Basic, Advanced & Common Core Correlations Discovery Exercise
1. When asked what my biggest discovery was, when working on this set of exercises, there's a huge part of me that wants to admit I've gotten quite spoiled, via Google and other basic avenues for research, but perhaps that might hold too much honesty. While it's true, I realized there are other methods for doing research, many of which I am still not quite familiar, but eager to learn. I am glad I took this Advanced coursework, so I could become reacquainted with the online resources that are rarely accessed in my day to day routine. It was, also, quite beneficial to dust off my gray cells by revisiting some of the resources I've used before, but not lately.
One of the most fun resources I researched, CAMIO, was the most difficult to find the results requested. Still, I truly enjoyed looking for the answers, while perusing the search results. I am hoping to go back to simply view all of the collections just to see what sort of treasures the collections hold. :)
2. I promote the online resources all the time when discussing certain things with patrons, friends, & family. There are printouts & posters on the endcaps of the bookshelves, on windows, and near the computer island, to remind patrons the resources are available. I'm also going to try to host some special events (with Board approval, of course) that will provide some insight as to what each resource offers & how it can benefit patrons.
It's one of my go-to places, though I should go there more often, it seems, just to keep myself familiar with each particular resource. In my experience, once a patron discovers the resources, they are thrilled to have access to them. :)
Thursday, April 9, 2015
Monday, April 6, 2015
Lesson 9 -- History and Genealogy Resources - Ancestry Library, Heritage Quest, and Sanborn Maps
Advanced Challenge
1. My search began with choosing "pictures" from the Quick Links at the bottom of the page. From there, I chose, "Passenger Ships and Images" from the Featured Data Collections in the right hand column. Then, I entered, "Titanic" in the "keyword" box & did a search. This resulted in 6 different ships, of which 5 were all part of the same shipping line, "White Star". I opened the link to the Titanic and learned the sister ship of the Titanic was the "Olympic".
With this knowledge, I used the back button and located the Olympic from the 6 ships that came from my previous action. I learned the Olympic was launched October 20, 1910. She cost $7,500,000 to build, could carry 2,584 passengers (1st, 2nd, & 3rd class) and a crew of 860. Her maiden voyage was from Southampton to New York, June 14, 1911. She was rammed and holed by the British cruiser Hawke on September 20, 1911, but not seriously damaged. When the Titanic was sunk, the Olympic had some altering done to her construction. The changes included an increase to her tonnage. She served as a troopship in WWI. She was completely refurbished in 1921, so she'd be able to burn oil fuel, and more. On May 16, 1934, she sunk the well-known lightship, Nantucket, off of the New England coast after ramming it during a dense fog. Seven members of the Nantucket's crew were killed. The Olympic was retired from service in March of 1935, sold to British shipbreakers and the scrapped remainder was dismantled in 1937. This search also provides a photograph of the great ship.
2. From the New Collections, I chose Newspapers & Publications. Then, I chose the following filters: 1930's, North America/USA/New Jersey. At this point, I entered the word, "Hindenburg" into the keyword box and clicked on search. The results were 441 records from the following categories:
Stars and Stripes Newspaper, Europe, Mediterranean, and North Africa Editions, 1942-1964 245 42Associated Press, Subject Card Index to AP Stories, 1937–1985 41United States Obituary Collection 34Stars and Stripes Newspaper, WWI Edition, 1918-1919 31Stars and Stripes Newspaper, Pacific Editions, 1945-1963 28Associated Press, Name Card Index to AP Stories, 1905-1990 8Canada Obituary Collection 8LeRoy Gazette (LeRoy, New York) 2Railway Gazette Worldwide Historical Data, 1860-1930 1OSIA News (Order Sons of Italy in America), 1953-1995 1Historic Catalogs of Sears, Roebuck and Co., 1896-1993
3. When I initially opened up Heritage Quest, I noticed there are some "Tip of the Day" and "Census Maps" provided on the homepage. I clicked on the middle Tip of the Day and another window opened up with several tips on how to have a successful search. The Tip pages displayed Ancestry.com. Very nice feature & I found it quite helpful. Some days, I really need all the help I can get, if I want to get done within the 4 hour window I'm allowed to work each day! The tips offered vary from basic, intermediate, and advanced.
So, with this tool to utilize, I began my search in earnest. The homepage mentioned, under Search Books - "find info on people & places described in over 28,000 family & local histories", so that's where I went. I began with entering, "Clark County, South Dakota, USA" into the "City,County, State, Country..." window and chose Exact to this place as a search criteria. This gave me zero good matches & suggested I remove the "exact" limiter. I returned to the previous search page & cleared my initial search "exact" limiter. This brought the result of over 5 million results! To the left of the results, is a column under the heading, "Family Histories & Genealogy Books", with a plethora of the results broken down into more specific categories per result. So, I began perusing this column, to eliminate those categories which may not be relevant to my search. From here, I chose the category, "History of Dakota Territory",
In choosing this book, I was then able to search through the table of contents, to investigate the various volumes & chapters within the material for appropriate content. There are a total of 5 volumes, each with a table of contents page & an index provided. I searched each volume for relevant content by examining the title pages & indexes of the volumes of this "History of Dakota Territory" book. I like that this resource allows the reader to "open in a new window/tab" which really helps the search go faster, instead of having to go back and forth a lot. Only volume I from this collection did not offer a in-depth breakdown of the various chapters in each volume, but it does have a table of contents, which helps provide more information about the topics covered in each chapter. I had to peruse the table of contents for Volume I, but began with the Index of the remaining volumes, to be able to better search for Clark County specifically. Knowing this kind of search would take far more time than I can afford to invest, due to time restrictions, I thought perhaps I should reread the Lesson instructions, thinking I may have missed something when initially reading. It occurred to me the Lesson does not require me to do any exploration of the Sanborn Maps, even though that is one of the resources listed within the Lesson Heading. Given that, I thought I'd take a peek at Sanborn Maps, thinking maybe that's where the lesson intended to have me search for the county history search. I discovered the various differences in the size of Clark/Clark County over the years, but not much else there. Lots of nice maps, but little information found during this portion of my quest.
I returned to the Tip pages, to see if there was another tip which might be helpful, even though I'm using Heritage Quest & not Ancestry.com for this portion of the lesson. At this point, I figured what the heck?! I noticed a video available via Tip 3: Basic. It instructs the reader how to find collections on Ancestry, so I decided to venture back to Ancestry to find my answers.
Here, I chose "Stories, Memories & Histories", then narrowed this search further by category, in choosing "Social & Place Histories", followed with entering Clark County, South Dakota into the keyword box. Once there, I edited my search to limit to County & surrounding counties. No winners there!
Somehow, I accidentally wound up on the Search page of Ancestry.com (between Home & Message Boards in the top menu on the homepage). Here, I found South Dakota & links to all of the SD content, such as Census results, Birth/death/marriage Certificates, Military (crickets chirping) collections unique to SD, etc. I scrolled down to: South Dakota Reference, Dictionaries & Almanacs/ View other Reference, Dictionaries & Almanacs collections related to South Dakota. (21).
I clicked on the related collections link and discovered
That's a lot of records to go through to find the answer. Now, had I been instructed to find the information on a different, perhaps larger, county, there would probably be several direct hits as far as the results. I've learned, since beginning my career at the Clark library, that our town isn't that old & the funeral director owns a great deal of the local historical information. Recently, I suggested to a member on the local Historical Society that they submit the records they own to the State Archives, so others might benefit from the stash of history which is hidden in Clark.
1. My search began with choosing "pictures" from the Quick Links at the bottom of the page. From there, I chose, "Passenger Ships and Images" from the Featured Data Collections in the right hand column. Then, I entered, "Titanic" in the "keyword" box & did a search. This resulted in 6 different ships, of which 5 were all part of the same shipping line, "White Star". I opened the link to the Titanic and learned the sister ship of the Titanic was the "Olympic".
