I don’t think I had any BIG discoveries, but I had never used some of the databases and it was interesting delving into them. I thought ArchiveGrid was very interesting and can see myself searching there for interesting stuff! CAMIO – not so much, but then I don’t think that is a database that I would use. I will come back to that one. As for the rest of the databases it was really good to go back in and do a refresher,  the only one I use with regularity is WorldCat, so it was nice to play with the others for a change!

I usually refer people to EBSCO, ProQuest and Gale and will continue to do so, and now that I know something about the others, I will be able to recommend them also.

Thanks – it was interesting and fun (for the most part.)  J

Week 9 -   History and Genealogy Resources—Ancestry Library,

                   Heritage Quest and Sanborn Maps

To find if the Titanic had sister ships, I first chose Immigration and travel, and then narrowed the search further by choosing Ship Pictures and Descriptions. I then typed in “Titanic” and got six results. All but one of these ships were White Star Lines – the Carpathia was a Cunard ship.  By clicking on each ship, I

found that the Olympics’ description says she is a sister ship to the Titanic. The description of the Britannic says that it is quite similar to the Olympic and Titanic, but does not mention it being a sister ship. There are many interesting pictures with each ship description, except the Britannic.

In researching the Hindenburg disaster I chose Newspapers and Periodicals and searched for Hindenburg, which gave me far too many results.  I then used the search term “The Hindenburg” and came up with a more reasonable number.  It returned 85 results in newspapers and 1 in periodicals.

The Stars and Stripes newspaper seemed to have the most articles and the one that I found most interesting was called “God Saved Me: Hindenburg Survivor”, a story about Philip Mangone.

In searching for Hughes County history, I chose books and searched “Hughes County” in places and 

“South Dakota” in keyword.  I came up with 37 results, but only one of them seemed relevant to my

search.  It was written in 1937, titled Hughes County History.  It is digitized at this site. There were

also the expected results, i.e.  Doane Robinson’s   Encyclopedia of South Dakota and Kingsbury’s History of Dakota Territory.

Week 8 – ArchiveGrid and CAMIO

I had never used this database before!  How very interesting.  After I got done exploring and got down to the question, I found that Theodore Schultz’ papers are held at the Iowa State University Archives. I learned that he got his degree in economics at South Dakota State College in 1926 and his PhD in 1930 from the University of Wisconsin.  The papers primarily cover his tenure at Iowa State College from 1933 to 1943. He and several other professors resigned their posts due to the oleomargarine controversy. (My bloodhound streak is now up and I am going to have to learn much more about this!) He received the Nobel Prize for Economics in 1979.               

CAMIO

I give up for now!  I've spent over two hours trying to complete this assignment and it’s making me crazy!  I will work on it more later, not going to let it defeat me…

Week 7 – WorldCat and More FirstSearch Indexes

1. Searching for a non-fiction book on Martin Luther for 4th and 5th graders, I used advanced search and typed Martin Luther in Keywords and used the next line with not and typed in King. Using the special limiters I chose juvenile and non-fiction .  414 results were returned and I then chose the limiter books.  This reduced the number to 359. I then, used date limiter asking for books from 2000 to 2012. I further reduced the results by choosing English. (I could have done this all at the start of my search and will do so next time, however this is how I conducted my first try ) This reduced the results to 43. I chose "Martin Luther: father of Reformation" by Barbara A. Somervill. This book is 112 pages and has a 2006 copyright. There are many regional holdings for this book, and instate the Watertown Regional Library owns it.

2. In searching for classic novels for my library I chose to search for graphic novels and chose Genre/Form as a limiter.  In the next search box I chose classics, and limited the type to books and fiction. 369 records were found, which should give me a pretty good sampling of books to choose from.  I personally would choose Tom Sawyer, published by Sterling of New York.

3. In helping the local theater director find a vocal score for My Fair Lady, I again used Advanced Search and typed My Fair Lady in the first search box and chose title.  In the second search box I typed in vocal score as a keyword.  Next I limited the type to Musical Scores. 94 English results were returned. I chose the score with the accession number 26429906. 

WEEK 6 – EBOOKS ON EBSCOHOST

    1.  I typed birdwatching in the search box after choosing Visual search. I came up with 12 results and found the book Complete Idiots Guide to Birdwatching.  It took me quite some time to figure out how to actually access the book. You need to click  “more” on the book summary. After I watched the little tutorial (which I should have done first) I tried typing in bird watching (two words).  I came up with 32 results and was then able to make the little connections. By clicking on Georgia Guidebooks the second column came up with two choices, South Carolina Guidebooks and North Carolina Guidebooks, and from there I could choose from two results.   Adventure guide to the Georgia and Carolina Coasts and Adventure Guide to Georgia. I also did a basic search, again just to see the difference and I liked it better for my small result base, however if a student or patron started out with a broad topic such as South Dakota I can certainly see how the visual search would be very handy in winnowing out results. That was a fun assignment!

