This lesson was about NetLibrary. This is another resource that I have used occasionally but not extensively. For me it has been a great place to check out "how-to" books, since sometimes you just need one little thing and don't want to buy the whole book just to find out one small thing. In this case, I looked up The Complete Idiot's Guide to Sewing. What I like about NetLibrary is that you feel like you are really seeing the actual book, pictures and all. This is important since sometimes articles and such that you find online don't include the pictures. Sometimes that doesn't matter, but in the case of how-to books it really can make a difference. I really enjoy the fact that you can search by chapter and by page, or you can just flip through the book one page at a time. So far I haven't ever had it happen that someone else was using a book I wanted to use. Don't know if it's just because that doesn't happen often or if I just pick unpopular subjects! Either way, it is nice to just be able to look through a book quickly to find a small piece of information you need. Several times as I've been learning to sew I've used this site for the how-to books, when I come across a term in a pattern that makes no sense to me (pattern instructions assume lots of previous knowledge that I just didn't have!)
Next I went to look up books on the Constitution. This was a little tougher. When I just typed in the word "constitution" I got 5,782 results, many of which didn't seem to have much to do with the Constitution. I searched "United States Constitution" and that narrowed it down to 2,734 results, which seemed much more relevant. When I went to the advanced search button and looked up "United States Constitution" in the subject line, my results were even more relevant. I found several books right away that looked good:
Almost a Miracle: the American Victory in the War of Independence
Law in the U.S.
The American Republic: Constitution, Tendencies and Destiny
For the third portion, I went to the advanced search and typed in "Oklahoma" in the publisher field. Many of these looked like they would do nicely for the topic of Western history. Obviously not all of them would work, as not every book published in Oklahoma would be about history, but narrowing it down to the correct region to begin with seemed like a good start. Of the first page of 15 results, there were 7 books that I thought would definitely be worth a look on the topic of Western history. (it found 81 books total.) Another thing that I like about NetLibrary: the results can be sorted by newest, oldest, rank, title and author, and the site also lists related searches on the side so you can get ideas for different searches if you need more results.
Monday, July 26, 2010
South Dakota Library Challenge Lesson 4
For lesson 4, we are testing out Gale Virtual Reference Library. This resource has tons of great titles to browse. I chose "American Civil War Reference Library" from the list of available titles. This is basically an electronic version of a book. When I clicked on table of contents, it listed the individual chapters so I could choose one that looked interesting. First I clicked on "Civil War Timeline". This was a fantastic thing...it listed in order every single event of significance about the Civil War, including events leading up to and after the war. This would be very helpful if a student wanted to write a paper about the Civil War and was having trouble narrowing the subject down. In the chapter listing, there were also individual chapters on people who were influential in the war. I chose to look up Clara Barton. There was a really good biography of her, and on the left side were related searches listed to get more information. There were also citations provided for students writing papers, as well as links to other articles and a list of other books to get more information. This resource would be fantastic for students writing papers, or even someone just looking for a quick answer to a question such as "When was the Gettysburg Address delivered?"
For the next part of the exercise I used the "Basic Search" option at the top to look up information on Leonardo Da Vinci. I got a long list of articles about him. The great thing about this is that they were divided up into subjects, so I could choose which ones were relevant without having to look at each one individually. (Since Da Vinci was known as both artist and scientist, there was a wide variety of articles). This would be a good resource for looking up almost anything. If enough information is not found in the initial article, there are always links to more information.
For the next part of the exercise I used the "Basic Search" option at the top to look up information on Leonardo Da Vinci. I got a long list of articles about him. The great thing about this is that they were divided up into subjects, so I could choose which ones were relevant without having to look at each one individually. (Since Da Vinci was known as both artist and scientist, there was a wide variety of articles). This would be a good resource for looking up almost anything. If enough information is not found in the initial article, there are always links to more information.
Thursday, July 15, 2010
South Dakota Library Challenge, Lesson 3
This lesson was about how to use Proquest. I have already used Proquest quite often, so this one was not too difficult. Since we are an academic library, one of our main functions is to help students find credible resources for research papers. Proquest is one of the main sources we turn to for that. One great thing about it is that you can set your search to full text only. This will pull up only sources for which the whole article is right there, rather than just a citation. Sometimes it broadens the search to open it up to non-full text articles, but in that case there is usually a bit of extra time involved in getting the article. For some reason our students like to wait until the last minute to do their research, and don't have time for that, so we use the "full text only" function to narrow it down.