With this knowledge, I used the back button and located the Olympic from the 6 ships that came from my previous action. I learned the Olympic was launched October 20, 1910. She cost $7,500,000 to build, could carry 2,584 passengers (1st, 2nd, & 3rd class) and a crew of 860. Her maiden voyage was from Southampton to New York, June 14, 1911. She was rammed and holed by the British cruiser Hawke on September 20, 1911, but not seriously damaged. When the Titanic was sunk, the Olympic had some altering done to her construction. The changes included an increase to her tonnage. She served as a troopship in WWI. She was completely refurbished in 1921, so she'd be able to burn oil fuel, and more. On May 16, 1934, she sunk the well-known lightship, Nantucket, off of the New England coast after ramming it during a dense fog. Seven members of the Nantucket's crew were killed. The Olympic was retired from service in March of 1935, sold to British shipbreakers and the scrapped remainder was dismantled in 1937. This search also provides a photograph of the great ship.
2. From the New Collections, I chose Newspapers & Publications. Then, I chose the following filters: 1930's, North America/USA/New Jersey. At this point, I entered the word, "Hindenburg" into the keyword box and clicked on search. The results were 441 records from the following categories:
3. When I initially opened up Heritage Quest, I noticed there are some "Tip of the Day" and "Census Maps" provided on the homepage. I clicked on the middle Tip of the Day and another window opened up with several tips on how to have a successful search. The Tip pages displayed Ancestry.com. Very nice feature & I found it quite helpful. Some days, I really need all the help I can get, if I want to get done within the 4 hour window I'm allowed to work each day! The tips offered vary from basic, intermediate, and advanced.
So, with this tool to utilize, I began my search in earnest. The homepage mentioned, under Search Books - "find info on people & places described in over 28,000 family & local histories", so that's where I went. I began with entering, "Clark County, South Dakota, USA" into the "City,County, State, Country..." window and chose Exact to this place as a search criteria. This gave me zero good matches & suggested I remove the "exact" limiter. I returned to the previous search page & cleared my initial search "exact" limiter. This brought the result of over 5 million results! To the left of the results, is a column under the heading, "Family Histories & Genealogy Books", with a plethora of the results broken down into more specific categories per result. So, I began perusing this column, to eliminate those categories which may not be relevant to my search. From here, I chose the category, "History of Dakota Territory",
In choosing this book, I was then able to search through the table of contents, to investigate the various volumes & chapters within the material for appropriate content. There are a total of 5 volumes, each with a table of contents page & an index provided. I searched each volume for relevant content by examining the title pages & indexes of the volumes of this "History of Dakota Territory" book. I like that this resource allows the reader to "open in a new window/tab" which really helps the search go faster, instead of having to go back and forth a lot. Only volume I from this collection did not offer a in-depth breakdown of the various chapters in each volume, but it does have a table of contents, which helps provide more information about the topics covered in each chapter. I had to peruse the table of contents for Volume I, but began with the Index of the remaining volumes, to be able to better search for Clark County specifically. Knowing this kind of search would take far more time than I can afford to invest, due to time restrictions, I thought perhaps I should reread the Lesson instructions, thinking I may have missed something when initially reading. It occurred to me the Lesson does not require me to do any exploration of the Sanborn Maps, even though that is one of the resources listed within the Lesson Heading. Given that, I thought I'd take a peek at Sanborn Maps, thinking maybe that's where the lesson intended to have me search for the county history search. I discovered the various differences in the size of Clark/Clark County over the years, but not much else there. Lots of nice maps, but little information found during this portion of my quest.
I returned to the Tip pages, to see if there was another tip which might be helpful, even though I'm using Heritage Quest & not Ancestry.com for this portion of the lesson. At this point, I figured what the heck?! I noticed a video available via Tip 3: Basic. It instructs the reader how to find collections on Ancestry, so I decided to venture back to Ancestry to find my answers.
Here, I chose "Stories, Memories & Histories", then narrowed this search further by category, in choosing "Social & Place Histories", followed with entering Clark County, South Dakota into the keyword box. Once there, I edited my search to limit to County & surrounding counties. No winners there!
Somehow, I accidentally wound up on the Search page of Ancestry.com (between Home & Message Boards in the top menu on the homepage). Here, I found South Dakota & links to all of the SD content, such as Census results, Birth/death/marriage Certificates, Military (crickets chirping) collections unique to SD, etc. I scrolled down to: South Dakota Reference, Dictionaries & Almanacs/ View other Reference, Dictionaries & Almanacs collections related to South Dakota. (21).
I clicked on the related collections link and discovered
| U.S. County History Catalog | 3,136 |
The databases of Ancestry/Heritage Quest have stymied me, as far as finding the data requested. Under "All US County History Catalog Results" (with 3,136 results to look through!) I tried to narrow it down, by attempting to eradicate irrelevant criteria, but using the "exact" function always seems to produce zero results. Hence, I set the results to show as many as possible per page (50) & began viewing each entry, going by the state/county information that shows up within the results. I wish I knew a faster, more precise way to obtain the goal, but there you have it. I could not find any shortcuts that gave the desired results. So, unless I cheat and see how others taking the advanced challenge found their answers, I went with this trip until time to go home. I'll have to continue my quest tomorrow, since it's much past closing time. For now, I'll publish this much, to add any further results found in an extra blog entry.
Monday, March 30, 2015
Lesson 8 - WorldCat, CAMIO and More
This week's lesson really hurt my head, in that there was no exercise for the Advanced Challenge participants in Discovery Exercise part 1. Unfortunately, because I quickly skimmed (rather than carefully read) the lesson materials, I completed the entire portion of the Discovery Exercise part 2 using the WorldCat, instead of the OAIster database, as instructed. *bangs head on desk* It was as I was reread the instructions for question #3 on the exercise that I noticed my error. Hence, my responses from query #3 and further on are related to the correct database listed in the instructions. In the interest of trying to complete this lesson & the remainder of the challenge on time, I shall leave my answers as is, begging the reader's forgiveness for my errors.
Discovery Exercise part 1/Advanced Challenge - None listed
Discovery Exercise part 2 -
1. In the "Search for:" I entered the name, Martin Luther & switched the Keyword to "Named Person". Limited it to English Language. Limited "type" to: Books, Visual Materials, Internet Resources, Serial Publications, Archival Materials, Articles, and Continually Updated Resources. Subtype Limits changed to not Fiction. Results: oh sugar cookies! I did not use the name/word King anyplace, yet there it is, all over the map. *sigh*
I returned to the search used initially and added to the "Search for:" the limiter, "Not Martin Luther King/named person". Hallelujah! With this limiter included, I had much better results, with a total of 10390 - 8603 Books, 1114 Internet, 458 Visual, 124 Articles, 84 Archival, and 7 Serials. Given such a tremendous supply of choices, I felt it best to narrow down the prospects, so added the "Subtype limiter - Juvenile" to the search equation. This really knocked out a few choices, bringing the total to 160 available: 137 Books, 15 Internet, and 8 Visual. From this list, I began investigating the Visuals first, then the Internet, and finally, the books.
From the Visuals, I located Title: Martin Luther Author: Chamberlin, E. R Accession Number: 60756396, which is a visual material kit, which contains some great components that children of this age would love! The contents included are
How many kids wouldn't want to learn more about the Diet of Worms?! Anyway, this is a visual I'd love to share with young children, if I were actually a SS teacher with this goal. The closest library owning this material is the Jefferson County School District in Colorado. On to the other choices I selected...
Again, from the Visuals category, I selected another choice, a game called Diet of Worms. This game is suitable for an audience of upper elementary grades through seminary. Unfortunately, the game is not available through the SDSL. If I were to actually want the game, I'd have to borrow from an outside ILL.
