Discover Exercise #1
1. When I typed in "Sitting Bull autograph card," I was able to read a short summary of the highlights of Sitting Bull's life, but did not notice access to any photos. I actually didn't really learn anything about Sitting Bull that I didn't already know from reading books and visiting the Buffalo Bill Museum in Cody, Wyoming.
2. In keeping with the Buffalo Bill theme, I chose to search for Annie Oakley. The search revealed 32 results. Some were typescripts of screenplays, some were "papers," and some were photographs. The materials were owned by the Library of Congress, various universities, the New York Public Library, and some museums and historical societies.
Discovery Exercise #2:
1. A search of Paul Revere revealed engravings entitled "Bloody Massacre" and "Boston Massacre" and various silver items such as spoons, tea and sugar urns, tea service sets, coffee urns, teapots, and tankards.
2. Typing in Sioux resulted in a variety of search results -- 63 in all. The first couple were a pair of gloves and a shirt made by Sioux Natives over 100 years ago. The next two were pictures of Sioux Springs. The fifth was a writing table, and I can't figure out why it showed up in the results. There are other sculptures, clothing items, and drawings from books made by Sioux artists, and a lot of paintings by George Catlin with Sioux subjects.
3. I looked up Remington and found 13 results: 6 were sculptures and 6 were paintings/watercolors. I thought he had more sculptures than 6, so some of them must not show up in Camio. I think he was a better sculptor than he was a painter.
4. Users could develop slide shows displaying certain types of art if they were delivering a lecture/presentation. I'm not sure if I personally would use this resource often because I am not very knowledgeable about art. I don't have what it takes to appreciate Picasso and other famous artists. I'm too left-brained I think. Of course, I will still be happy to show patrons who are interested in art that Camio is at their disposal.
5. I chose to look at works of Monet. I added 10 of the works to My Favorites and viewed them in a slide show. I like this option because it makes it easier to flip through larger size pictures of the art work. Two of the 10 paintings I looked at were quite pretty -- "Spring Flowers" and "Garden at Sainte Adresse."
Wednesday, February 29, 2012
Wednesday, February 22, 2012
Challenge #7: Worldcat and More FirstSearch Indexes
Part 1
I have had experience using Worldcat to borrow Interlibrary Loan materials when I could not find the material in SDLN Libraries through Aleph. So, I was aware of some of the opportunities presented in this lesson, but no all of them.
1) Besides using the default search field of "Keyword," one may also search by Title, Author, Subject, Genre, Material Type, ISBN or any number of other terms.
2) I chose to search for Blind Your Ponies using the Title Phrase. Three of the results were books. Worldwide, there were 459 Libraries which held a copy of Item #1. The top library in the results list for this book was the Alexander Mitchell Library.
3) I looked at the full record for Blind Your Ponies, and saw that the Dewey Call Number was 813/.54, which basically means it is American Fiction. I clicked on the name of the author, Stanley Gordon West, and saw that 12 Books resulted. Some of these books were the same title, but probably just different versions, such as hardback and paperback. Then, I clicked on the subject of "basketball coaches -- fiction" with a result of 37 books, 7 internet sources, and 3 sound sources. I then narrowed the search by choosing "not juvenile" and the number of books dropped to 30.
Other FirstSearch Indexes
I looked briefly at other databases offered in FirstSearch and the information provided on several of these databases. For kicks, I looked for Bobby Knight in the World Almanac -- not because I'm a Bobby Knight fan, but my mind was on Basketball Coaches and his was the first that came to mind that I was sure I could spell right. The first result was a Basketball Hall of Fame Listing which showed what year various players and coaches were added to the Hall of Fame.
Part 2
I conducted a search on South Dakota in OAIster under "Subject Phrase." I decided to look into a dissertation entitled Dreams and Dust in the Black Hills: Race, Place, and National Identity in America's Land of Promise. When I clicked on the link next to Access, I was taken to the University of New Mexico's Lobo Vault. The link provided basic information on the dissertation, such as the author, the advisor, the committee members, the date, and the type of degree being pursued. However, I could not read the actual dissertation because when I tried to open it, I was asked to login to the Lobo Vault.
I have had experience using Worldcat to borrow Interlibrary Loan materials when I could not find the material in SDLN Libraries through Aleph. So, I was aware of some of the opportunities presented in this lesson, but no all of them.
1) Besides using the default search field of "Keyword," one may also search by Title, Author, Subject, Genre, Material Type, ISBN or any number of other terms.
2) I chose to search for Blind Your Ponies using the Title Phrase. Three of the results were books. Worldwide, there were 459 Libraries which held a copy of Item #1. The top library in the results list for this book was the Alexander Mitchell Library.
3) I looked at the full record for Blind Your Ponies, and saw that the Dewey Call Number was 813/.54, which basically means it is American Fiction. I clicked on the name of the author, Stanley Gordon West, and saw that 12 Books resulted. Some of these books were the same title, but probably just different versions, such as hardback and paperback. Then, I clicked on the subject of "basketball coaches -- fiction" with a result of 37 books, 7 internet sources, and 3 sound sources. I then narrowed the search by choosing "not juvenile" and the number of books dropped to 30.
