using the browse, the results showed many more terms that could be used instead of "casa". Fascinating.
Aha, reached the end of the week one lessons. I think I learned a few things, I know I had fun and I will probably use the resources for some things when I happen to work Reference. Thanks!
Okay, on to Lesson 1b -- World Book Public Library Edition
World Book Online for Kids
Picked dogs this time, easier to spell than giraffe :-) I like the tool box at the top, with print, save, email, translate and listen to the section. Tools like that show that the reader is engaged and probably knows what they are looking for when they visit. Plenty of pictures, habitat was mostly ignored since most dogs live with people not in the wild. Watched the video on a dog running an agility course, I've done that, its harder than most good handlers make it look! Of course a border collie just shows off when they hit a course!
World Book Online Info Finder
Researched dogs again, lots more information came up here (560 items to be exact). I opened up the Portuguese water dog, they are so cute. A professor here on campus has one as does a groomer friend of mine. Friendly and funny dogs.
World Book Online Reference Center
Searched for New Zealand as my country. I like the break-down of information on the left, lots of access points that would work for students on campus, good to know. Results in the center is 552 encylopedia articles, plenty there to choose from. I also like the information on the right, Primary Sources are so hard for some students to find, this is a great place to look. Ebooks, well they are starting to be everywhere but the more the better for students!
Advanced Challenge:
World Book Online for Kids
Went into games this time, I love games. Had to watch the rotating list to decide what to pick! Stopped it on the U.S. History Fact-Finding Maze. Okay, that was fun once I figured out how to move the space shuttle! Not anything my students would use but it was fun none the less.
World Book Online Info Finder
I chose the Interactive Earth (geography being one of my weakest subjects) and went on to Interactive Maps which defaults to South Dakota, cool. I clicked on the Rapid City pin and got the following facts: pop. 67,956, me. area pop. 126,382. Is the 2nd largest city in South Dakota. Easy and quick way to get some facts, always nice to know.
World Book Online Reference Center
Selected The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn to look at, got in and jumped to Chapter 15 where Huck and Jim are rafting down the Mississippi. Been a while since I read this book. I like the tools at the top, just like I liked them in the earlier part. I'm not going to download but it is nice that it can be captured to your device of choice (me, I use Kindle). Way to much to print but printing a section could be handy. I also like the Primary Sources and the encyclopedia content about the book. Good stuff.
World Book Online for Kids
Picked dogs this time, easier to spell than giraffe :-) I like the tool box at the top, with print, save, email, translate and listen to the section. Tools like that show that the reader is engaged and probably knows what they are looking for when they visit. Plenty of pictures, habitat was mostly ignored since most dogs live with people not in the wild. Watched the video on a dog running an agility course, I've done that, its harder than most good handlers make it look! Of course a border collie just shows off when they hit a course!
World Book Online Info Finder
Researched dogs again, lots more information came up here (560 items to be exact). I opened up the Portuguese water dog, they are so cute. A professor here on campus has one as does a groomer friend of mine. Friendly and funny dogs.
World Book Online Reference Center
Searched for New Zealand as my country. I like the break-down of information on the left, lots of access points that would work for students on campus, good to know. Results in the center is 552 encylopedia articles, plenty there to choose from. I also like the information on the right, Primary Sources are so hard for some students to find, this is a great place to look. Ebooks, well they are starting to be everywhere but the more the better for students!
Advanced Challenge:
World Book Online for Kids
Went into games this time, I love games. Had to watch the rotating list to decide what to pick! Stopped it on the U.S. History Fact-Finding Maze. Okay, that was fun once I figured out how to move the space shuttle! Not anything my students would use but it was fun none the less.
World Book Online Info Finder
I chose the Interactive Earth (geography being one of my weakest subjects) and went on to Interactive Maps which defaults to South Dakota, cool. I clicked on the Rapid City pin and got the following facts: pop. 67,956, me. area pop. 126,382. Is the 2nd largest city in South Dakota. Easy and quick way to get some facts, always nice to know.
