CAMIO

I needed to find the way people dressed in Charles Dickens’ England (the Victorian Era, 1837-1901).  I began by selecting Costume & Jewelry on the homepage and went to the advanced search and used Victorian and clothing (&fashion).  Most of my results were to do with jewelry.  I used the advanced search and plugged in England, Victorian Era, dress, fashion, and clothing).  I used multiple combinations with no luck.  I even tried working with the dates with no luck.  I could really use some added hints as this is driving me crazy.  I am finding this database hard to navigate.

WorldCat, CAMIO and More

I searched Martin Luther King in the basic search and had over 27,000 results.  I noticed the tab for books and saw over 13,000 results. I selected the book tab and then used the limiters under the tabs and selected juvenile and nonfiction.  After this I was down to 1,271 results and then noticed the English results for 1,134.  I saw the title Martin’s Big Words which is an excellent picture book.  Some may consider the picture book too young for 4 & 5^th graders, but I strongly believe you are never too old to enjoy picture books.  It does show primary school in the records but could be used for discussion and understanding for what they already know.  For this book to be used in Sunday school it should be short enough to get through the book for the hour once a week, in a couple of weeks.  Another possible book for this activity could be, My Life with Martin Luther King, Jr.  by Coretta Scott King.  This book however has 372 pages and is too long for the time available but excerpts could be read from the book.  The detailed records show the number of pages in the books.  When I selected Martin’s Big Words I was able to select “libraries worldwide that own the book”.  I was able to view the libraries in South Dakota that have this item.  I started to select the different libraries and not all of the links to those libraries worked.  Even when I selected Rapid City Public Library, “he file or directory was not found”.  Because I already have the link to Rapid City Public Library, I could search for the book online and hold or just drive down there to retrieve the book.  When finding a library with a working link that had the book, there was the option to request the book through interlibrary loan.

The second question is relevant to my library at this time.  I am always looking to increase the library’s graphic novel collection but want to choose graphic novels that have chapter book beginnings.  I did the advanced search for graphic novels and classics and had 889 results.  As looked through the results not all the results are what I would consider a classic.  Garfield does not fit this categories in my opinion.  Some of the results are just comics.  I tried to do an advanced search and selected “not” comics but still had comics in the results. I do not think there is enough distinction between comic and graphic novel yet. As I looked at the detailed records I noticed that graphic novels is listed in the subjects but only see classic(s) in other areas of the records.  Not sure if this has any bearing on my results.  When I put in “classic” and designated it as a subject, I only received one result and that was as a classic as a genre.  As I looked at the libraries nearby that house some of these graphic novels, it appeared as if very few are owned by SD libraries that in with WorldCat.  I liked that I could see the cover of these graphic novels.  Many had covers I think my middle schoolers would deem to young, and I think they are looking for edgier graphic covers.  One graphic novel I found that I may add to my library is War of the Worlds which is published by Stone Arch Books.  I would normally record the ISBN as I would use this to search my book vendor.

For the third question, I used the advanced search in WorldCat and typed in “My Fair Lady” and “vocal score”.  I had a 148 total results but noticed a tab for scores which had 133 results.  I redid the advance search after I had been pulled away and noticed the second time on the advanced search that I could select musical scores.  I chose the first result

My fair lady :
vocal selection /

Frederick Loewe;  Alan Jay Lerner

The detailed record has the description as 1 vocal score.  The descriptor under subjects labels it as:  Musicals—Excerpts—Vocal scores with piano.  This appeared to be a great match.  The accession number is  OCLC: 2052359.

EBooks on EbscoHost

I first did a search for young adult and literature and came up with 43 results.  I found several eBooks of interest.