Under the Internet results, I chose 6 of the results, marking each with the little box to the left of the item #. Then, I clicked on "Marked Records" to narrow down this search. From this selection, I narrowed my choice down to: The boyhood of Martin Luther ; or, The sufferings of the heroic little beggar-boy who afterwards became the great German reformer authored by Henry Mayhew. I discovered, when looking for the closest library of the 4 worldwide owners, that Google was the first listed owner so I visited Google for a quick peek. I learned the material is available in book form via GoodReads.com. If unable to obtain a copy via the closest physical library, the Hathitrust Digital Library in Michigan, US, the SS teacher would have that option for getting a copy.
From this point, I began narrowing down the selection of books, using the previous techniques. After choosing 7 books, I then examined the date of publication, how many libraries worldwide possessed a copy and proximity of library location. Finally, I found 3 titles that met my criteria, easily done by using the "marks" tool. The titles I chose are:
As the reader might notice, the closest library which owns all of these titles is the Martin Luther College in Minnesota, then the Concordia University Library in St. Paul, MN has two of the titles I selected.
*note - the link to the Martin Luther College, MN, US is not a valid link now. When I attempted to access the college website through this database, I received the following error message: Object not found! The requested URL was not found on this server. The link on the referring page seems to be wrong or outdated. Please inform the author of that page about the error. If you think this is a server error, please contact the webmaster. Error 404 www.tds.sirsi.net Fri Mar 27 13:43:37 2015 Apache/2.2.27 (Unix) mod_ssl/2.2.27 OpenSSL/1.0.1g+
So, that limited me to obtaining a copy of The Boy Who Fought With Kings from St. Olaf College in St. Olaf, MN and the other two from Concordia University Library, as my closest libraries.
2. From Basic Search, I entered the phrase, "ge:graphic novel" and chose the limiters: Books/1368, Serials/32, Internet/21, & Archival/1 clicked search. The one title I chose to add to our collection was, happily, the third title listed. I chose Mary Shelley's Frankenstein: the graphic novel, published in 2005 by Puffin Books. I've actually begun adding graphic novels to our collection, so this exercise has been very helpful, as I'm trying to learn which titles might be available. :)
From the OAIster database:
3. I entered My Fair Lady/title phrase into the Search feature. The limits I set were Database: OAIster; All other limiters resulted in a "no records found" message. This search gave me 101 results, which I then had to sort to find the musical score, if I were to continue to limit my search, per instructions, to the OAIster database. I searched through the database offered and found no musical scores, so I relented and included the WorldCat database in my search options. This was more profitable, as I was then allowed to include "Musical Score" into my limiters. As I perused the 73 results given, I checked possible results that depicted a "musical score" icon next to the result number. On the result #50, the title given is My Fair Lady, Vocal Score, authored by Frederick Lowe in 1969. The accession No: OCLC 604984820.
CAMIO
Discovery Exercise part 3 - Advanced Challenge
In the search feature, I entered the word, "fashion" and then removed some of the collections available in the search. I limited my collection search to the following: Albright-Knox Art Gallery; Carnegie Museum of Art; Fine Arts Museum of San Francisco; George Eastman House, International Museum of Photography; Library of Congress; Smithsonian American Art Museum; The Frick Collection and Art Reference Library; The Metropolitan Museum of Art; Victoria and Albert Museum.
From this point, I added "clothing, dress" to the search field with the "any of these words" limiter. I also, opened up the advanced search & added Victorian/title and England/description. When the results came up, I sorted first by title, then changed the Display Options: turning Quick View "on" and altering the layout options to Grid. It's lovely to note there are so many options for one to utilize whilst digging into the great collections. This search, so far, failed to come up with the answers my student seeks, however, so I tried another approach.
I entered the words, "clothing" into the basic search for starters. With my display options set to Grid, the date of each item listed in the results is shown in each of the 161 results shown. From this point, I opened up the advanced search, to add "dress & fashion" to the subject criteria and England as Description. Another "zero" for results with this approach. *banging head on desk* This was driving me nuts, as I continued using different limiters to simply find anything which might come close to what I was trying to locate.
Back to square one - I typed clothing into the basic search window, then opened up the "Narrow your search by: DATE" option. The first date listed, which falls into the time span of interest, is 1858 (4 results listed, but not relevant, as the 4 images were American), and the next date is 1870, which resulted in one article of clothing (Dress with Day & Evening Bodices) that fit the student's criteria. By using this method of searching, I finally was able to find the clothing/fashion from Victorian Era/British, but it certainly is a time consuming manner of searching. Each time I found something, in order to proceed, I had to "go back", click on "Date" and then hit "more" in order to see the dates. I attempted to open the various dates in another tab/window, but this only opened up blank pages. Perhaps I'm a whiner, but I can imagine how frustrating a search through CAMIO might be for the average person, if they don't have some prior knowledge to the system & how the search works. With all of the options available in the advanced search, I was disappointed to find the typical search terms one might use for this lesson were of no use (England, Victorian Era, Dickens, Dickensonian, British) even when I altered the terms Title/Description/Subject/Publisher/etc.. I learned that if I simply did a basic search, using any of the three suggested search hints (clothing/fashion/dress) and then clicked on the DATE limiter & did the one step forward, two steps back, in order to view all the appropriate dates, then I was able to locate several examples of dress/fashion back in Dickens' era.
This is a wonderful resource, but I think it could be a lot more user friendly, personally. I enjoyed seeing all of the beautiful clothing, art, artifacts, paintings, prints, photos, etc., but when a person only has a short window of time to locate the items... For the record, after spending a frustrating couple of hours trying to complete just this portion of the lesson, I did a "google search" for "Charles Dickens' Victorian Era fashion. In 0.54 seconds, there were about 238,000 results, I looked at the images and there were more than I could count, because it's time to go home. I'm just sayin'...
Discovery Exercise part 1/Advanced Challenge - None listed
Discovery Exercise part 2 -
1. In the "Search for:" I entered the name, Martin Luther & switched the Keyword to "Named Person". Limited it to English Language. Limited "type" to: Books, Visual Materials, Internet Resources, Serial Publications, Archival Materials, Articles, and Continually Updated Resources. Subtype Limits changed to not Fiction. Results: oh sugar cookies! I did not use the name/word King anyplace, yet there it is, all over the map. *sigh*
I returned to the search used initially and added to the "Search for:" the limiter, "Not Martin Luther King/named person". Hallelujah! With this limiter included, I had much better results, with a total of 10390 - 8603 Books, 1114 Internet, 458 Visual, 124 Articles, 84 Archival, and 7 Serials. Given such a tremendous supply of choices, I felt it best to narrow down the prospects, so added the "Subtype limiter - Juvenile" to the search equation. This really knocked out a few choices, bringing the total to 160 available: 137 Books, 15 Internet, and 8 Visual. From this list, I began investigating the Visuals first, then the Internet, and finally, the books.
From the Visuals, I located Title: Martin Luther Author: Chamberlin, E. R Accession Number: 60756396, which is a visual material kit, which contains some great components that children of this age would love! The contents included are
|
Again, from the Visuals category, I selected another choice, a game called Diet of Worms. This game is suitable for an audience of upper elementary grades through seminary. Unfortunately, the game is not available through the SDSL. If I were to actually want the game, I'd have to borrow from an outside ILL.
Under the Internet results, I chose 6 of the results, marking each with the little box to the left of the item #. Then, I clicked on "Marked Records" to narrow down this search. From this selection, I narrowed my choice down to: The boyhood of Martin Luther ; or, The sufferings of the heroic little beggar-boy who afterwards became the great German reformer authored by Henry Mayhew. I discovered, when looking for the closest library of the 4 worldwide owners, that Google was the first listed owner so I visited Google for a quick peek. I learned the material is available in book form via GoodReads.com. If unable to obtain a copy via the closest physical library, the Hathitrust Digital Library in Michigan, US, the SS teacher would have that option for getting a copy.
