Lesson 7 - EBooks on EbscoHost

1. My search attempts were met with few results, when I used the default search feature.  As a hobby quilter, I thought a search for fabric/fiber arts/quilting might lead to some interesting results.  The results, using the "advanced search" feature, combined with the search terms I just mentioned, led to a big zero. Zip. Zilch.  Uh oh.  That's not good.

So, I decided to poke around on the site, to see if there was any sort of index of genres available.  Once I discovered the "EBooks" button & clicked on it, it felt like hitting the lottery! On the left of the page, is that elusive index I was hoping to find earlier.  That gave me a better understanding of the various genres of books within the EbscoHost system.  As I have been learning, during the research on this and previous exercises, the search terms we use are highly important when it comes to achieving the results one might hope.

Hence, I switched my search to a different goal - this time I entered "cliff notes" in the search box.  This produced a total of 158 titles, a much better result than my previous requests had given. The list of titles provide a variety of other information related to each result. Some include the "subject", while all offer the year, a Table of Contents and "most relevant pages" options.

This is a terrific tool for research, one that will come in quite handy for the patrons and for Librarians needing good information and fast. :)

2. This exercise requires finding appropriate titles to assist a few students with researching "Constitution Day".  These titles include, but are not limited to:

"Our Elusive Constitution: Silences, Paradoxes and Priorities" by Daniel N. Hoffman

"Constitution of the Confederate States" - a Project Gutenberg eBook

The Constitution of the United States - a Project Gutenberg eBook.

"U.S. Government and Politics" by Pamela K. Lamb (eBook/study guide)

Out of the 174 possible appropriate titles, these, were on the first couple of pages.  Any or all of these 4 titles would benefit the researcher (aka our students), with more options available, if the student is willing to dig through the many titles provided.

3. This exercise gave me the option of choose Nebraska or Oklahoma, so I chose the state where I lived most of my teen years. Oklahoma is a beautiful state, rich with a history of adventure, tradition and Native American Legends.  My search results, following the standard set within the exercise, 

There were 80 results from my search and they subject matter varied from "Indians of North America" to "Sacred Language" The Nature of Supernatural Discourse in Lakota" to biographies of Great Native American warriors and Chiefs to "Documents of American Indian Diplomacy: Treaties, Agreements and Conventions 1775 -1979."  The ebscohost site has a lot of really valuable titles that will aid the student in their research.