100 More Popular Young Adult Authors : Biographical Sketches and Bibliographies

Coretta Scott King Award Books : Using Great Literature with Children and Young Adults

Center Stage : Library Programs That Inspire Middle School Patrons

On Reading Books to Children : Parents and Teacher

As I looked closer at the results their publication dates seemed to range from 1999 to 2004.  So I decided to narrow the search to more recent publication dates as young adult literature has evolved a lot in the last ten years.  I could only narrow the range from 2002 to 2005 and had 14 results after.  The above books remained in the results.  I had hoped for more recent publications.   I returned to the advanced search and tried different search terms.  As I typed in young adult, many options to choose from popped up for selection.  Starting another search I selected the range 2005 to 2014, English and download available with no search term and had 631 results.  When I added fiction as a search term with the previous limiter, I had only 6 results.  None which would interest my middle school students. 

I did search South Dakota and got 123 results.  There were some very interesting titles, a couple of which I already own.  There were several books I think teachers could use as supplement resources but may not be of interest to students.

Tyrannosaurus Sue : The Extraordinary Saga of the Largest, Most Fought Over T. Rex Ever Found

The Rapid City Indian School, 1898-1933

America's National Historic Trails

Bachelor Bess : The Homesteading Letters of Elizabeth Corey, 1909-1919

When looking at any of the results I had the ability to search similar sources through the subjects category.  Farther down the page for each book was a section that highlighted most relevant pages from the book in connection with my search term(s).  I think this database might be a bit much for my students to use.  It takes quite a bit of searching to locate exactly what you are looking for and students do not usually have the patience for this level of researching.

 

For the second question, I typed in fairy tales and had 66 results.  I found some titles with a color listed in each title.  Looking closer I realized that the books were by the same author, Andrew Lang.  The covers of these eBooks did not always show the color that was in the title but described the fairy.    To sort quicker, I used the advanced search for fairy tales and Andrew Lang which netted me 6 results.  Looking at the results, the last book listed was by Andrew Lang but not a fairy tale but a book of poems.  The Blue Fairy book was listed twice.  These two books are the same as I looked at the most relevant pages section, they are just listed with different publication information.

The Violet Fairy Book

The Blue Fairy Book       In public domain. Champaign, Ill. [P.O. Box 2782, Champaign 61825] : Project Gutenberg.

Blue Fairy Book              In public domain. Charlottesville, Va : University of Virginia Library. 1996

The Yellow Fairy Book

The Red Fairy Book

I went back to the original fairy tale search to explore more of the other titles.  I have an 8^th grade teacher who teaches a mythology class that includes fairy tales and thought she might find some the titles helpful.  One item I noticed is that most of the ebooks are at least 10 years old, though because of the topic may not be of great importance.  Many of the 66 results did not focus on what I wanted so I went back to advanced search and searched fairy tales as a subject which yielded 19 results.  This was a cleaner search and I will pass on these results to that teacher.

Gale Virtual Reference Library

Using Gale Virtual Reference Library, I chose Multicultural Studies from the left under subjects.  This seemed the most logical, with the organization seeking holidays around the world.  Once under multicultural studies, I then searched festivals and got 312 results.  I then searched spring festivals and got 20 results.  These seemed to be mostly Asian results and decided I needed to cast a wider net.  I did a search of spring festivals in the entire database and got 157 results but many of these were college blue books.  I decided to back out to the homepage and look through the different categories to see the covers and titles of the books.  I found two possible books under Nation and World, Junior Worldmark Encyclopedia of Foods and Recipes of the World, 2012 and Junior Worldmark Encyclopedia of World Holidays, 2000.  The index of the World Holidays contains a calendar that allows you to see the spring season holidays.  I looked at different countries in the Foods and Recipes of the World and found sections on foods for religious and holiday celebrations.  I also found Junior Worldmark Encyclopedia of World Holidays for several different countries.  When I looked at the different volumes in this encyclopedia there was a section for spring (though one included Halloween with spring).  All these could be very helpful.  Most holidays I found were of religious origin.

In advanced searching I selected “after” and chose the year 2011.  I received 30,616 results which is considerable for recently added information.  I really enjoy viewing the limiters in any database and immediately looked in the left sidebar.  There were many categories under the headings of document type and subjects.  I was pleased with the number of subjects on Native Americans which included: history, culture, religion, reservations, education and cooking.  What I found unusual was that the subjects were not listed in alphabetical order but by the number of results that subject contained.  I selected Native American reservations and received 99 results.  Native American tribes are very diverse.  As I looked through the sources each had the region(s) for the tribe under the title.  Within these 99 results the subject limiters to the left expanded greatly.  I found I could search within these results and used Great Basin trying to narrow results to tribes in our area.  I found it an effective way to narrow searches by regions.  

