QUESTION 1
My biggest discovery was probably the Gale Virtual Reference Library. I had never used it before and was really impressed by the versatility of it. I will definitely be recommending that one to students along with SIRS. I just really enjoyed having a reason to look through all these databases. A lot of times when you are helping a patron you feel rushed so it was nice to have a chance to explore and feel more comfortable with these resources.
QUESTION 2
I have already been talking these resources up to patrons, especially when they get a new card. We had previously discussed putting a display in our reference collection and now that we have a done the challenge I have a better feel for which ones would appeal to our patrons. We are also going to put some signs in our collection (by the Chilton's, language books, and possibly testing books) referring patrons to the appropriate databases.
Thank you for hosting this challenge! I really enjoyed it and felt like I learned a great deal!
Sunday, March 30, 2014
LESSON 9 - HISTORY AND GENEALOGY RESOURCES
QUESTION 1
I wasn't able to find myself. Probably because I have just had a cell phone for most of my adult life but I was able to find my some of my dad's old addresses in the US public records index and he is still very much alive.
QUESTION 2
I looked for my great grandfather Fred Kaitfors. I found several census records for him. It is fairly easy for me to search my dad's family because we have a very destinct name and as far as we know we are the only Kaitfors family. So I looked at other Kaitfors and found the ship that my great-great grandfather Matts came over on and tons of other records for my family. The coolest thing however was a Finnish baptism record from 1798 for Mathias Kaitfors from Finland but I couldn't view the original and am not entirely sure how to bring it up. I am not sure how he fits into our family tree or if the dates are off because there was a very simaliar record for 1795 and my great-great grandfather was supposedly named Mathias but he would have been born in the mid 1800s. I couldn't bring up the record either. Tried to email but it didn't work either. Will have to investigate that further.
QUESTION 3
I did the South Dakota picture search and was really surprised. I didn't know that they had all that on there. There were family photos, yearbooks, postcards, headstones and more. Ancestry.com rocks!
QUESTION 4
I can never find my family in Heritage Quest except on the census. I did a search for Spearfish instead. I came up with 21 hits, mostly with just 1 or 2 mentions of Spearfish. I also browsed a bit and found several books listed of George Washington's descendants.
QUESTION 5
I pulled up the Sanborn maps for Spearfish. In October 1885 (the earliest map listed) there was a gun shop, grocery store and Chinese laundry located on the block that the library/municipal building now occupies. Also in 1885 there was a skating rink on Main Street next to where the opera house would be built. Did they mean ice skating or roller skating? Was there roller skating in 1885 or was there a pond there? How odd. It is neat flipping through the years and watching the town grow. The 1923 map has an index on it. This would be handy because I get people in the library all the time trying to figure out where old businesses used to be. This might help.
I wasn't able to find myself. Probably because I have just had a cell phone for most of my adult life but I was able to find my some of my dad's old addresses in the US public records index and he is still very much alive.
QUESTION 2
I looked for my great grandfather Fred Kaitfors. I found several census records for him. It is fairly easy for me to search my dad's family because we have a very destinct name and as far as we know we are the only Kaitfors family. So I looked at other Kaitfors and found the ship that my great-great grandfather Matts came over on and tons of other records for my family. The coolest thing however was a Finnish baptism record from 1798 for Mathias Kaitfors from Finland but I couldn't view the original and am not entirely sure how to bring it up. I am not sure how he fits into our family tree or if the dates are off because there was a very simaliar record for 1795 and my great-great grandfather was supposedly named Mathias but he would have been born in the mid 1800s. I couldn't bring up the record either. Tried to email but it didn't work either. Will have to investigate that further.
QUESTION 3
I did the South Dakota picture search and was really surprised. I didn't know that they had all that on there. There were family photos, yearbooks, postcards, headstones and more. Ancestry.com rocks!
QUESTION 4
I can never find my family in Heritage Quest except on the census. I did a search for Spearfish instead. I came up with 21 hits, mostly with just 1 or 2 mentions of Spearfish. I also browsed a bit and found several books listed of George Washington's descendants.
QUESTION 5
I pulled up the Sanborn maps for Spearfish. In October 1885 (the earliest map listed) there was a gun shop, grocery store and Chinese laundry located on the block that the library/municipal building now occupies. Also in 1885 there was a skating rink on Main Street next to where the opera house would be built. Did they mean ice skating or roller skating? Was there roller skating in 1885 or was there a pond there? How odd. It is neat flipping through the years and watching the town grow. The 1923 map has an index on it. This would be handy because I get people in the library all the time trying to figure out where old businesses used to be. This might help.