World Book Online Reference Center
Selected The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn to look at, got in and jumped to Chapter 15 where Huck and Jim are rafting down the Mississippi. Been a while since I read this book. I like the tools at the top, just like I liked them in the earlier part. I'm not going to download but it is nice that it can be captured to your device of choice (me, I use Kindle). Way to much to print but printing a section could be handy. I also like the Primary Sources and the encyclopedia content about the book. Good stuff.
Back to see if I can finish this weeks challenge!
Advanced Challenge --
World Book Kids
I picked the Science Projects. Not really anything here for my students but I can see where they would be wonderful for science teachers in the lower grades. I wouldn't have minded learning how to make a rainbow or crystals! There is some wonderful information here for our youngest learners and it is fun getting a chance to sit down and look at it.
World Book Student
This time I selected the Biography/Authors section just to see what authors are listed, I'm amazed at 1661 of them! Since I actually have a relative named Hans Christian Andersen (not the author as far as I know), I opened his biography. Some of the information I had read before but didn't realize that he worked as an actor, singer and dancer before becoming famous for his fairy tales and children's stories. Fun spot to visit.
World Book Advanced
Funny, I hadn't read ahead in the challenge so didn't realize that I could look up books using WB Advanced, and one of the choices given was Andersen's Fairy Tales. I browsed a bit but stopped to read The Real Princess, because, well, Once Upon A Mattress is one of my favorite plays/soundtracks. I was surprised at how short and concise the story is and how it has grown into a full-length play! I'm having fun playing on the computer today.
World Book Discover
First stop was the visual dictionary, I chose the button with the Dalmatian, what can I say, we own six dogs (but no dalmatians). So, I followed the links through to see pictures of dog breeds, only six listed and we don't have any of those so I moved back to check out something else. This time I picked on the videos, Nice collection with plenty of interesting topics. I selected the physical science videos and just a brief look tells me that I can learn a lot about a car, astronauts, electricity and around 88 other topics. Fun stuff, still a little basic for most of the students here but there might be a thing or two we can show to someone who is stepping into a field they haven't been in before.
I skipped the Common Core Connections part, they really are not related to my day to day work at the School of Mines library.
Advanced Challenge --
World Book Kids
I picked the Science Projects. Not really anything here for my students but I can see where they would be wonderful for science teachers in the lower grades. I wouldn't have minded learning how to make a rainbow or crystals! There is some wonderful information here for our youngest learners and it is fun getting a chance to sit down and look at it.
World Book Student
This time I selected the Biography/Authors section just to see what authors are listed, I'm amazed at 1661 of them! Since I actually have a relative named Hans Christian Andersen (not the author as far as I know), I opened his biography. Some of the information I had read before but didn't realize that he worked as an actor, singer and dancer before becoming famous for his fairy tales and children's stories. Fun spot to visit.
World Book Advanced
Funny, I hadn't read ahead in the challenge so didn't realize that I could look up books using WB Advanced, and one of the choices given was Andersen's Fairy Tales. I browsed a bit but stopped to read The Real Princess, because, well, Once Upon A Mattress is one of my favorite plays/soundtracks. I was surprised at how short and concise the story is and how it has grown into a full-length play! I'm having fun playing on the computer today.
World Book Discover
First stop was the visual dictionary, I chose the button with the Dalmatian, what can I say, we own six dogs (but no dalmatians). So, I followed the links through to see pictures of dog breeds, only six listed and we don't have any of those so I moved back to check out something else. This time I picked on the videos, Nice collection with plenty of interesting topics. I selected the physical science videos and just a brief look tells me that I can learn a lot about a car, astronauts, electricity and around 88 other topics. Fun stuff, still a little basic for most of the students here but there might be a thing or two we can show to someone who is stepping into a field they haven't been in before.
I skipped the Common Core Connections part, they really are not related to my day to day work at the School of Mines library.
