South Dakota Library Challenge: Electronic Resource Edition
Lesson 10 | Wrap-Up | March 30, 2015
*The South Dakota Library Challenge: Electronic Resources Edition was developed by the South Dakota State Library staff to introduce you to the statewide subscription electronic resources. The Electronic Resources Challenge encourages library staff to learn more about the resources that provide expanded access to information and research tools to all schools, libraries and citizens of South Dakota.
Week 10 of the SDSL Electronic Resource Challenge has arrived! This has been a great challenge, and I have definitely learned a lot; however, I am also not completely sad that it is coming to an end. And, really, the only reason I say that is because this is such a busy time of year! I look back at the last ten weeks, and I am surprised that I was able to get each week's lesson completed with everything else that I had going on. I am glad that I took part in this challenge, though, for a number of reasons.
First of all, I am much more comfortable now with the SDSL on-line resources. I know which resources to recommend for which school project, and I have also been recommending them to friends and family members. I taught a couple of lessons at the beginning of the year in which I incorporated the SDSL databases, and then I taught a few more lessons during this challenge. There was no guesswork with the lessons I taught this winter/spring...I actually knew what I was talking about!
Secondly, I have now become a resource for some of the other teachers, particularly at the middle school that I work at. They know that I took part in this challenge and will now come to me with their questions about finding on-line resources for their students.
And, finally, any time that I can expand my knowledge base, I jump at the opportunity. Now, I feel like I just have more tools in my librarian tool belt.
I know that there are several of these resources that I need to go back to and explore in more depth; however, through this challenge, I feel like I have a very strong foundation.
Monday, March 30, 2015
Tuesday, March 24, 2015
South Dakota Library Challenge: Electronic Resource Edition
Lesson 9 | Ancestry Library, Heritage Quest, Sanborn Maps | March 16, 2015
*The South Dakota Library Challenge: Electronic Resources Edition was developed by the South Dakota State Library staff to introduce you to the statewide subscription electronic resources. The Electronic Resources Challenge encourages library staff to learn more about the resources that provide expanded access to information and research tools to all schools, libraries and citizens of South Dakota.
Week 9 of the SDSL Challenge has us exploring history and genealogy resources such as Ancestry Library, Heritage Quest, and Sanborn Maps. Ancestry Library contains over 4000 different searchable databases and indexes. In addition to census information, it offers historical maps, yearbooks, and indexes, including the continuous index. Heritage Quest provides access to census information plus full text historical books, Freedman's Bank records, and more. Sanborn Maps offers historical fire insurance maps for 82 SD communities and includes details such as street names, house numbers, and building use.
I began exploring in Ancestry Library by doing a search for my name. Apparently, you don't have to be dead to be listed in this resource. When I searched using my married name, there was a result with an old address and telephone number. When I searched using my maiden name, I was given my marriage license information from 2000. Next, I searched my grandfather on my mother's side. He died when I was in 6th grade. This search resulted in a SS Death Index, several census listings, a grave index, and an army enlistment. Finally, using this resource, I typed "South Dakota" in to the location search bar. This brought up almost 500 million results including census and voter lists, birth, marriage, and death certificates, military listings, immigration and travel documents, newspapers and publications, pictures, and much, much more. I opened the link for pictures and looked a few. These were great historical pictures with a caption, location, source information, and description. You can also click on the picture to get a nice close-up where you can zoom in. Very cool!
For the second part of this Challenge, I explored Heritage Quest. This resource has over 28,000 family and local histories in their online historical books. I began by clicking on the link to the Family History Books and Directories and then searched for Sturgis, SD, in the location search bar. The first thing that I noticed is that it seemed like many of the results had nothing to do with Sturgis, SD! So, I used the search filter option in the left sidebar to make my search more exact. When I narrowed my search to the "state" level, I got a hit for "A Brief History of South Dakota." This was of interest to me, so I clicked on the link and was taken to another page that had 224 results. At this point, I was just pretty confused as to what I was looking at and what I was looking for. I tried to make sense of it, but finally gave up until a new day.