From this point, I began narrowing down the selection of books, using the previous techniques. After choosing 7 books, I then examined the date of publication, how many libraries worldwide possessed a copy and proximity of library location. Finally, I found 3 titles that met my criteria, easily done by using the "marks" tool. The titles I chose are:
| 1. |  | Martin Luther, hero of faith. Author: Nohl, Frederick.
Publication: Saint Louis, Concordia Pub. House 1962
Document: English :
More Like This: Search for versions with
(WorldCat) |
| 2. | | The adventures of Martin Luther / Author: Bergt, Carolyn E.; Kirchhoff, Art.
Publication: St. Louis, MO : Concordia Pub. House, 1999
Document: English :
More Like This: Search for versions with
(WorldCat) |
| 3. | | The boy who fought with kings, Author: Hong, Edna H. 1913-2007.; Hong, Howard V.; Ellingboe, John L.
Publication: Minneapolis, Minn., Augsburg Publishing House 1946
Document: English :
More Like This: Search for versions with
(WorldCat) |
*note - the link to the Martin Luther College, MN, US is not a valid link now. When I attempted to access the college website through this database, I received the following error message: Object not found! The requested URL was not found on this server. The link on the referring page seems to be wrong or outdated. Please inform the author of that page about the error. If you think this is a server error, please contact the webmaster. Error 404 www.tds.sirsi.net Fri Mar 27 13:43:37 2015 Apache/2.2.27 (Unix) mod_ssl/2.2.27 OpenSSL/1.0.1g+
So, that limited me to obtaining a copy of The Boy Who Fought With Kings from St. Olaf College in St. Olaf, MN and the other two from Concordia University Library, as my closest libraries.
2. From Basic Search, I entered the phrase, "ge:graphic novel" and chose the limiters: Books/1368, Serials/32, Internet/21, & Archival/1 clicked search. The one title I chose to add to our collection was, happily, the third title listed. I chose Mary Shelley's Frankenstein: the graphic novel, published in 2005 by Puffin Books. I've actually begun adding graphic novels to our collection, so this exercise has been very helpful, as I'm trying to learn which titles might be available. :)
From the OAIster database:
3. I entered My Fair Lady/title phrase into the Search feature. The limits I set were Database: OAIster; All other limiters resulted in a "no records found" message. This search gave me 101 results, which I then had to sort to find the musical score, if I were to continue to limit my search, per instructions, to the OAIster database. I searched through the database offered and found no musical scores, so I relented and included the WorldCat database in my search options. This was more profitable, as I was then allowed to include "Musical Score" into my limiters. As I perused the 73 results given, I checked possible results that depicted a "musical score" icon next to the result number. On the result #50, the title given is My Fair Lady, Vocal Score, authored by Frederick Lowe in 1969. The accession No: OCLC 604984820.
CAMIO
Discovery Exercise part 3 - Advanced Challenge
In the search feature, I entered the word, "fashion" and then removed some of the collections available in the search. I limited my collection search to the following: Albright-Knox Art Gallery; Carnegie Museum of Art; Fine Arts Museum of San Francisco; George Eastman House, International Museum of Photography; Library of Congress; Smithsonian American Art Museum; The Frick Collection and Art Reference Library; The Metropolitan Museum of Art; Victoria and Albert Museum.
From this point, I added "clothing, dress" to the search field with the "any of these words" limiter. I also, opened up the advanced search & added Victorian/title and England/description. When the results came up, I sorted first by title, then changed the Display Options: turning Quick View "on" and altering the layout options to Grid. It's lovely to note there are so many options for one to utilize whilst digging into the great collections. This search, so far, failed to come up with the answers my student seeks, however, so I tried another approach.
I entered the words, "clothing" into the basic search for starters. With my display options set to Grid, the date of each item listed in the results is shown in each of the 161 results shown. From this point, I opened up the advanced search, to add "dress & fashion" to the subject criteria and England as Description. Another "zero" for results with this approach. *banging head on desk* This was driving me nuts, as I continued using different limiters to simply find anything which might come close to what I was trying to locate.
Back to square one - I typed clothing into the basic search window, then opened up the "Narrow your search by: DATE" option. The first date listed, which falls into the time span of interest, is 1858 (4 results listed, but not relevant, as the 4 images were American), and the next date is 1870, which resulted in one article of clothing (Dress with Day & Evening Bodices) that fit the student's criteria. By using this method of searching, I finally was able to find the clothing/fashion from Victorian Era/British, but it certainly is a time consuming manner of searching. Each time I found something, in order to proceed, I had to "go back", click on "Date" and then hit "more" in order to see the dates. I attempted to open the various dates in another tab/window, but this only opened up blank pages. Perhaps I'm a whiner, but I can imagine how frustrating a search through CAMIO might be for the average person, if they don't have some prior knowledge to the system & how the search works. With all of the options available in the advanced search, I was disappointed to find the typical search terms one might use for this lesson were of no use (England, Victorian Era, Dickens, Dickensonian, British) even when I altered the terms Title/Description/Subject/Publisher/etc.. I learned that if I simply did a basic search, using any of the three suggested search hints (clothing/fashion/dress) and then clicked on the DATE limiter & did the one step forward, two steps back, in order to view all the appropriate dates, then I was able to locate several examples of dress/fashion back in Dickens' era.
This is a wonderful resource, but I think it could be a lot more user friendly, personally. I enjoyed seeing all of the beautiful clothing, art, artifacts, paintings, prints, photos, etc., but when a person only has a short window of time to locate the items... For the record, after spending a frustrating couple of hours trying to complete just this portion of the lesson, I did a "google search" for "Charles Dickens' Victorian Era fashion. In 0.54 seconds, there were about 238,000 results, I looked at the images and there were more than I could count, because it's time to go home. I'm just sayin'...
Wednesday, March 25, 2015
Lesson 7 - EBooks on EbscoHost (formerly NetLibrary)
Advanced Challenge ~
1. I chose "quilting" as my subject matter and entered that into the Advanced search tool. When I did nothing to alter the "select a field (optional)" feature, I wound up with 5 results in my search. When I changed the "select a field (optional)" to read "SU subject", the results left me with just one choice from that initial 5 (five) results. When I returned to the 5 (five) results and chose the option, "Download available", there were only 3 eBooks listed. From this point, I began to explore the options offered under each book, settling on the first book in the line up of results. The book I chose is, The Complete Idiot's Guide to Quilting.
I explored the Page Options, which allows the individual to choose 4 different features: Result Format (Standard/Brief/Title Only/Detailed); Image QuickView: (when on, the reader may view thumbnails of the images in an article from the Results List); Results per page (5, 10, 20, 30, 40, or 50); and finally, Page Layout (1, 2, or 3 columns). The Relevance feature offers the patron/student/reader even more choices (Date - Newest/Oldest, Author, Title, or Date Added) to help them with their research.
Within the results, more options are available: PDF Full Text, Table of Contents, and Most Relevant Pages From This Book. If the patron/student hovers their mouse over the "page with a magnifying glass", a pop-up window displays the title of the book, author(s), Publication & year published, Type of publication (eBooks in this case), Subjects within the book, along with the options to open the PDF Full Text, Add to a Folder, &/or a Detailed Record. The detailed record shows the related ISBNs, Accession number, Categories, Publication information (where/who/when published) and more. That's a nice & handy feature.
If the reader wants to share the eBook, they are equipped with links to a plethora of social media choices - Facebook, Twitter, Blogger, Yahoo, email, RSS feed and more. There is a Permalink provided for the reader to share, as well.