Tuesday, January 22, 2013
Lesson 1a -- continued
World Book Advanced - country search
Search Germany (continuing my WWII history topic). Love all the break downs of ways to get to information in the left column, my eyes were drawn to WWII, Germany, Occupied Germany. Clicked on that link and read the description of the devastation the end of the war brought to the German people and their cities. For academic students this will probably best be described as background information or topics for further research, not enough "in depth" here for a college level paper but it will give some very useful information on where to get started including the vocabulary of the searching needed to get more advanced information.
World Book Discover -- browse function went to government. There are a couple of features that will help those who don't speak English as a native tongue or who don't read English well. There is an option to the left that has both Spanish and French translations. There is also an audio button where you can have the written word read to you.
Will get to Advanced Challenge tomorrow!
Search Germany (continuing my WWII history topic). Love all the break downs of ways to get to information in the left column, my eyes were drawn to WWII, Germany, Occupied Germany. Clicked on that link and read the description of the devastation the end of the war brought to the German people and their cities. For academic students this will probably best be described as background information or topics for further research, not enough "in depth" here for a college level paper but it will give some very useful information on where to get started including the vocabulary of the searching needed to get more advanced information.
World Book Discover -- browse function went to government. There are a couple of features that will help those who don't speak English as a native tongue or who don't read English well. There is an option to the left that has both Spanish and French translations. There is also an audio button where you can have the written word read to you.
Will get to Advanced Challenge tomorrow!
Lesson 1a
Lesson #1, World Book
Observations: very long list of ways to get into the database, not sure if it is clear what avenue I can use as an academic librarian. My steps through the lessons below:
Lesson 1a - World Book School Edition.
World Book Kids
As requested I searched a mammal, I chose the Giraffe because I love giraffe's but don't know a whole lot about their habitat. Love the graphics and imagine that kids will really like the embedded videos. Not much here I didn't know but was fun to visit.
World Book Student
Comparing amounts of information from link to link. Much more detail in Student edition about giraffe's including the fact that a giraffe can close its nostrils completely to keep out sand and dust. Interesting. More pictures and videos as well as some geographic information including maps. Easy to see the progression of the audience doing things this way. Gives the scientific classification indicating that it is more technical than the earlier section. Contributor tot he article is a Ph.D. giving more weight to the accuracy of the information.
World Book Advanced
Text got a little smaller and denser to put more information on the page. Many things are the same but there are more links to other resources. Also gives the scientific classification with the same author as the student edition.
As you move through the sections you go from very graphic intensive to less graphic help and more text-based assistance. Colors also tone down from the very bright and primary colors to start to the two-toned black/blue of the advanced search.
Looking at the timelines is fun, being a history nut I went there, specifically to WWII, Holocaust. It is scary to see how much damage the Nazis did in just 11 years, millions dead, entire families wiped off the face of the earth.
Duties call, I'll do the rest of this lesson later.
Observations: very long list of ways to get into the database, not sure if it is clear what avenue I can use as an academic librarian. My steps through the lessons below:
Lesson 1a - World Book School Edition.
World Book Kids
As requested I searched a mammal, I chose the Giraffe because I love giraffe's but don't know a whole lot about their habitat. Love the graphics and imagine that kids will really like the embedded videos. Not much here I didn't know but was fun to visit.
World Book Student
Comparing amounts of information from link to link. Much more detail in Student edition about giraffe's including the fact that a giraffe can close its nostrils completely to keep out sand and dust. Interesting. More pictures and videos as well as some geographic information including maps. Easy to see the progression of the audience doing things this way. Gives the scientific classification indicating that it is more technical than the earlier section. Contributor tot he article is a Ph.D. giving more weight to the accuracy of the information.
World Book Advanced
Text got a little smaller and denser to put more information on the page. Many things are the same but there are more links to other resources. Also gives the scientific classification with the same author as the student edition.
As you move through the sections you go from very graphic intensive to less graphic help and more text-based assistance. Colors also tone down from the very bright and primary colors to start to the two-toned black/blue of the advanced search.
Looking at the timelines is fun, being a history nut I went there, specifically to WWII, Holocaust. It is scary to see how much damage the Nazis did in just 11 years, millions dead, entire families wiped off the face of the earth.
Duties call, I'll do the rest of this lesson later.
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