Finally, for the last part of this Challenge, I explored Sanborn Maps. I started by searching for Sturgis, SD, with the date January 1931. There was an index page and then several pages of maps that I could look at. After looking at several of the maps, I found the church that my husband and I were married in! It is a very old chapel that is being restored by my husband's family. There were other buildings on the maps from 1931 that still exist today, as well. Most of these are on our Main Street. This would be an interesting resource for a history class.
Overall, three really good resources...even though I couldn't quite get into Heritage Quest.
Lesson 9 | Ancestry Library, Heritage Quest, Sanborn Maps | March 16, 2015
*The South Dakota Library Challenge: Electronic Resources Edition was developed by the South Dakota State Library staff to introduce you to the statewide subscription electronic resources. The Electronic Resources Challenge encourages library staff to learn more about the resources that provide expanded access to information and research tools to all schools, libraries and citizens of South Dakota.
Week 9 of the SDSL Challenge has us exploring history and genealogy resources such as Ancestry Library, Heritage Quest, and Sanborn Maps. Ancestry Library contains over 4000 different searchable databases and indexes. In addition to census information, it offers historical maps, yearbooks, and indexes, including the continuous index. Heritage Quest provides access to census information plus full text historical books, Freedman's Bank records, and more. Sanborn Maps offers historical fire insurance maps for 82 SD communities and includes details such as street names, house numbers, and building use.
I began exploring in Ancestry Library by doing a search for my name. Apparently, you don't have to be dead to be listed in this resource. When I searched using my married name, there was a result with an old address and telephone number. When I searched using my maiden name, I was given my marriage license information from 2000. Next, I searched my grandfather on my mother's side. He died when I was in 6th grade. This search resulted in a SS Death Index, several census listings, a grave index, and an army enlistment. Finally, using this resource, I typed "South Dakota" in to the location search bar. This brought up almost 500 million results including census and voter lists, birth, marriage, and death certificates, military listings, immigration and travel documents, newspapers and publications, pictures, and much, much more. I opened the link for pictures and looked a few. These were great historical pictures with a caption, location, source information, and description. You can also click on the picture to get a nice close-up where you can zoom in. Very cool!
For the second part of this Challenge, I explored Heritage Quest. This resource has over 28,000 family and local histories in their online historical books. I began by clicking on the link to the Family History Books and Directories and then searched for Sturgis, SD, in the location search bar. The first thing that I noticed is that it seemed like many of the results had nothing to do with Sturgis, SD! So, I used the search filter option in the left sidebar to make my search more exact. When I narrowed my search to the "state" level, I got a hit for "A Brief History of South Dakota." This was of interest to me, so I clicked on the link and was taken to another page that had 224 results. At this point, I was just pretty confused as to what I was looking at and what I was looking for. I tried to make sense of it, but finally gave up until a new day.
Finally, for the last part of this Challenge, I explored Sanborn Maps. I started by searching for Sturgis, SD, with the date January 1931. There was an index page and then several pages of maps that I could look at. After looking at several of the maps, I found the church that my husband and I were married in! It is a very old chapel that is being restored by my husband's family. There were other buildings on the maps from 1931 that still exist today, as well. Most of these are on our Main Street. This would be an interesting resource for a history class.
Overall, three really good resources...even though I couldn't quite get into Heritage Quest.
Thursday, March 19, 2015
South Dakota Library Challenge: Electronic Resource Edition
Lesson 8 | WorldCat, CAMIO, and OAIster | March 16, 2015
*The South Dakota Library Challenge: Electronic Resources Edition was developed by the South Dakota State Library staff to introduce you to the statewide subscription electronic resources. The Electronic Resources Challenge encourages library staff to learn more about the resources that provide expanded access to information and research tools to all schools, libraries and citizens of South Dakota.
For Lesson 8 of this Challenge, we were asked to learn more about electronic resources that can help you find materials internationally, find full-text material on a variety of subjects, and do art and image searching. The Challenge was broken into three parts, one section for WorldCat, one for OAIster, and one for CAMIO.