LESSON 8- WORLD CAT, CAMIO AND MORE
PART 1 - WorldCat
QUESTION 1 & 2
I was amazed by how many different ways there are to limit your search on WorldCat. Instead of doing a search for "Harry Potter and the sorcerer's stone" which a figured would bring up millions of hits I decided to search for something more obscure. This morning I had someone call and ask if we had "The Thoen Stone: a saga of the Black Hills" by Frank S. Thomson. It looks like 130 other libraries also own this book with the South Dakota State Library being at the top of the list.
QUESTION 3
The call # for the book in LC is F657.B6 and in Dewey is 917.83/9/031. We are decided to be different and put it in 978.3. Mr. Thomson also wrote "Ninety-six years in the Black Hills" and "Last Buffalo of the Black Hills". There are 2 other items about the Thoen Stone, "Mr. Thoen's Stone" (which we own) and "Ezra Kind's mysterious message" which apparently the University of South Dakota has the only copy. Probably because it is an article from "Real West" magazine .
PART 2 Other databases & OAIster
OAIster was really neat. I did the search for South Dakota and found some interesting government documents and tons of pictures. I wasted more time then I should have looking through those. I also looked over the guide for the other databases and checked out ArchiveGrid too. That was also pretty neat. I found some interesting articles to view on there and was even able to pull up some photos as well.
PART 3 CAMIO
QUESTION 1
I did a search for "Sioux" and got 63 hits. I was amazed by how many museums that are on this database. The images are very high quality.
QUESTION 2
This resource would be helpful for people who are trying to recreate certain styles in their own crafts. It would also be helpful with school projects. Maybe it would be helpful if you were travelling somewhere to get a preview of a museums collections to decide where you would like to spend your time.
QUESTION 3
I did a search for "impressionist" and got 178 results. I saved them to favorites and opened them as a power point presentation. That would be really nice for a teacher doing a lesson.
QUESTION 1 & 2
I was amazed by how many different ways there are to limit your search on WorldCat. Instead of doing a search for "Harry Potter and the sorcerer's stone" which a figured would bring up millions of hits I decided to search for something more obscure. This morning I had someone call and ask if we had "The Thoen Stone: a saga of the Black Hills" by Frank S. Thomson. It looks like 130 other libraries also own this book with the South Dakota State Library being at the top of the list.
QUESTION 3
The call # for the book in LC is F657.B6 and in Dewey is 917.83/9/031. We are decided to be different and put it in 978.3. Mr. Thomson also wrote "Ninety-six years in the Black Hills" and "Last Buffalo of the Black Hills". There are 2 other items about the Thoen Stone, "Mr. Thoen's Stone" (which we own) and "Ezra Kind's mysterious message" which apparently the University of South Dakota has the only copy. Probably because it is an article from "Real West" magazine .
PART 2 Other databases & OAIster
OAIster was really neat. I did the search for South Dakota and found some interesting government documents and tons of pictures. I wasted more time then I should have looking through those. I also looked over the guide for the other databases and checked out ArchiveGrid too. That was also pretty neat. I found some interesting articles to view on there and was even able to pull up some photos as well.
PART 3 CAMIO
QUESTION 1
I did a search for "Sioux" and got 63 hits. I was amazed by how many museums that are on this database. The images are very high quality.
QUESTION 2
This resource would be helpful for people who are trying to recreate certain styles in their own crafts. It would also be helpful with school projects. Maybe it would be helpful if you were travelling somewhere to get a preview of a museums collections to decide where you would like to spend your time.
QUESTION 3
I did a search for "impressionist" and got 178 results. I saved them to favorites and opened them as a power point presentation. That would be really nice for a teacher doing a lesson.
Sunday, March 23, 2014
LESSON 7- EBOOKS ON EBSCO
QUESTION 1
I decided just to do a search for South Dakota because I was curious how many historical books would come up. It turned out to be a pretty broad search because I got 111 hits and not all of them were very relevant. There were many legal books that were interesting and there were also guides and historical books. The books are a little hard to read on the computer screen, but they are pretty easy to use.