I believe anyone using this online resource will find it easy to navigate, not at all confusing. I enjoyed doing the research via the Ebscohost database. Now, I'm going to have to borrow this book over the weekend, just to brush up on some old techniques that have been neglected for far too long. :)
2. This one was relatively simple to complete. I chose "new search" and typed in Fairy Tales, glanced through the list offered and discovered a few books written by one author (Andrew Lang) where each book had a color mentioned within the title. So, I changed the Relevance to Author's Name & typed in Andrew Lang into the search window. This led to the list of results being sorted by author and I was able to find the titles quickly. My grandmother (who actually was only able to read Ukraine & Russian) must have been searching for the Blue Fairy Book, the Red Fairy Book, the Yellow Fairy Book, and the Violet Fairy Book. Now, I've got 4 (four) more books tacked onto my "must read" list. :)
1. I chose "quilting" as my subject matter and entered that into the Advanced search tool. When I did nothing to alter the "select a field (optional)" feature, I wound up with 5 results in my search. When I changed the "select a field (optional)" to read "SU subject", the results left me with just one choice from that initial 5 (five) results. When I returned to the 5 (five) results and chose the option, "Download available", there were only 3 eBooks listed. From this point, I began to explore the options offered under each book, settling on the first book in the line up of results. The book I chose is, The Complete Idiot's Guide to Quilting.
I explored the Page Options, which allows the individual to choose 4 different features: Result Format (Standard/Brief/Title Only/Detailed); Image QuickView: (when on, the reader may view thumbnails of the images in an article from the Results List); Results per page (5, 10, 20, 30, 40, or 50); and finally, Page Layout (1, 2, or 3 columns). The Relevance feature offers the patron/student/reader even more choices (Date - Newest/Oldest, Author, Title, or Date Added) to help them with their research.
Within the results, more options are available: PDF Full Text, Table of Contents, and Most Relevant Pages From This Book. If the patron/student hovers their mouse over the "page with a magnifying glass", a pop-up window displays the title of the book, author(s), Publication & year published, Type of publication (eBooks in this case), Subjects within the book, along with the options to open the PDF Full Text, Add to a Folder, &/or a Detailed Record. The detailed record shows the related ISBNs, Accession number, Categories, Publication information (where/who/when published) and more. That's a nice & handy feature.
If the reader wants to share the eBook, they are equipped with links to a plethora of social media choices - Facebook, Twitter, Blogger, Yahoo, email, RSS feed and more. There is a Permalink provided for the reader to share, as well.
I believe anyone using this online resource will find it easy to navigate, not at all confusing. I enjoyed doing the research via the Ebscohost database. Now, I'm going to have to borrow this book over the weekend, just to brush up on some old techniques that have been neglected for far too long. :)
2. This one was relatively simple to complete. I chose "new search" and typed in Fairy Tales, glanced through the list offered and discovered a few books written by one author (Andrew Lang) where each book had a color mentioned within the title. So, I changed the Relevance to Author's Name & typed in Andrew Lang into the search window. This led to the list of results being sorted by author and I was able to find the titles quickly. My grandmother (who actually was only able to read Ukraine & Russian) must have been searching for the Blue Fairy Book, the Red Fairy Book, the Yellow Fairy Book, and the Violet Fairy Book. Now, I've got 4 (four) more books tacked onto my "must read" list. :)
Monday, March 23, 2015
Lesson 6 -- Gale Virtual Reference Library
Advanced Challenge
1. a) Go to GVRL, enter "world holidays" into the search feature. That presented 93 results through the "Junior Worldmark Encyclopedia of World Holidays." I then used the "limit search" feature on the left menu, choosing "Tradition" under the "Subject" category. This gave me 15 results, which covered several seasons and countries. I read through the results to determine which were Spring holidays from around the world, and came up with a total of 3. These 3 holidays are all related to Easter celebrations from the Ukraine - Velykden Easter; Spain - Semana Santa Easter and Holy Week; Easter - USA & others.
I returned to the Search feature at the top of the page & entered the keywords, "holiday festivals", in hopes of getting more results with which to work. This was far more profitable as far as results - 169, which I then narrowed down using the "limit search by" feature. I chose "Junior Worldmark Encyclopedia of World Holidays" as the Publication Title, as it seemed to be the best place to find the topics requested. Once there, I looked at the table of Contents and chose the Calendar of World Holidays, to better narrow down the search. From the Calendar page, I located the following Spring holidays:
March
First Two Weeks in March
Festival of the Water of Youth (Japan)
March 3 - Hina Matsuri (Girls' Day; Japan)
Circa March 5 - Feast of Excited Insects (China and North and South Korea)
March 6 - Independence Day (Ghana)
March 8 - Women's Day (Russia)
Circa mid-March, 11/2 moons after Dosmoche - Storlog (Tibetan spring festival)
March 17 - St. Patrick's Day (Celebration of the patron saint of Ireland)
Circa March 20 - Ibū Afo Festival (Nigerian year-end festival)
Circa March 21 - Vernal Equinox
Circa March 21 and Thirteen Days Thereafter - Nouruz (Persian New Year)
Moveable: Fourth Sunday in Lent (March–April) - Mothering Sunday (Britain)
Moveable: March 22–April 25 - Easter and Holy Week (Christian commemoration of Jesus' crucifixion and resurrection)
Day 28 after Easter - Ropotine (Women's Day; Romania)
Moon 3, Day 5 - Thanh-Minh (Pure and Bright; Vietnamese day of remembrance)
March–April (full moon) - Panguni Uttiram (Hindu celebration of celestial marriages)
March–April - Gājan of Siva (Hindu celebration of God Siva)
Hanuman Jayanti (Birthday of the Monkey God; Hindu)
Mahavira Jayanti (Celebration of the birth of Lord Vardhamana Mahavira, founder of the Jain religion)
April
Eight Days Beginning on Day 15 of Nisan (circa April)
Passover (Commemoration of the release of the Jews from bondage in Egypt)
Cherry Blossom Festival (Japan) Micronesian New Year
April 1 - April Fools' Day
105 Days after the Winter Solstice (April 5 or 6) - Ching Ming (Pure Brightness Festival; China and North and South Korea)
April 12 or 13 - New Year (Southeast Asia)
April 13–15 - Thai New Year
Thursday Between April 19–25 - First Day of Summer (Iceland)
April 30 - Walpurgis Night (German and Swedish spring festival)
Moon 4, Day 8 - Buddha's Birthday
April (Various Dates) - Planting Festivals
May
May (Throughout the Month) - Flores de Mayo (Flowers of May; Christian celebration of the Virgin Mary)
First Tuesday in May - Fair Ffyliaid (Fool's Fair; Wales)
May 1 - May Day (Celebration of spring)
May 1–30 - Birth of the Buffalo God (China)
May 5 - Cinco de Mayo (Fifth of May; Mexican national holiday)
Tango No Sekku (Boys' Day; Japan)
May 14 - Yom Ha'atzmaut (Israeli Independence Day)
May 17 - Mut l-ard (Death of the Ground; Moroccan first-day-of-summer celebration)
May 24 - Queen's Birthday/Victoria Day (Britain)
May 31 - Memorial Day/Day of the Dead (Romania)
Day 6 of Sivan (May–June) - Shavuot (Jewish Feast of Weeks/Day of First Fruits)
May (full moon) - Wesak Day (Commemoration of the Buddha)
Moon 5, Day 5 (May–June) - Double Fifth (Inauspicious day in China)
May–June
Bun Bang Fai (Rocket Festival; Thailand)
Ganga Dussehra (Indian bathing festival)
Circa May–July - Days 1–10 of Muharram (Shi'ite period of mourning for its martyrs)
May–July (height of rainy season) - Okere Juju (Nigerian religious festival)
1. a) Go to GVRL, enter "world holidays" into the search feature. That presented 93 results through the "Junior Worldmark Encyclopedia of World Holidays." I then used the "limit search" feature on the left menu, choosing "Tradition" under the "Subject" category. This gave me 15 results, which covered several seasons and countries. I read through the results to determine which were Spring holidays from around the world, and came up with a total of 3. These 3 holidays are all related to Easter celebrations from the Ukraine - Velykden Easter; Spain - Semana Santa Easter and Holy Week; Easter - USA & others.