I 2.  I typed fairy tales in the search box and got 82 results, then clicked on the tab fairy tales on the left side of the screen and got 16 results. No’s 2-6 were the “color fairy tales” that Gramma enjoyed!  They were The Violet Fairy Book, The Blue Fairy Book, Blue Fairy Book. The Yellow Fairy Book, and The Red Fairy Book. The author on all books was Andrew Lang, however on The Violet Fairy Book H. J. Ford was also listed as an author.

Week 5 - GALE VIRTUAL REFERENCE LIBRARY

1.    I first typed World Holidays in the search box and came up with 1194 results. I then entered spring festivals in the search box and came up with 444 results. The Junior Worldmark Encyclopedia of World Holidays seemed to be the best source for finding information.

In the search box “search within results” I entered holiday foods and got 5 results. The Junior Worldmark Encyclopedia of Foods and Recipes of the World seems like it would be the source the patron needs. By entering Holiday Cooking, I got 14 results, but still think the Junior Worldmark Encyclopedia of Foods and Recipes of the World would work best.

In the search box I entered holiday games which retrieved 519 results. I narrowed that by using the search within results and came up with two hits. Junior Worldmark Encyclopedia of World Holidays again seems to be the book to refer to. In clicking on the “readers guide” section I came up with the result: “Arts, Crafts and Games: Described here are famous works of art associated with specific holidays, as well as crafts created by different peoples in connection with the holidays.” 

2.    In Advanced search I limited the publication date to after 2011 and came up with 28,952 publications.

On the left hand side, I clicked on Family Life and came up with 310 results. Since my niece has gone to Haiti for several missions to work as a nurse in an orphanage in the mountains, I looked at the Haitians chapter of the Junior Worldmark Encyclopedia of World Cultures. It was interesting to read about the language, topography, etc. There were even some recipes provided. I also liked the websites provided.

I then looked at Bowling Beatniks and Bell Bottoms and chose Volume 4, 1960’s-1970’s. Within that book I chose the chapter on Beach Movies, which brought back a lot of memories of Annette Funicello and Frankie Avalon! What fun my friends and I had during that time period!  There was also a list of books that I could read if I wanted to dig deeper.

Week 4 – Proquest

I don’t know why, but this challenge was a little hard and somewhat frustrating for me! I worked on it for a long time before being even somewhat happy with the results I was getting.

1.      I typed in Les Miserables and chose full text as requested. Under subject I chose novels and literary criticism. Under document type I chose reviews and came up with 8 results.

2.       I immediately used advanced search and typed in Hurricane Sandy. In the other search box I typed in libraries. I limited the search to full text and the date as the last three months, asking it to sort newest first. I came up with 119 results with the latest being February 20.2013, which was an article about a disaster recovery center in a library closing. I tried adding impact to the search, but that didn't help. Some of the articles were relevant with libraries being recovery centers and food and clothing distribution centers. There were also articles talking about the library being a place to use computers, charge their cell phones, etc.  I would think that this would all be impacting the communities in some way.

SIRS DISCOVERER

1.    I would first choose advanced search and enter solar system, making sure the easy tab is checked for reading level. You could also choose a lexile level here.  44 results came up. The student could also then click on any of the subject heading in the articles to bring up more results. By checking the encyclopedia and World Book tabs I came up with 122 additional articles. A nice addition to this search might be sorting the articles by date.

2.    I first performed a subject search for volcanoes and 934 articles came up.  By choosing graphics at the top of the page it was narrowed to 137. They are listed in alphabetical order in the search results.  You can also choose Pictures and/or Maps of the World on the home page and enter volcanoes in the search box. You get a list of 21 graphics from Maps or the World and  105 results from the Pictures search.

SIRS ISSUES RESEARCHER:

1.    When entering suicide prevention in the keyword search I couldn't seem to find a list of the web sites like Sara did.  I ended up clicking on Leading Issues A-Z list and clicking on suicide. I came up with 441 results with 10 WebSelect sites. This is a good way to find good web sites, however it is not dedicated to teen suicide.  If you want to be more specific in the subject (teen vs all) I would use Google, because you can come up with sites geared to teen suicide.