Other FirstSearch Indexes
I looked briefly at other databases offered in FirstSearch and the information provided on several of these databases. For kicks, I looked for Bobby Knight in the World Almanac -- not because I'm a Bobby Knight fan, but my mind was on Basketball Coaches and his was the first that came to mind that I was sure I could spell right. The first result was a Basketball Hall of Fame Listing which showed what year various players and coaches were added to the Hall of Fame.
Part 2
I conducted a search on South Dakota in OAIster under "Subject Phrase." I decided to look into a dissertation entitled Dreams and Dust in the Black Hills: Race, Place, and National Identity in America's Land of Promise. When I clicked on the link next to Access, I was taken to the University of New Mexico's Lobo Vault. The link provided basic information on the dissertation, such as the author, the advisor, the committee members, the date, and the type of degree being pursued. However, I could not read the actual dissertation because when I tried to open it, I was asked to login to the Lobo Vault.
Wednesday, February 15, 2012
Challenge #6: Ebooks on EbscoHost
This week's challenge is proving to be very frustrating to me. I am not going to resume trying to finish the Discovery Exercise because my internet has locked up too many times, and I have needed to totally close the browser windows and start all over. I hope everyone else is having better luck. I will report on what I discovered before I gave up.
1) I chose to research "tax advice for rental properties" and various other terms along those lines, since I am trying to complete my taxes and this is the first year I have needed to deal with a rental property. (We couldn't sell our house in AZ before we moved to SD, so we have rented it out since July.) I chose to look at a couple of Idiot's Guides. One was for completing taxes using Turbo Tax (which is what I do); the other was an Idiot's Guide to Personal Finance. I would open the Table of Contents in order to skip to the subjects I was interested in, but my computer would quit responding when I tried to scroll down the page. So, I was only able to look at the first few lines on a page. Every single time I tried, things would work fine until I tried to scroll down the page -- then my computer would quit responding. I thought maybe there was a problem with the Idiot Guides, so I decided to move on to #2.
2) I looked up various terms such as "U. S. Constitution" and "history of the U. S. Constitution." I found a couple of books that looked promising: Our Elusive Constitution and Reader's Companion to American History. Unfortunately, I couldn't dig within the books, because once again the computer would quit responding when I tried to scroll down. Before I tried scrolling down on my last effort, I did use the tool that allows you to search within the book. I saw a lot of things that looked promising, but could not investigate them further without being able to scroll down the page.
3) At this point, I am too frustrated to waste any more time trying to get this to work, so I chose to not even attempt task 3.
It seems like it would be great to have access to ebooks such as those Idiot Guides, Blue Books, etc... I just would be afraid to recommend this particular site to a patron after all of the trouble I have had with it. Hopefully, my co-workers will not experience the same problems on their computers.
1) I chose to research "tax advice for rental properties" and various other terms along those lines, since I am trying to complete my taxes and this is the first year I have needed to deal with a rental property. (We couldn't sell our house in AZ before we moved to SD, so we have rented it out since July.) I chose to look at a couple of Idiot's Guides. One was for completing taxes using Turbo Tax (which is what I do); the other was an Idiot's Guide to Personal Finance. I would open the Table of Contents in order to skip to the subjects I was interested in, but my computer would quit responding when I tried to scroll down the page. So, I was only able to look at the first few lines on a page. Every single time I tried, things would work fine until I tried to scroll down the page -- then my computer would quit responding. I thought maybe there was a problem with the Idiot Guides, so I decided to move on to #2.
2) I looked up various terms such as "U. S. Constitution" and "history of the U. S. Constitution." I found a couple of books that looked promising: Our Elusive Constitution and Reader's Companion to American History. Unfortunately, I couldn't dig within the books, because once again the computer would quit responding when I tried to scroll down. Before I tried scrolling down on my last effort, I did use the tool that allows you to search within the book. I saw a lot of things that looked promising, but could not investigate them further without being able to scroll down the page.
3) At this point, I am too frustrated to waste any more time trying to get this to work, so I chose to not even attempt task 3.
It seems like it would be great to have access to ebooks such as those Idiot Guides, Blue Books, etc... I just would be afraid to recommend this particular site to a patron after all of the trouble I have had with it. Hopefully, my co-workers will not experience the same problems on their computers.
Monday, February 6, 2012
Challenge #5: Gale Virtual Reference Library
1) After viewing the "Title List," I chose to look at The College Blue Book. Once you open this reference, you choose a state and all colleges and universities in each state are listed along with lots of helpful information. This information includes the number of students enrolled, the student/faculty ratio, the academic areas with the most degrees conferred, entrance requirements, special programs, tuition costs, and room and board costs. This information would be very valuable for parents and students who are trying to select an institute of higher learning. This 34th edition of The College Blue Book was published in 2007, so the information is not exactly up-to-date. I'm sure tuition costs have risen a lot in the last 5 years. However, it would still be valuable to get an idea of the costs and benefits of each school. I would hope the next edition is scheduled for this year. Otherwise, I would think information of this nature would lose it's value after more than 5 years.