The one thing that really concerned me as I was looking through the results was the age of materials. I realized going in that everything was copyrighted before 2006 which is fine. "Historical Atlas of the Outlaw West" from 1985 is no problem but there were lots of resource and sourcebooks from the 1990's. How many of those addresses are still current? "Century 21 Guide to Choosing Your Mortgage" from 1996; "Careers for Computer Buffs & other Technological Types" from 1998; all of these would have been weeded if they were in our physical collection because those areas have changed so much.
QUESTION 2
I did a search for United States constitution which brought up 102 hits including "Adventure Guide to Michigan" so I used the subject listing to limit my search to Constitutional amendments, history and law. This gave me 7 hits: "The American Republic: Constitution, Tendencies and Destiny", "The Constitution of the United States", "The Federalist, Notes", "Our Elusive Constitution: Silences Paradoxes, Priorities", "Representing Popular Sovereignty: The Constitution in American Political Culture", "The Right to Religious Liberty: The Basic ACLU Guide to Religious Rights", and "The United States Bill of Rights : The Ten Original Amendments to the Constitution of the United States Passed by Congress September 25, 1789, Ratified December 15, 1791".
QUESTION 3
I used Nebraska as my search term and it brought up 85 results. Everything appears to be published by the University of Nebraska Press. Most of the titles are relevant to Western history. There are many titles relating to Native Americans. A couple of the books were related European history (literary or World War II), but overall it was a very good search.
I decided just to do a search for South Dakota because I was curious how many historical books would come up. It turned out to be a pretty broad search because I got 111 hits and not all of them were very relevant. There were many legal books that were interesting and there were also guides and historical books. The books are a little hard to read on the computer screen, but they are pretty easy to use.
The one thing that really concerned me as I was looking through the results was the age of materials. I realized going in that everything was copyrighted before 2006 which is fine. "Historical Atlas of the Outlaw West" from 1985 is no problem but there were lots of resource and sourcebooks from the 1990's. How many of those addresses are still current? "Century 21 Guide to Choosing Your Mortgage" from 1996; "Careers for Computer Buffs & other Technological Types" from 1998; all of these would have been weeded if they were in our physical collection because those areas have changed so much.
QUESTION 2
I did a search for United States constitution which brought up 102 hits including "Adventure Guide to Michigan" so I used the subject listing to limit my search to Constitutional amendments, history and law. This gave me 7 hits: "The American Republic: Constitution, Tendencies and Destiny", "The Constitution of the United States", "The Federalist, Notes", "Our Elusive Constitution: Silences Paradoxes, Priorities", "Representing Popular Sovereignty: The Constitution in American Political Culture", "The Right to Religious Liberty: The Basic ACLU Guide to Religious Rights", and "The United States Bill of Rights : The Ten Original Amendments to the Constitution of the United States Passed by Congress September 25, 1789, Ratified December 15, 1791".
QUESTION 3
I used Nebraska as my search term and it brought up 85 results. Everything appears to be published by the University of Nebraska Press. Most of the titles are relevant to Western history. There are many titles relating to Native Americans. A couple of the books were related European history (literary or World War II), but overall it was a very good search.
Monday, March 17, 2014
LESSON 6- GALE VIRTUAL REFERENCE LIBRARY
Question 1
I was really impressed by the number of titles offered through the reference library. There were several that caught my eye. I can see using the National Survey of State Laws and all the Junior Worldmark Encyclopedias. Looked through a few books just to get a feel for how it works. At first I was having trouble because the first thing I would do after clicking on a title was click on the listed table of contents to see what was in the book. I was getting frustrated because I couldn't access the chapters from the table of contents link until I finally realized I was clicking on the image of the table of tables from the physical book and the previous page actually had the links to the chapters for the virtual book listed. The way it is formatted doesn't make it immediately obvious.
It is possible to view the books as text or PDFs, but even the text version does have some pictures in it. I think it is really neat too that you can download the books to ereaders. I don't have my Kindle with me right now to test it.