Proquest

Searching Les Miserables, the basic search in full text gave me 6244 results which is a lot to sort through.  When looking at the limiters on the right, I can narrow my results through a variety of combinations under document type and subject.  Just looking at documents after the first basic full text search there were:  articles 2717, feature 2105, general information 934, review 698 and news 640.  When I selected more options, I then found how to exclude reviews but include the other limiters.  I was then able to exclude document types that would contain reviews.  There were many document types , such as: article, feature, general information, review, news, undefined, commentary, interview, transcript, report, fiction, front page/cover story, blog, obituary, correspondence, editorial, biography, case study, poem, statistics/data report, speech/lecture, conference, correction/retraction, directory, instructional material/guideline and market research.  By expanding the subject limiter, the results showed: theater 344, literary criticism 316, nonfiction 305, history 301, and musical theater 281.  By selecting the more options the list was expanded to include many more subject limiters, too numerous to list here.   This option also allowed me to include and exclude subjects to the researcher’s parameters.  Using the limiters, I selected literary criticism, novels, studies, books, and literature under subject.  I selected article, feature, general information and biography under the limiter, document type.  I still had 454 results.  I then used only literary criticism under subject and excluded anything that had an entertainment aspect and came down to 211 results.  Looking at the results I started over and put Les Miserables in quotations marks and then chose the limiters again and was able to narrow my results to 23.  This would be a great topic for older students and adults but the articles were probably too difficult for my middle school students on average.

 

For the next question, I used the advanced search for Hurricane Sandy and libraries.  This first search resulted in 1001 results. When I looked to the document type limiter, I noticed that there were 88 results under reports and selected this.  This number of results was still a lot to go through, so I then looked under subjects and found disasters and damage.  Under damage there were 5 results and started looking through those.  I did like that throughout the articles I looked at, my search terms were highlighted.  Hurricane Sandy was easy to find and I found that libraries were not highlighted as often.  So far the results are thin.  When libraries were mentioned it was often in conjunction with hospitals, museums, and college campuses and trying to provide funding to rebuild them.  I did find one article where the library was a collection point for donations in the community.  I did notice there was an indexing details at the bottom of the article with other subjects descriptors that I could explore.

I then tried a different document type, articles rather than reports and kept the subject of disasters.  I did find an interesting article that wrote of the libraries roles in disasters, but it contained an older publication date.

Featherstone, R. M., M.L.S., Lyon, B. J., M.L.S., & Ruffin, A. B. (2008). Library roles in disaster response: An oral history project by the national library of Medicine*dagger]. Journal of the Medical Library Association, 96(4), 343-50. Retrieved from http://search.proquest.com/docview/203478503?accountid=45583

I then tried Libraries and Hurricance Sandy and used the limiters articles and libraries.  This seemed to have had the best results when focusing on impact.  Though damage was mentioned many spoke to the importance of an operational library to a community.  I became a bit frustrated in my search and will be checking other blogs to see what they found.  Most articles I found focused on the aspect of the hurricane (and some mention Katrina) and others focused on libraries with little mention to the hurricane.  I found articles published in 2013 but were not focused on the impact of the subjects searched.

 

SIRS

I use SIRS often with my students.  The lexile sort for the articles is helpful with students and teachers.  I began my search like a student and used the science tile (764 articles) and then astronomy and space (197 articles) from the right side bar.  After that I sorted by the lexile.  This was still a lot of articles to look through.

I then went back to the homepage to conduct the advanced search.  I used the search term solar system and selected easy for the reading level.  The result was 45 articles. However there was a huge range in lexile (510 to 1290). The then searched solar system and put in a range of 400 to 700, which resulted in 4 articles.  I am not sure what the parameters are for considering if an article is easy, moderate or challenging.  I guess I would need to be aware if the student would be able to handle material above their grade level.