I returned to the Search feature at the top of the page & entered the keywords, "holiday festivals", in hopes of getting more results with which to work. This was far more profitable as far as results - 169, which I then narrowed down using the "limit search by" feature. I chose "Junior Worldmark Encyclopedia of World Holidays" as the Publication Title, as it seemed to be the best place to find the topics requested. Once there, I looked at the table of Contents and chose the Calendar of World Holidays, to better narrow down the search. From the Calendar page, I located the following Spring holidays:
March
First Two Weeks in March
Festival of the Water of Youth (Japan)
March 3 - Hina Matsuri (Girls' Day; Japan)
Circa March 5 - Feast of Excited Insects (China and North and South Korea)
March 6 - Independence Day (Ghana)
March 8 - Women's Day (Russia)
Circa mid-March, 11/2 moons after Dosmoche - Storlog (Tibetan spring festival)
March 17 - St. Patrick's Day (Celebration of the patron saint of Ireland)
Circa March 20 - Ibū Afo Festival (Nigerian year-end festival)
Circa March 21 - Vernal Equinox
Circa March 21 and Thirteen Days Thereafter - Nouruz (Persian New Year)
Moveable: Fourth Sunday in Lent (March–April) - Mothering Sunday (Britain)
Moveable: March 22–April 25 - Easter and Holy Week (Christian commemoration of Jesus' crucifixion and resurrection)
Day 28 after Easter - Ropotine (Women's Day; Romania)
Moon 3, Day 5 - Thanh-Minh (Pure and Bright; Vietnamese day of remembrance)
March–April (full moon) - Panguni Uttiram (Hindu celebration of celestial marriages)
March–April - Gājan of Siva (Hindu celebration of God Siva)
Hanuman Jayanti (Birthday of the Monkey God; Hindu)
Mahavira Jayanti (Celebration of the birth of Lord Vardhamana Mahavira, founder of the Jain religion)
April
Eight Days Beginning on Day 15 of Nisan (circa April)
Passover (Commemoration of the release of the Jews from bondage in Egypt)
Cherry Blossom Festival (Japan) Micronesian New Year
April 1 - April Fools' Day
105 Days after the Winter Solstice (April 5 or 6) - Ching Ming (Pure Brightness Festival; China and North and South Korea)
April 12 or 13 - New Year (Southeast Asia)
April 13–15 - Thai New Year
Thursday Between April 19–25 - First Day of Summer (Iceland)
April 30 - Walpurgis Night (German and Swedish spring festival)
Moon 4, Day 8 - Buddha's Birthday
April (Various Dates) - Planting Festivals
May
May (Throughout the Month) - Flores de Mayo (Flowers of May; Christian celebration of the Virgin Mary)
First Tuesday in May - Fair Ffyliaid (Fool's Fair; Wales)
May 1 - May Day (Celebration of spring)
May 1–30 - Birth of the Buffalo God (China)
May 5 - Cinco de Mayo (Fifth of May; Mexican national holiday)
Tango No Sekku (Boys' Day; Japan)
May 14 - Yom Ha'atzmaut (Israeli Independence Day)
May 17 - Mut l-ard (Death of the Ground; Moroccan first-day-of-summer celebration)
May 24 - Queen's Birthday/Victoria Day (Britain)
May 31 - Memorial Day/Day of the Dead (Romania)
Day 6 of Sivan (May–June) - Shavuot (Jewish Feast of Weeks/Day of First Fruits)
May (full moon) - Wesak Day (Commemoration of the Buddha)
Moon 5, Day 5 (May–June) - Double Fifth (Inauspicious day in China)
May–June
Bun Bang Fai (Rocket Festival; Thailand)
Ganga Dussehra (Indian bathing festival)
Circa May–July - Days 1–10 of Muharram (Shi'ite period of mourning for its martyrs)
May–July (height of rainy season) - Okere Juju (Nigerian religious festival)
Given this great list of holidays around the world, I was able to choose a couple of festivals from several countries for the civic organization.
b.) Upon completion of the above lesson, I returned to the Table of Contents in the same book, Junior Worldmark Encyclopedia of World Holidays, 2000. I selected the Reader's Guide, to determine whether any mention of food/recipes would be mentioned in the country/holiday selections I made. Here, I learned that a favorite holiday recipe is featured for nearly every one included in the book. Hence, I returned to the Table of Contents, again selected the Calendar of Selected Holidays, and chose 3 countries with Spring (March 20 - June 20) festivals.
Here's where I ran into some snags. Because I had the countries chosen, I went about searching for the festivals I wanted to research by typing the country into the search feature at the top of the page. The results varied, per country and still were too vague, as far as finding recipes/holiday foods. It was here, however, that I noticed there was a Junior Worldmark Encyclopedia of Foods and Recipes of the World. *facepalm* In choosing this particular publication, I was able to first choose a volume from the 4 (four) possible.
From Volume 1, I chose - Algeria: Two local festivals that are celebrated every spring are the cherry mousse (festival) in Tlemcen and the tomato moussem in Adrar. Here, I discovered two Spring festivals, which might serve a typical holiday menu as described below...
Cucumber and yogurt soup
Stuffed dates and walnuts
Roast stuffed leg of lamb
Tomato and raisin-stuffed eggplant
Potato & chickpea salad
Cooked carrots
Fresh fruit medley
Here is one recipe, which might be simple enough for the organization to create & serve -
Cucumber & Yogurt Soup
Ingredients: 1 large cucumber
2½ cups plain yogurt
2 cloves garlic, crushed
1 lemon rind, finely grated
2 tablespoons fresh mint, chopped
Salt and freshly ground black pepper
⅔ cup ice water
Mint leaves, to garnish
Directions
Rinse the cucumber and trim the ends. Do not peel.
Grate the cucumber into a bowl.
Stir in the yogurt, garlic, lemon rind, and chopped mint.
Season well with salt and pepper.
Cover the bowl and chill 1 hour.
Stir in ⅔ cup ice water. Add more water if the soup seems a little thick.
Adjust the seasoning, then pour into chilled soup bowls.
Garnish with mint leaves.
Makes 6 servings.
Another country, Argentina, celebrates a large festival, El Carnaval del Pais, the week before Lent, which is the 40-day period preceding Easter in the Christian year. During Carnaval, people eat spicy foods, dress in costumes, and dance. Due to the tradition in the Roman Catholic Church to avoid eating meat during Lent, many Argentines eat more seafood dishes then. One of the favorite dishes they enjoy is Bocaditos (finger sandwiches), a popular lunch/snack food made with shrimp. The recipe below is just one variation of the festival food -
Bocaditos (Finger Sandwiches)
Ingredients:
12 thin slices French bread
1 container (3-ounce) cream cheese with chives
½ cucumber, thinly sliced
4 to 6 precooked shrimp
4 cherry tomatoes, sliced
Directions
Trim crusts from the bread.
Spread a thin layer of cream cheese on each slice of bread.
Place cucumber slices, tomatoes, and shrimp on one slice, and cover with another slice of bread to make a sandwich. (Any combination of these ingredients may be used.)
Cut into triangles or rectangles.
Serves 8 to 10.
c.) To locate some spring festival games or pastimes, I recalled seeing in an earlier search, the Junior Worldmark Encyclopedia of World Holidays lists not only arts/crafts/game, but also recipes, traditions and more in relation to holidays around the world. So, I began searching within this publication for answers to the games/pastimes of Spring festivals.
For Carnaval (Argentina), it is common to see parades (a pastime/tradition) and parade participants throwing candy/cheap necklaces and fake doubloons at the crowds.