Question 2
I did a search for zinc and came up with 820 results. "The Gale Encyclopedia of Nursing and Allied Health" V.6 2013 seemed to be the most useful:
I was really impressed by the number of titles offered through the reference library. There were several that caught my eye. I can see using the National Survey of State Laws and all the Junior Worldmark Encyclopedias. Looked through a few books just to get a feel for how it works. At first I was having trouble because the first thing I would do after clicking on a title was click on the listed table of contents to see what was in the book. I was getting frustrated because I couldn't access the chapters from the table of contents link until I finally realized I was clicking on the image of the table of tables from the physical book and the previous page actually had the links to the chapters for the virtual book listed. The way it is formatted doesn't make it immediately obvious.
It is possible to view the books as text or PDFs, but even the text version does have some pictures in it. I think it is really neat too that you can download the books to ereaders. I don't have my Kindle with me right now to test it.
Question 2
I did a search for zinc and came up with 820 results. "The Gale Encyclopedia of Nursing and Allied Health" V.6 2013 seemed to be the most useful:
Natural sources
Oysters are tremendously high in zinc. Some sources, such as whole grains, beans, and nuts, have good zinc content but the fiber in these foods prevents it from being absorbed well. Foods with zinc that is better utilized include beef, chicken, turkey, milk, cheese, and yogurt. Pure maple syrup also is a good dose of zinc.
The search term has highlighted throughout the article so it was easy to find what I was looking for. Liked the hyperlinks to other articles in the publication.
Question 3
Went out and looked at some other peoples blogs. I feel bad because I am so far behind. Looks like everyone likes this resource.
Went out and looked at some other peoples blogs. I feel bad because I am so far behind. Looks like everyone likes this resource.
Sunday, March 16, 2014
LESSON 5 - PROQUEST
First off I love ProQuest. This is the database I use and recommend the most because not only does it have scholarly journals, it has popular casual publications like "Better Homes & Gardens", "Parenting", "Vogue", etc. I have used this to print out my dad's favorite pumpkin pie recipe that I found in "Better Homes & Gardens" but accidentally threw out and also articles from "Parenting" so I didn't have to have more magazines cluttering up my house. I also love the PDF version of articles because sometimes it is really nice to have the pictures. But enough gushing and onto the actual questions.
Question 1
I did a search on roofing because we need to replace our roof and I don't know anything about the process. Figured a little research would help keep me from being taken to the cleaners by the contractors. Roofing was too general of a search but the beautiful thing about ProQuest is that it makes it really easy to get what you want. After you type your search, in addition to having check boxes for full text and peer reviewed articles, it also offers related searches. Why, yes, roofing AND building materials sounds more like what I was after. On the right hand side of the page it offers many other ways to narrow your search. Don't want to wait for a page to load? Click preview to see if that article is something you are interested in. Super easy.
Question 1a.
Went out and looked at some of the other blogs. It is very interesting to see everyone else's thoughts on the databases.
Question 2
Public libraries only brought up 2 hits, but when I clicked on the suggested subject of "Library And Information Sciences" it shows 112 related publications. It was very easy to browse through the list and pick a publication to look at. I was able to view a PDF version of the most recent issue of "The Horn Book Guide to Children's and Young Adult Books". I liked the article I viewed and was able to email to myself for future reference. Thank you, ProQuest!
Question 1
I did a search on roofing because we need to replace our roof and I don't know anything about the process. Figured a little research would help keep me from being taken to the cleaners by the contractors. Roofing was too general of a search but the beautiful thing about ProQuest is that it makes it really easy to get what you want. After you type your search, in addition to having check boxes for full text and peer reviewed articles, it also offers related searches. Why, yes, roofing AND building materials sounds more like what I was after. On the right hand side of the page it offers many other ways to narrow your search. Don't want to wait for a page to load? Click preview to see if that article is something you are interested in. Super easy.
Question 1a.
Went out and looked at some of the other blogs. It is very interesting to see everyone else's thoughts on the databases.
Question 2
Public libraries only brought up 2 hits, but when I clicked on the suggested subject of "Library And Information Sciences" it shows 112 related publications. It was very easy to browse through the list and pick a publication to look at. I was able to view a PDF version of the most recent issue of "The Horn Book Guide to Children's and Young Adult Books". I liked the article I viewed and was able to email to myself for future reference. Thank you, ProQuest!
LESSON 4 - SIRS
PART 1 - SIRS DISCOVER
Question 1
I looked up armadillos and got quite a few results (88 articles in all). Most of them were moderate reading level and had pictures. When I looked closely at them I realized that most were quite old. Out of the first 25 results sorted by relevance only 11 were from the past 5 years and after the top 15 results the articles weren't really about armadillos but only mentioned them, but armadillos probably don't get a lot of articles written about them.