 

In searching volcanoes, I did a basic search and found 141 results in the graphics tab.  However many of these results were pictures, charts and diagrams of volcanoes.  I had to go farther into the pages of the results to find maps with volcanoes.  The diagrams will be of particular to my 8^th grade science teachers.  As I went through the pages of results I did find a couple of maps.  One was of the active volcanoes in Hawaii.  There was a map of Indonesia but when I took a closer look I did not see any volcanoes marked on the map.  Deciding if there was a better way I searched volcanoes: maps and 224 results with 14 of those in the graphics tab.  As I looked at the articles, I found many with the camera icon.  The few I checked did not appear under the graphics tab.

I have used SIRS Issue Researcher with both my 7^th and 8^th graders and from their responses this is their favorite database so far.  I think they enjoyed looking at currents issues and liked that I asked their opinion on the issues I had them look at for the lesson.  I would definitely prefer SIRS Issue over Google for the topic of suicide.  SIRS seeks out these articles on the issues, where as Google still has too much of a mix of information, good and bad.  The other plus for SIRS is that it is very easy to sort the articles by newspaper, magazines, viewpoints, reference, and graphics. There was also a link to matching subjects which help fill out the results.  I understand you can search Google more effectively but I have found very few adults know how to do this focused search.

When searching the last topic, I used the quick topic list on the left and went down to water.  The essential question for this issue was, “Should mandatory restrictions be implemented to conserve water?”  As I looked at the numerous articles (116 source types) listed below, I found the articles also listed related subjects links below the summary of each article.  Some of the related subject terms are: conservation of natural resources, environmentalism, water conservation, water-supply, sustainable development, global impact, ground water, hydrogeology, and runoff.  It is obvious that this issue is not unique to any one area and having multiple examples could be very useful in a civic discussion.

LearningExpress Library

The LearningExpress Library has a very different set up from last year.  I did have to create a new account with the updated version.  There was also the option to create an account without using an email which would be very handy for the elementary and middle school students without an email.  I do not remember to user guides from last year but thought there were many useful guides including how to search LearningExpress Library.

I was able to easily find the school center and select elementary, from there I then selected Reading Comprehension Skills Practice. There are reading practice for informational, narrative, persuasive, poetry and general reading.  Informational had the most reading practice section at 9.  The sections are set up to allow you to test by seeing the answers at the end or viewing the answers as you go through the practice as a study guide.  I only see reading practice for grade 4 at the elementary level.  I am curious as to why only 4^th grade was chosen for these practice areas.

Looking for Office Manger provided much more difficult.  I searched with the general search box and looked throughout the Career Center section.  I used various search terms including office manager, managerial, and office without success.  I did find under the Job Search and Workplace Skills, how to improve the job search and networking skills and building your workplace skills which would be useful to many serious in finding a job.   Through my searches I discovered a lot of help for the health care field.  I back tracked to the school center and looked under high school.  Possible sections that could help with the job training could include logic and reasoning, math, statistics, vocabulary and spelling and writing and grammar skills.  By not finding the specific office I manager search I did “stumble”  across a lot of other areas that could help a wide variety of possible careers.

I went straight to the Career Center for the student with the nurse and pharmacist report.  Nursing had an ebook that detailed the profession.  Looking at the table of contents each chapter listed a variety of information on nursing. This would be an excellent resource for a report with the option of emailing the PDF to your personal email. When I first selected Learn More about a Career, there was an eBook on Becoming a Healthcare Professional.  When looking through this resource there was mention of becoming a nursing assistant technology and no mention of pharmacy.  I know I had seen an exam for a pharmacist technician but when I went back the next day I could not find it again.  It happened to be under the Allied health section.  What I found was pharmacy exams but little information about the actual career.  I had hoped for more information.  Looking at the types of resources given under health care, I could only wonder if there was more focus on these particular professions because of a perceived shortage or need in these areas.

When at home, every time I selected Allied Health under prepare for an occupation exam, I got a pop up on finding a dentist by searching by my zip code.  This was a bit annoying.