In my search, I searched for information on eating disorders. I got 23,182 results. Just skimming down the list on the first few pages, it looked as if most of the articles were relevant to the topics (every once in a while something off the wall comes up!) and most were from medical journals. Also popping up was a list of related topics that could narrow down the subject further, such as "eating disorders and women" and "Eating disorders and teenagers". There were tabs at the top of the list of articles that could sort it into different source types, such as scholarly, magazines, trade publications, newspapers, reference and dissertations. Very handy feature there.
Next I searched the Publications section for journal about libraries. 24 results came up....who knew there were that many! I had only actually heard of one of them on the list. Lots of possibilities there. This would be a good feature for finding source material about a particular field of interest.
In my search, I searched for information on eating disorders. I got 23,182 results. Just skimming down the list on the first few pages, it looked as if most of the articles were relevant to the topics (every once in a while something off the wall comes up!) and most were from medical journals. Also popping up was a list of related topics that could narrow down the subject further, such as "eating disorders and women" and "Eating disorders and teenagers". There were tabs at the top of the list of articles that could sort it into different source types, such as scholarly, magazines, trade publications, newspapers, reference and dissertations. Very handy feature there.
Next I searched the Publications section for journal about libraries. 24 results came up....who knew there were that many! I had only actually heard of one of them on the list. Lots of possibilities there. This would be a good feature for finding source material about a particular field of interest.
Friday, July 9, 2010
Library Challenge, Lesson 2
For this lesson, we are looking at SIRS Discoverer and SIRS Issues Researcher. I started in Discoverer, looking up an animal. I chose to look up hamsters. When I typed "hamster" into the search box, I came up with a long list of articles. Many were about care and feeding of pet hamsters. No pictures popped up immediately, but soon I figured out that the articles with the camera icon beside them were the ones that had pictures. The other icons by the articles were also very handy--they listed whether an article was fiction or nonfiction, and even the difficulty level. This would be very useful when helping a student find what they are looking for, as you can immediately weed out the things that don't have relevance, or are at the wrong difficulty level.
In the database features on the right hand side, I chose a country (Iceland) to see what kind of information I would get. There was a map and a flag on the right side, and the rest was information about Iceland. It listed population, climate/weather, economy, government and history. Very good overview. Next in the database features I selected a map. I went to "US Historical Maps" and was amazed at how many there were to choose from. After going through several pages of possibilities, I settled on a map called "States that never were". This was a great map even just for amusement. (It would of course also be useful for a history paper).It showed states that had been proposed but never come to be. I was really enjoying some of the names, such as "Chicasawria" and "Sagada-Hock". Probably a good thing that they never came to be. From the database features, I next chose to see "Photos". This would be a very useful tool if you were specifically looking for photos. I searched hamsters again, and came up with a few photos, including an interesting one of a wild hamster burrow, which I have never seen before. I was surprised by how few photos there were, so I searched horses to see what I would get, and this time got pages and pages of results. The best thing about the photos is that it listed them by subject (Such as "Wild horse" or "horse and carriage") so you could pick the specific type of photo you were looking for.
In SIRS Issues Researcher, I chose Global Warming as the topic to research. The first thing that came up was a topic overview, which gave a nice summary of the topic. At the top of the page it also had a "Pro/Con" section, which showed articles from both sides (sort of "Global Warming is a hoax" vs. "We're all killing the planet!") It also had a statistics button to click on to get statistics that would be useful to help support your point of view. There was a timeline showing relevant dates on the topic, and an enormous list of articles. These could be sorted by info type: news, magazines, reference, etc. There were also links to related issues.
In the "Curriculum Pathfinders" section, I chose "fine arts", then "Visual arts" and from there "painting". I got a list of relevant articles. At the top I could narrow it down further by choosing a more specific area. I chose "Impressionism", and was presented with another list of relevant articles. I liked how the list offered brief summaries of the articles so the researcher could get an idea of whether it was what was needed. This proved to be a really good resource, and could be narrowed down specifically or left more broad.
In the database features on the right hand side, I chose a country (Iceland) to see what kind of information I would get. There was a map and a flag on the right side, and the rest was information about Iceland. It listed population, climate/weather, economy, government and history. Very good overview. Next in the database features I selected a map. I went to "US Historical Maps" and was amazed at how many there were to choose from. After going through several pages of possibilities, I settled on a map called "States that never were". This was a great map even just for amusement. (It would of course also be useful for a history paper).It showed states that had been proposed but never come to be. I was really enjoying some of the names, such as "Chicasawria" and "Sagada-Hock". Probably a good thing that they never came to be. From the database features, I next chose to see "Photos". This would be a very useful tool if you were specifically looking for photos. I searched hamsters again, and came up with a few photos, including an interesting one of a wild hamster burrow, which I have never seen before. I was surprised by how few photos there were, so I searched horses to see what I would get, and this time got pages and pages of results. The best thing about the photos is that it listed them by subject (Such as "Wild horse" or "horse and carriage") so you could pick the specific type of photo you were looking for.