3.    I first searched using the term water restriction in subject search and came up with a few interesting articles that I think would be of help. You can also search water use.  By searching water use as the subject, the search led me to Leading Issues, which has an “At Issue” debate on the subject” “Should mandatory restrictions be implemented to conserve water?” You can also use the subject drought water restrictions and a few articles do come up relevant to the question.

SOUTH DAKOTA STATE LIBRARY ELECTRONIC RESOURCES CHALLENGE – LESSON 2 – LEARNING EXPRESS LIBRARY

1. A fourth grader needs help with reading comprehension. What are three things you will show him on Learning Express?

The first thing I would show him is a section under Reading Skills Improvement.  At the bottom of the list are two Grade 4 Reading Comprehension Practices.  I would also point out that after completing those, he could move on to the 4^th Grade Reading Practices, Informational, Narrative and Persuasive, where there are reading diagnostic practice tests.

2. A recent high school graduate has her eye on an office manager job, but she knows she needs to improve her skills before she applies. What do you recommend for her in Learning Express?

I would recommend that she use the Job Search & Workplace Skills section of Learning Express. There are many things she could use in that section, including Career Course, Succeeding on the Job, Interviewing and the Complete Professional.  All of these should be very helpful to her in her pursuit of an office manager job.

3. A high school student comes to you for help on his report  on careers. He is interested in being either a nurse or a pharmacist someday. What do you show him on Learning Express?

For nursing, I would direct the student to the Jobs & Careers section of Learning Express. Under that tab there is a section on Nursing and Allied Health. In that section he will find Becoming a Nurse. The Nursing and Allied Health section also contains Entrance Test Preparation and Licensure and Certification where there are practice tests on various subjects such as biology, math, general science, etc.

For pharmacy, I entered both pharmacy and pharmacist in the search box. 4 results appeared for pharmacy.  There are 4 practice tests that the student could look at or take which might help in deciding his career choice.  There were 2 results in ebooks. One was an exam for pharmacy technician and the other was preparation for the PCAT.

South Dakota State Library Electronic Challenge Lesson 1

1a

World Book Kids – I looked up the eagle – was disappointed that I couldn't compare one species of eagle to another, and then remembered that this was a lower grade level database. Sara and I had just been talking about how to tell an immature bald eagle from a golden eagle!  The tools are nice.  I think this database would be quite useful for young students.

World Book Student – I played around with several of the special feature sections – I looked up Alabama in the explore section (I am going there on vacation this year), then using some of the other tools,  looked at behind the headlines and took some of the trivia quizzes.  This looks like a good database for students to learn from, but also just to have some fun with.

World Book Advanced – I checked out The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. This part really doesn't pertain to me as I have no students, but I think it would be a very useful for students to use the Back in Time feature to know what other things were happening and people were doing during that time period. 

World Book Discover – I don’t know what students would use, but I had fun playing around with the Timeline builder.  The How to Do Research section was quite thorough and I liked Visual Dictionary was really interesting.

1b

World Book Online (Public Libraries) for Kids – I went into Maps and more and since I am going to Alabama,  I wanted to see what I could find about certain areas. In Interactive maps I was able to pull up alabamatravel.org and find out more about the places I am going and places nearby that we might consider traveling to.

World Book Online Infofinder – Continuing on my travels to Alabama, I went into Interactive Earth and Explore the USA and checked out Alabama! I was able to find even more information, on monuments and historic sites, some of them even on the island I am going to be on, and plant and animal life, which since we are going to be birding should be helpful. I can imagine using this to plan many trips.

World Book Online Reference Center – I looked at The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn again and there was no difference between this one and 1a. We do not have students who come in and do research, but I can see where this might be helpful for students, especially as you can download to another device.

1c

World Book Foreign Language Edition – I  typed the word "bird" into the search box, and the only thing that came up was a paragraph on Jack Miner who was an activist who worked to protect the birds. I used the browse box and there was nothing under bird. I eventually found that the Spanish word for bird  is Ave. There was an article on how birds live, move, eat, etc. It seems to me that the browse button is better even though it wasn't quite what I was looking for.  After all of this, I went back to the home page and noticed a nice little icon on the side that said “mundo de animals”. When I clicked on this icon it was easy! You can choose a bird or animal you want and either listen, or read about it.  I don’t speak Spanish, but I am sure it would be very nice to listen to the spoken Spanish.

2. It would be better to use the search box if you know the Spanish term for what you are looking for. I am not seeing a translate button for the search box.