WorldCat is an international catalog of member library materials. It contains over 179,000,000 records found in 72,000+ libraries, including the SDSL and 25+ SD libraries. Records in WorldCat include a variety of formats from before 1000 BC to the present, and libraries add a new record every 10 seconds. This lets users know what materials are where and helps other librarians find call numbers for books they are adding to their collections.
OAIster is a mostly full-text database within WorldCat. It was originally built by the University of Michigan, and it contains collections of digital libraries made available to the general public. It is composed of older archives made available electronically and of digitally-born items. Over 1000 institutions participate in the OAIster database, and it is useful for general reference, for looking up archival and historical content, and for finding images and other media.
CAMIO stands for "Catalog of Art Museum Images Online." It is a growing online collection containing works of art from museum collections around the world, including the Minneapolis Institute of Arts, Walker Art Center, the Smithsonian Institution, the Library of Congress, and the Albert and Victoria Museum. It does not, however, contain images by prominent SD artists because the owning institutes are not participating. CAMIO covers cultures around the world from 3000 BC to today. It includes art in the broadest sense from photos to sculpture to textile to wood and silver and more. Researches can start with a general search and then refine it by using CAMIOs specialized tools.
WorldCat Exercise Part 1
To explore WorldCat, I first did an advanced book search for "Life of Pi." This resulted in 354 records. The top result was the Harcourt 2001 edition of the book, which is owned by 2909 libraries worldwide. When I clicked on the "Libraries Worldwide" link, the first library listed was the Alexander Mitchell Library. Looking at the full record for the book, I was able to see that the Class Descriptors for the book are as follows: LC: PR9199.3.M3855; Dewey: 813/.54; and NLC: PS8576. I could also click on the author's name and see that he has written a couple other books, including "Self." The record listed many subjects for the book, and when I clicked on the first one--"shipwreck survival"--I was given another list of 1947 results; 1423 of those being books. Other available information includes publication information, availability, physical description, ISBN numbers, an abstract, genre information, geographic information, and more. I am fairly familiar with WorldCat as I used it often as the assistant director at the public library in Sturgis.
WorldCat Exercise Part 2
The OAIster (pronounced "oyster") database is one of the few mostly full-text databases in WorldCat. I did a keyword search in OAIster for South Dakota and came up with over 13,000 results. After scrolling through a few pages of results, I opened the link to the article, "The history of the Homesake Opera House, 1912-1937." When I then clicked on "Access," I was taken to the full-text thesis from the University of Arizona. Maybe it's just the day or the week, but I definitely wasn't really into this resource today. I know that it will be a resource that will be good for my high school students, but I may need to come back to visit it on a day that I can get into it so that it doesn't seem over my head!
CAMIO Exercise
I had never used CAMIO before this Challenge, so I was excited to give it a try. To start exploring, I typed the word "Sioux" into the search box. This resulted in a "list" of many images and their descriptions. I clicked on an image of a Scalp Shirt and was brought to a page that had the image, title, description, creator information, and much, much more. On the image, I could zoom in and out, and I was also given the option to download it or print it.
This would be a very cool visual resource for my students at both the middle school and high school levels. These days, projects incorporate many more visuals in mediums such as PowerPoint, Prezi, iMovie, and more. This in in contrast to the research papers of old with no graphics. I really liked how it was like a virtual museum.
Next, in CAMIO, I did a search for "Denmark" since I will be traveling there this summer. I got several results, and I saved four of those images to Favorites. When I then opened up my Favorites folder, those four images were there, and I could open them in a PowerPoint or a Zip Archive File. I opened them in a PowerPoint. This was so cool! And easy! I would love to share this with the art classes at my schools!
Overall, this was a long Challenge for me this week. I learned about some good new resources, but I definitely feel like I will need to revisit OAIster.
Lesson 8 | WorldCat, CAMIO, and OAIster | March 16, 2015
*The South Dakota Library Challenge: Electronic Resources Edition was developed by the South Dakota State Library staff to introduce you to the statewide subscription electronic resources. The Electronic Resources Challenge encourages library staff to learn more about the resources that provide expanded access to information and research tools to all schools, libraries and citizens of South Dakota.