Easter, another spring celebration that is observed by many countries is another. In Spain, many towns do not participate in the typical fun involved with Easter eggs. There is one town, Pola de Siero, which creates elaborately decorated Easter eggs. They begin two months before Easter, washing thoroughly, creating designs on the eggs or drawn on paper and transferred to the eggs. Then the eggs are cooked and dyed, followed by being painted. The decorated eggs are given to friends or sold to tourists from all over Spain during an Easter Tuesday fiesta. For the fiesta, there is a parade, with children and adults dressed in native costumes. The streets are decorated with tree branches tied with wire, and large barrels of cider line the parade route to take care of the thirsty.
2. For this lesson, I returned to the home page, chose "Title List" and sorted by "Publication Date (Descending). This gave me 27 results. From these I chose the below topics to review:
Here's where I ran into some snags. Because I had the countries chosen, I went about searching for the festivals I wanted to research by typing the country into the search feature at the top of the page. The results varied, per country and still were too vague, as far as finding recipes/holiday foods. It was here, however, that I noticed there was a Junior Worldmark Encyclopedia of Foods and Recipes of the World. *facepalm* In choosing this particular publication, I was able to first choose a volume from the 4 (four) possible.
From Volume 1, I chose - Algeria: Two local festivals that are celebrated every spring are the cherry mousse (festival) in Tlemcen and the tomato moussem in Adrar. Here, I discovered two Spring festivals, which might serve a typical holiday menu as described below...
Cucumber and yogurt soup
Stuffed dates and walnuts
Roast stuffed leg of lamb
Tomato and raisin-stuffed eggplant
Potato & chickpea salad
Cooked carrots
Fresh fruit medley
Here is one recipe, which might be simple enough for the organization to create & serve -
Cucumber & Yogurt Soup
Ingredients: 1 large cucumber
2½ cups plain yogurt
2 cloves garlic, crushed
1 lemon rind, finely grated
2 tablespoons fresh mint, chopped
Salt and freshly ground black pepper
⅔ cup ice water
Mint leaves, to garnish
Directions
Rinse the cucumber and trim the ends. Do not peel.
Grate the cucumber into a bowl.
Stir in the yogurt, garlic, lemon rind, and chopped mint.
Season well with salt and pepper.
Cover the bowl and chill 1 hour.
Stir in ⅔ cup ice water. Add more water if the soup seems a little thick.
Adjust the seasoning, then pour into chilled soup bowls.
Garnish with mint leaves.
Makes 6 servings.
Another country, Argentina, celebrates a large festival, El Carnaval del Pais, the week before Lent, which is the 40-day period preceding Easter in the Christian year. During Carnaval, people eat spicy foods, dress in costumes, and dance. Due to the tradition in the Roman Catholic Church to avoid eating meat during Lent, many Argentines eat more seafood dishes then. One of the favorite dishes they enjoy is Bocaditos (finger sandwiches), a popular lunch/snack food made with shrimp. The recipe below is just one variation of the festival food -
Bocaditos (Finger Sandwiches)
Ingredients:
12 thin slices French bread
1 container (3-ounce) cream cheese with chives
½ cucumber, thinly sliced
4 to 6 precooked shrimp
4 cherry tomatoes, sliced
Directions
Trim crusts from the bread.
Spread a thin layer of cream cheese on each slice of bread.
Place cucumber slices, tomatoes, and shrimp on one slice, and cover with another slice of bread to make a sandwich. (Any combination of these ingredients may be used.)
Cut into triangles or rectangles.
Serves 8 to 10.
c.) To locate some spring festival games or pastimes, I recalled seeing in an earlier search, the Junior Worldmark Encyclopedia of World Holidays lists not only arts/crafts/game, but also recipes, traditions and more in relation to holidays around the world. So, I began searching within this publication for answers to the games/pastimes of Spring festivals.
For Carnaval (Argentina), it is common to see parades (a pastime/tradition) and parade participants throwing candy/cheap necklaces and fake doubloons at the crowds.
Easter, another spring celebration that is observed by many countries is another. In Spain, many towns do not participate in the typical fun involved with Easter eggs. There is one town, Pola de Siero, which creates elaborately decorated Easter eggs. They begin two months before Easter, washing thoroughly, creating designs on the eggs or drawn on paper and transferred to the eggs. Then the eggs are cooked and dyed, followed by being painted. The decorated eggs are given to friends or sold to tourists from all over Spain during an Easter Tuesday fiesta. For the fiesta, there is a parade, with children and adults dressed in native costumes. The streets are decorated with tree branches tied with wire, and large barrels of cider line the parade route to take care of the thirsty.
2. For this lesson, I returned to the home page, chose "Title List" and sorted by "Publication Date (Descending). This gave me 27 results. From these I chose the below topics to review:
- Grzimek's Animal Life Encyclopedia: Extinction, 2v, 2013 (9781414490700) appears to be a publication I'd really enjoy reading. It covers a huge variety of information on several topics within the subject of Extinction. It explains the role of Zoological Gardens, the role of natural history museums, Extinction rates, species monitoring, population dynamics, extinction through history and so much more. I've got to bookmark this one!
- Scholarships, Fellowships and Loans: A Guide to Education-Related Financial Aid Programs for Students and Professionals, 29th ed., 3v, 2012(9781414463322) was my second choice, since it cannot hurt to review the information for potential patrons whom might be graduating. I discovered the topic is covered within 3 volumes. These volumes contain information regarding federal programs, State Higher Education Agencies, a User's Guide, AmeriCorps and an incredible list of foundations, Associations, Organizations which all contribute to scholarship recipients. This is definitely a very helpful article to share with any hopefuls for a scholarship!
Tuesday, March 10, 2015
Lesson 5 - Proquest
Advanced Challenge
1. This lesson had me going in circles, as I tried to follow the guidelines presented above. Using the instructions for this lesson, I entered "Les Miserables by Victor Hugo into the search window, selecting "Full text," then included the "Document Type" & "Subject" limiters. A pop-up window provided the options to include/exclude any subjects, so I excluded the unnecessary categories, limiting it to "Commentary" under the "Documents" category and "Literary Criticism" under "Subject." Because the patron/student was not interested in reviews, I excluded that option under the "Documents" category. This search resulted in two (2) magazine articles, both of which (after a quick scan of the content) appeared to be more centered on punctuation than a literary criticism of the novel. So, I went back to the drawing board...
I amended the criteria for the "Document" category to include "Reviews" even though the instructions specifically said to exclude them. Under the same category, I opted to include "Reviews, Articles, General Information, Undefined, Feature, Blog, and Commentary." This search provided a total of 167 results (65 General Information, 46 Undefined, 41 Articles, 12 Feature, 8 Review, 5 Blog, & 2 Commentary). Using the detailed view offered, I was able to quickly ascertain whether many of these results complied with the patron's/student's request and then began deleting any that failed to meet the requirements of the patron/student. Doing this narrowed the field extensively, however, I was unable to locate a "delete" option to rid the results of data that was not desired. I noticed, also, that each time I checked the "Subject" category, it would offer more options (birds, aviation, other really weird choices) to weed out. The 5th time I did so, leaving only the "literary criticism" the "Subject" category completely disappeared from the right column menu.
The final results of this challenge left me with 160 results, some of which were film reviews, announcements for upcoming plays/programs on this campus or that stage. Perhaps I went about the search incorrectly, but given the time spent, I feel my patron might be satisfied with searching for the specific information (literary criticism of Victor Hugo's novel, Les Miserables) within the results located. If I had the time to open every PDF to determine which truly fell into their parameters requested, I could have emailed or printed the results s/he wanted & would. My purpose in including the above options under the "Document" category was to ensure I didn't miss anything pertaining to the search, as some blogs, for example, are written by literary critics, etc. I was unsure of the General Information, Undefined, & Feature options, so included them in my search parameters.