Question 2
I went exploring and there is a lot a good information. The country facts give a brief overview of the country and I really like the links to additional resources if you would like to learn more. The maps options was was nice also. I especially liked the historical maps. The company does need to clean up the site a bit. Some of the tags must be off because when you click on the Canada maps there is a map of European Gay rights and an article about how the state department fired 126 "perverts" in 1951 in addition to the Canadian maps you would expect to find.
I also took a look at the activities link which had a lot of fun options on it (real-aloud plays, crafts, etc.). The Skills Discover has videos and interactive tutorials on different areas. Great for visual learners.
Overall SIRS Discover has some really nice features, but could use a bit of a clean up. I did find some recent articles (mostly Feb. 2014) but there were a few from the last week. This is not a resource for current events. Supervision will probably be needed to help kids get to the right results.
PART 2 - SIRS RESEARCHER
Question 1
I looked at ADHD and also cellular telephones on the leading issues page of SIRS Researcher. The research tools are for the larger topic (mental health for ADHD and educational policies for cellular phones) but they are still very useful. The topic overview, timeline, and global impact help illustrate the background of the particular topic while the my analysis and note organizer help organize the student's project. The topic overview and articles were good and a lot more recent than what I saw on Discover. One article was only 4 days old!
Question 2
The curriculum pathfinders brings up 6 areas of study: math, science, social studies, language arts, fine arts, and health. Each area has research ideas, courses and other tools depending on the area. There is a lot of neat stuff. It is great for getting ideas for projects relevant to your area of study (ex: science has links on how to do a science project, notable people in science and controversial topics in science). It also just has a lot of fun stuff. There was a link to learn Mandarin on the language arts page and how to dance the samba on the fine arts page.
Overall I was really impressed with SIRS Researcher. It has a lot of great information that would be useful for almost any class I could think of. It is current (check out the Today's News/Current Events section). It also has some things that are just fun (Samba anyone?).
PART 1 - SIRS DISCOVER
Question 1
I looked up armadillos and got quite a few results (88 articles in all). Most of them were moderate reading level and had pictures. When I looked closely at them I realized that most were quite old. Out of the first 25 results sorted by relevance only 11 were from the past 5 years and after the top 15 results the articles weren't really about armadillos but only mentioned them, but armadillos probably don't get a lot of articles written about them.
Question 2
I went exploring and there is a lot a good information. The country facts give a brief overview of the country and I really like the links to additional resources if you would like to learn more. The maps options was was nice also. I especially liked the historical maps. The company does need to clean up the site a bit. Some of the tags must be off because when you click on the Canada maps there is a map of European Gay rights and an article about how the state department fired 126 "perverts" in 1951 in addition to the Canadian maps you would expect to find.
I also took a look at the activities link which had a lot of fun options on it (real-aloud plays, crafts, etc.). The Skills Discover has videos and interactive tutorials on different areas. Great for visual learners.
Overall SIRS Discover has some really nice features, but could use a bit of a clean up. I did find some recent articles (mostly Feb. 2014) but there were a few from the last week. This is not a resource for current events. Supervision will probably be needed to help kids get to the right results.
PART 2 - SIRS RESEARCHER
Question 1
I looked at ADHD and also cellular telephones on the leading issues page of SIRS Researcher. The research tools are for the larger topic (mental health for ADHD and educational policies for cellular phones) but they are still very useful. The topic overview, timeline, and global impact help illustrate the background of the particular topic while the my analysis and note organizer help organize the student's project. The topic overview and articles were good and a lot more recent than what I saw on Discover. One article was only 4 days old!
Question 2
The curriculum pathfinders brings up 6 areas of study: math, science, social studies, language arts, fine arts, and health. Each area has research ideas, courses and other tools depending on the area. There is a lot of neat stuff. It is great for getting ideas for projects relevant to your area of study (ex: science has links on how to do a science project, notable people in science and controversial topics in science). It also just has a lot of fun stuff. There was a link to learn Mandarin on the language arts page and how to dance the samba on the fine arts page.
Overall I was really impressed with SIRS Researcher. It has a lot of great information that would be useful for almost any class I could think of. It is current (check out the Today's News/Current Events section). It also has some things that are just fun (Samba anyone?).
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