For Lesson 8 of this Challenge, we were asked to learn more about electronic resources that can help you find materials internationally, find full-text material on a variety of subjects, and do art and image searching. The Challenge was broken into three parts, one section for WorldCat, one for OAIster, and one for CAMIO.
WorldCat is an international catalog of member library materials. It contains over 179,000,000 records found in 72,000+ libraries, including the SDSL and 25+ SD libraries. Records in WorldCat include a variety of formats from before 1000 BC to the present, and libraries add a new record every 10 seconds. This lets users know what materials are where and helps other librarians find call numbers for books they are adding to their collections.
OAIster is a mostly full-text database within WorldCat. It was originally built by the University of Michigan, and it contains collections of digital libraries made available to the general public. It is composed of older archives made available electronically and of digitally-born items. Over 1000 institutions participate in the OAIster database, and it is useful for general reference, for looking up archival and historical content, and for finding images and other media.
CAMIO stands for "Catalog of Art Museum Images Online." It is a growing online collection containing works of art from museum collections around the world, including the Minneapolis Institute of Arts, Walker Art Center, the Smithsonian Institution, the Library of Congress, and the Albert and Victoria Museum. It does not, however, contain images by prominent SD artists because the owning institutes are not participating. CAMIO covers cultures around the world from 3000 BC to today. It includes art in the broadest sense from photos to sculpture to textile to wood and silver and more. Researches can start with a general search and then refine it by using CAMIOs specialized tools.
WorldCat Exercise Part 1
To explore WorldCat, I first did an advanced book search for "Life of Pi." This resulted in 354 records. The top result was the Harcourt 2001 edition of the book, which is owned by 2909 libraries worldwide. When I clicked on the "Libraries Worldwide" link, the first library listed was the Alexander Mitchell Library. Looking at the full record for the book, I was able to see that the Class Descriptors for the book are as follows: LC: PR9199.3.M3855; Dewey: 813/.54; and NLC: PS8576. I could also click on the author's name and see that he has written a couple other books, including "Self." The record listed many subjects for the book, and when I clicked on the first one--"shipwreck survival"--I was given another list of 1947 results; 1423 of those being books. Other available information includes publication information, availability, physical description, ISBN numbers, an abstract, genre information, geographic information, and more. I am fairly familiar with WorldCat as I used it often as the assistant director at the public library in Sturgis.
WorldCat Exercise Part 2
The OAIster (pronounced "oyster") database is one of the few mostly full-text databases in WorldCat. I did a keyword search in OAIster for South Dakota and came up with over 13,000 results. After scrolling through a few pages of results, I opened the link to the article, "The history of the Homesake Opera House, 1912-1937." When I then clicked on "Access," I was taken to the full-text thesis from the University of Arizona. Maybe it's just the day or the week, but I definitely wasn't really into this resource today. I know that it will be a resource that will be good for my high school students, but I may need to come back to visit it on a day that I can get into it so that it doesn't seem over my head!
CAMIO Exercise
I had never used CAMIO before this Challenge, so I was excited to give it a try. To start exploring, I typed the word "Sioux" into the search box. This resulted in a "list" of many images and their descriptions. I clicked on an image of a Scalp Shirt and was brought to a page that had the image, title, description, creator information, and much, much more. On the image, I could zoom in and out, and I was also given the option to download it or print it.
This would be a very cool visual resource for my students at both the middle school and high school levels. These days, projects incorporate many more visuals in mediums such as PowerPoint, Prezi, iMovie, and more. This in in contrast to the research papers of old with no graphics. I really liked how it was like a virtual museum.
Next, in CAMIO, I did a search for "Denmark" since I will be traveling there this summer. I got several results, and I saved four of those images to Favorites. When I then opened up my Favorites folder, those four images were there, and I could open them in a PowerPoint or a Zip Archive File. I opened them in a PowerPoint. This was so cool! And easy! I would love to share this with the art classes at my schools!