2. This search was far less confusing than the previous search. I entered the phrase, "How libraries helped communities during and after Hurricane Sandy". Out of the 218 results, once I sorted by Publication date (most recent first), the following result answered my quest:
* TRENDING NOW
1. This lesson had me going in circles, as I tried to follow the guidelines presented above. Using the instructions for this lesson, I entered "Les Miserables by Victor Hugo into the search window, selecting "Full text," then included the "Document Type" & "Subject" limiters. A pop-up window provided the options to include/exclude any subjects, so I excluded the unnecessary categories, limiting it to "Commentary" under the "Documents" category and "Literary Criticism" under "Subject." Because the patron/student was not interested in reviews, I excluded that option under the "Documents" category. This search resulted in two (2) magazine articles, both of which (after a quick scan of the content) appeared to be more centered on punctuation than a literary criticism of the novel. So, I went back to the drawing board...
I amended the criteria for the "Document" category to include "Reviews" even though the instructions specifically said to exclude them. Under the same category, I opted to include "Reviews, Articles, General Information, Undefined, Feature, Blog, and Commentary." This search provided a total of 167 results (65 General Information, 46 Undefined, 41 Articles, 12 Feature, 8 Review, 5 Blog, & 2 Commentary). Using the detailed view offered, I was able to quickly ascertain whether many of these results complied with the patron's/student's request and then began deleting any that failed to meet the requirements of the patron/student. Doing this narrowed the field extensively, however, I was unable to locate a "delete" option to rid the results of data that was not desired. I noticed, also, that each time I checked the "Subject" category, it would offer more options (birds, aviation, other really weird choices) to weed out. The 5th time I did so, leaving only the "literary criticism" the "Subject" category completely disappeared from the right column menu.
The final results of this challenge left me with 160 results, some of which were film reviews, announcements for upcoming plays/programs on this campus or that stage. Perhaps I went about the search incorrectly, but given the time spent, I feel my patron might be satisfied with searching for the specific information (literary criticism of Victor Hugo's novel, Les Miserables) within the results located. If I had the time to open every PDF to determine which truly fell into their parameters requested, I could have emailed or printed the results s/he wanted & would. My purpose in including the above options under the "Document" category was to ensure I didn't miss anything pertaining to the search, as some blogs, for example, are written by literary critics, etc. I was unsure of the General Information, Undefined, & Feature options, so included them in my search parameters.
2. This search was far less confusing than the previous search. I entered the phrase, "How libraries helped communities during and after Hurricane Sandy". Out of the 218 results, once I sorted by Publication date (most recent first), the following result answered my quest:
* TRENDING NOW
Figueroa, Miguel. American Libraries
46.3/4 (Mar/Apr 2015): 29-31.
- Citation/Abstract
- Full text
- Full text - PDF (823 KB)
Abstract (summary)
In other hospitality sectors, fast casual has advanced the growth of living-room-like flexible spaces (multiple and varied seating arrangements, easy-to-find power outlets) that accommodate social and business needs, cater to upscale tastes, and are technologically savvy. The Rockefeller Foundation's 100 Resilient Cities initiative has worked with cities around the world to develop a road map to resilience, including establishing a chief resilience officer, strategy development; access to private, public, and NGO partners that can help develop solutions; and membership in a network of like-minded cities.
Tuesday, February 24, 2015
Lesson 4 -- SIRS Issues Researcher and Discoverer
SIRS Discoverer
1. In the advanced search options, I entered solar systems as the subject matter, then the "Easy" reading levels. This resulted in locating 4 newspaper articles, 31 magazine articles and 7 references. As I explored the other options available, I learned the "Lexile arrows" will help to find better appropriate reading materials for the 3rd graders abilities. I set it to the lowest arrow possible and the results remained the same.
2. My first method of searching was by using the Keyword/Natural Language search feature. I entered the phrase "maps of volcanoes" and discovered 239 articles, total. There were only 16 graphics, mostly of maps, but there are several Newspapers (15), Magazines (122), and Reference (74) materials which contain images of the volcanoes around the world.
My second method was using the basic search feature. I typed in "volcano" and got 1000 articles, total. 151 Newspapers, 492 Magazines, 238 References, 151 Graphics. Once again, many of the various results contain one or more images of the subject volcanoes.
SIRS Issue Researcher
1. This was a tough one for me. I searched the SIRS Issue Researcher, but only came up with 2 results via WebSelect Sites. If I did a simpler search for just Suicide Prevention, the results were a total of 4. However, using Google resulted in just a couple thousand more than 2 million results. Bear in mind, however, via the SIRS Issue Researcher, there are a total of 243 results in a number of different sources (newspapers, magazines, viewpoints, reference, graphics/multimedia, and WebSelect Sites. I didn't have the time to check out all of the "hits" on the Google search, but would venture a fairly safe guess that many of those results are also links to magazine/newspaper articles and other sources, much like those found in the SIRS Issue Researcher. I would think if one had the time to view the many results which stem from the SIRS Issue Researcher, one might find more good websites on suicide prevention for teens.
2. For this lesson, I used Topic Browse > Earth Science > Contents = which led me to 1K+ results in Newspapers (543), Magazines (332), Reference (0), and Graphics (399). This offers many choices for the researcher, but I wondered if there were a better way to find the answers...
This time, I chose Subject Index instead of Contents. This led me to a more condensed search tool, where I was able to enter the keywords, "drought or water restrictions" into the Subject Heading Search window. Eureka! Here, there is a list of subject headings, nice and neat, where I chose the following subjects to use for my research on this topic:
Crops, Effect of drought on
Drought relief
Livestock, Effect of drought on
Plants, Effect of drought on
Droughts
Drought Relief
There are a few more condensed subjects, mostly related to droughts & their effects on other countries. so I didn't feel it necessary to include them in my answer. :)
1. In the advanced search options, I entered solar systems as the subject matter, then the "Easy" reading levels. This resulted in locating 4 newspaper articles, 31 magazine articles and 7 references. As I explored the other options available, I learned the "Lexile arrows" will help to find better appropriate reading materials for the 3rd graders abilities. I set it to the lowest arrow possible and the results remained the same.
2. My first method of searching was by using the Keyword/Natural Language search feature. I entered the phrase "maps of volcanoes" and discovered 239 articles, total. There were only 16 graphics, mostly of maps, but there are several Newspapers (15), Magazines (122), and Reference (74) materials which contain images of the volcanoes around the world.
My second method was using the basic search feature. I typed in "volcano" and got 1000 articles, total. 151 Newspapers, 492 Magazines, 238 References, 151 Graphics. Once again, many of the various results contain one or more images of the subject volcanoes.
SIRS Issue Researcher
1. This was a tough one for me. I searched the SIRS Issue Researcher, but only came up with 2 results via WebSelect Sites. If I did a simpler search for just Suicide Prevention, the results were a total of 4. However, using Google resulted in just a couple thousand more than 2 million results. Bear in mind, however, via the SIRS Issue Researcher, there are a total of 243 results in a number of different sources (newspapers, magazines, viewpoints, reference, graphics/multimedia, and WebSelect Sites. I didn't have the time to check out all of the "hits" on the Google search, but would venture a fairly safe guess that many of those results are also links to magazine/newspaper articles and other sources, much like those found in the SIRS Issue Researcher. I would think if one had the time to view the many results which stem from the SIRS Issue Researcher, one might find more good websites on suicide prevention for teens.
2. For this lesson, I used Topic Browse > Earth Science > Contents = which led me to 1K+ results in Newspapers (543), Magazines (332), Reference (0), and Graphics (399). This offers many choices for the researcher, but I wondered if there were a better way to find the answers...
This time, I chose Subject Index instead of Contents. This led me to a more condensed search tool, where I was able to enter the keywords, "drought or water restrictions" into the Subject Heading Search window. Eureka! Here, there is a list of subject headings, nice and neat, where I chose the following subjects to use for my research on this topic:
Crops, Effect of drought on
Drought relief
Livestock, Effect of drought on
Plants, Effect of drought on
Droughts
Drought Relief
There are a few more condensed subjects, mostly related to droughts & their effects on other countries. so I didn't feel it necessary to include them in my answer. :)
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