2) I chose to search for information related to "mission statements" to help me prepare for our upcoming work group to revamp the library's current Mission Statement. I found a couple of useful articles which I printed off to help in developing an introduction to the goals of our session. I might as well get something useful done while doing my homework, right?
I tested the "Listen" feature, which is pretty nifty and not as "computery" sounding as I thought it would be. However, I don't think I would be able to pay close attention to the information if I were only listening due to the lack of stress/inflection in the reading of the text. But, that's just me. I'm more of a visual learner.
3) I looked at a lot of comments on others blogs which helped me realize the wealth of information availabe at GVRL. I wish I would have had this resource in college when I had to write research or papers about literary works. Doing research for papers in college is one of my least favorite memories. Students today have access to so much information from the convenience of their PC or laptop. I hope they all know about these resources.
2) I chose to search for information related to "mission statements" to help me prepare for our upcoming work group to revamp the library's current Mission Statement. I found a couple of useful articles which I printed off to help in developing an introduction to the goals of our session. I might as well get something useful done while doing my homework, right?
I tested the "Listen" feature, which is pretty nifty and not as "computery" sounding as I thought it would be. However, I don't think I would be able to pay close attention to the information if I were only listening due to the lack of stress/inflection in the reading of the text. But, that's just me. I'm more of a visual learner.
3) I looked at a lot of comments on others blogs which helped me realize the wealth of information availabe at GVRL. I wish I would have had this resource in college when I had to write research or papers about literary works. Doing research for papers in college is one of my least favorite memories. Students today have access to so much information from the convenience of their PC or laptop. I hope they all know about these resources.
Thursday, February 2, 2012
Challenge #4: Proquest
1) I decided to conduct a basic search on "introverts" since we are in the process of cataloging a new book by Susan Cain entitled Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can't Stop Talking. I had taken the book home last night and read a few pages, so my curiosity was piqued.
The ProQuest search results were from a variety of sources. Among the top 5 results was an article regarding ITs as Introverts, a short review of the aforementioned book in The Booklist, an article from an issue of Parents magazine, an article from an issue of Air Conditioning, Heating, and Refrigeration News (of all things), and a transcript of an interview of author Susan Cain on NPRs All Things Considered. In each source, the search term "introvert" was highlighted. (This was helpful for this search, but not so helpful when my searchterm was "history of motocross" and every "of" was highlighted.) Some of the articles can be translated "on-the-fly" into other languages. Some articles did not have translation available.
Search results default to being organized by relevance, but may be reorganized according to publication date on a drop-down menu on the right side of the screen. I enjoyed reading the articles, which made it a little harder to get my assignment done in a timely manner.
2) I visited other blogs and made a comment or two. I learned quite a bit by visiting these other blogs. Then, I had to reinvestigate some of the Electronic Resource to find out more about what my Challenge cohorts had mentioned.
3) I was impressed with the number of periodicals offered under the Publications tab. I searched for the Journal of Forestry, which was the Journal for my former profession. Then, I searched for the Library Journal. Several periodicals resulted with both the word "Library" and "Journal." I chose the one I was looking for, then browsed the most recent articles on a couple of subjects I was interested in. This will be a handy resource for educating myself on issues within our field that I need to get more up-to-speed on.
The ProQuest search results were from a variety of sources. Among the top 5 results was an article regarding ITs as Introverts, a short review of the aforementioned book in The Booklist, an article from an issue of Parents magazine, an article from an issue of Air Conditioning, Heating, and Refrigeration News (of all things), and a transcript of an interview of author Susan Cain on NPRs All Things Considered. In each source, the search term "introvert" was highlighted. (This was helpful for this search, but not so helpful when my searchterm was "history of motocross" and every "of" was highlighted.) Some of the articles can be translated "on-the-fly" into other languages. Some articles did not have translation available.
Search results default to being organized by relevance, but may be reorganized according to publication date on a drop-down menu on the right side of the screen. I enjoyed reading the articles, which made it a little harder to get my assignment done in a timely manner.
2) I visited other blogs and made a comment or two. I learned quite a bit by visiting these other blogs. Then, I had to reinvestigate some of the Electronic Resource to find out more about what my Challenge cohorts had mentioned.
3) I was impressed with the number of periodicals offered under the Publications tab. I searched for the Journal of Forestry, which was the Journal for my former profession. Then, I searched for the Library Journal. Several periodicals resulted with both the word "Library" and "Journal." I chose the one I was looking for, then browsed the most recent articles on a couple of subjects I was interested in. This will be a handy resource for educating myself on issues within our field that I need to get more up-to-speed on.
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