In SIRS Issues Researcher, I chose Global Warming as the topic to research. The first thing that came up was a topic overview, which gave a nice summary of the topic. At the top of the page it also had a "Pro/Con" section, which showed articles from both sides (sort of "Global Warming is a hoax" vs. "We're all killing the planet!") It also had a statistics button to click on to get statistics that would be useful to help support your point of view. There was a timeline showing relevant dates on the topic, and an enormous list of articles. These could be sorted by info type: news, magazines, reference, etc. There were also links to related issues.
In the "Curriculum Pathfinders" section, I chose "fine arts", then "Visual arts" and from there "painting". I got a list of relevant articles. At the top I could narrow it down further by choosing a more specific area. I chose "Impressionism", and was presented with another list of relevant articles. I liked how the list offered brief summaries of the articles so the researcher could get an idea of whether it was what was needed. This proved to be a really good resource, and could be narrowed down specifically or left more broad.
Friday, July 2, 2010
South Dakota Library Challenge, Lesson 1
I actually originally started this blog to talk about my artwork, but somehow that never happened! I've been far too busy to make any decent art lately, so I guess I had nothing to comment on. Now I've accepted the South Dakota State Library's Library Challenge, and will be using this blog to discuss what I've learned.
Lesson 1a--World Book school edition
I tried the different sections of the World Book school edition. First, I looked up guinea pigs in the World Book Kids. (Can't help it, I love guinea pigs.) There was a picture of guinea pigs, and a short informative article. The article gave the basics about guinea pigs, mostly focusing on domestic guinea pigs and describing how people keep them as pets. The article did mention that guinea pigs are also found in the wild.
In the World Book Student section, I also searched guinea pigs. It came up with the same photo, but the article was quite a bit longer. It gave much more detail about care and breeding....this would be very useful for someone considering getting one as a pet. It also mentioned that they are sometimes hunted in the wild for food, and that they are commonly used in research. I am wondering if this was left out in the younger kids' version for fear it might be upsetting to small children, or if it was just to save space because it was not considered essential information. Anyway, a nice long article with lots of good information.
In the World Book Advanced section, I searched for information about Australia. This search revealed an enormous amount of information. World Book sorts it all out kindly for the researcher. On the left, it listed different sources of information such as encyclopedia articles, e-books, maps, tables, sounds, videos, reports, research guides and web sites. This enables you to choose a certain type of information. On the right it listed primary sources. The center was a long article that can be printed, e-mailed or saved. When I clicked to the Australia page, it had articles broken down in sections: intro, people, ways of life, the arts, the land, climate, animals & plants, and economy. This would be excellent for someone writing a research paper...you could focus on a specific area of study, and even pick and choose the types of sources you would like to use. A very valuable resource.
In World Book Discover, I looked up American Government. There were plenty of articles to choose from, and for non-english speakers, there is even a translate option with many languages to choose from.
Lesson 1a--World Book school edition
I tried the different sections of the World Book school edition. First, I looked up guinea pigs in the World Book Kids. (Can't help it, I love guinea pigs.) There was a picture of guinea pigs, and a short informative article. The article gave the basics about guinea pigs, mostly focusing on domestic guinea pigs and describing how people keep them as pets. The article did mention that guinea pigs are also found in the wild.
In the World Book Student section, I also searched guinea pigs. It came up with the same photo, but the article was quite a bit longer. It gave much more detail about care and breeding....this would be very useful for someone considering getting one as a pet. It also mentioned that they are sometimes hunted in the wild for food, and that they are commonly used in research. I am wondering if this was left out in the younger kids' version for fear it might be upsetting to small children, or if it was just to save space because it was not considered essential information. Anyway, a nice long article with lots of good information.
In the World Book Advanced section, I searched for information about Australia. This search revealed an enormous amount of information. World Book sorts it all out kindly for the researcher. On the left, it listed different sources of information such as encyclopedia articles, e-books, maps, tables, sounds, videos, reports, research guides and web sites. This enables you to choose a certain type of information. On the right it listed primary sources. The center was a long article that can be printed, e-mailed or saved. When I clicked to the Australia page, it had articles broken down in sections: intro, people, ways of life, the arts, the land, climate, animals & plants, and economy. This would be excellent for someone writing a research paper...you could focus on a specific area of study, and even pick and choose the types of sources you would like to use. A very valuable resource.
In World Book Discover, I looked up American Government. There were plenty of articles to choose from, and for non-english speakers, there is even a translate option with many languages to choose from.
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