Overall, this was a long Challenge for me this week. I learned about some good new resources, but I definitely feel like I will need to revisit OAIster.
Monday, March 9, 2015
South Dakota Library Challenge: Electronic Resource Edition
Lesson 7 | EBooks on EbscoHost | March 9, 2015
*The South Dakota Library Challenge: Electronic Resources Edition was developed by the South Dakota State Library staff to introduce you to the statewide subscription electronic resources. The Electronic Resources Challenge encourages library staff to learn more about the resources that provide expanded access to information and research tools to all schools, libraries and citizens of South Dakota.
For Week 7 of the SDSL Electronic Resource Edition Challenge, my task was to explore Ebooks on EbscoHost. This resource provides all South Dakota libraries with an expansive nonfiction collection containing books on topics ranging from Kathy Ross's craft books to resume books to historical information about South Dakota. Other books include many classic novels, "Idiot's Guides," Cliff's Notes, and more. The books are limited to one user per book, and books are released after 15 minutes of inactivity. The newest titles available in the SDSL subscription are copyright 2006 and are not downloadable.
To get to know this resource better, I first did a search on "endangered species." This is a topic of interest to me right now because I am helping the 7th grade teachers and students at my school with their endangered species research paper project. This search brought up 33 results. I noticed that within those results, I could sort by relevance, date newest, date oldest, author, title, and date added. Another feature would allow me to limit my results to full text, download available, publication date, and more. I opened the first eBook, which was "Endangered Species: A Reference Handbook." At the top of the page, I was given the basic information about the eBook including authors, publication information, description, subjects, categories, and more. Below that, it showed me the "Most Relevant Pages from this eBook" with the option to view those pages. This was an interested feature and one that I have not seen in any of the other resources that we have explored in this Challenge. There was also a Table of Contents with clickable links. On the right side of the page, there was a tool bar with the following options: search within, create note, dictionary, save pages, email pages, add to folder, cite, export, permalink, and share. Overall, I found this resource to be user-friendly and easy to navigate with good, relevant information.
For the second part of this Challenge, I was asked to find information about the Constitution of the United States of America for students needing more materials for a Constitution Day project. I searched for the term "Constitution of the United States of America" and was given 30 results. From these results, I would recommend these titles: "AP U.S. Government and Politics, "The Constitution of the United States of America," "The Reader's Companion to American History." I chose these titles based off of the link for the most relevant pages from the books. I also tried a few different search terms, but I didn't have much luck finding relevant eBooks with my other searches.
Finally, I was given the following task: "A class is doing projects on Western history. They have exhausted the library's print collection. In eBooks on EbscoHost, click 'Advanced Search.' In the 'Select a Field' box, choose 'PB Publisher.' In the search box, type 'Nebraska' or 'Oklahoma.' Report your findings." So, in the search box, I typed in "Nebraska." From this search, I was given 56 eBook results all from the University of Nebraska Press. This seems like a great alternative method for looking up information of this type and in this format.
I still feel like I have some exploring to do with this resource so that I can discover all of its options, but it certainly seems to be a useful research companion.
Lesson 7 | EBooks on EbscoHost | March 9, 2015
*The South Dakota Library Challenge: Electronic Resources Edition was developed by the South Dakota State Library staff to introduce you to the statewide subscription electronic resources. The Electronic Resources Challenge encourages library staff to learn more about the resources that provide expanded access to information and research tools to all schools, libraries and citizens of South Dakota.
For Week 7 of the SDSL Electronic Resource Edition Challenge, my task was to explore Ebooks on EbscoHost. This resource provides all South Dakota libraries with an expansive nonfiction collection containing books on topics ranging from Kathy Ross's craft books to resume books to historical information about South Dakota. Other books include many classic novels, "Idiot's Guides," Cliff's Notes, and more. The books are limited to one user per book, and books are released after 15 minutes of inactivity. The newest titles available in the SDSL subscription are copyright 2006 and are not downloadable.
To get to know this resource better, I first did a search on "endangered species." This is a topic of interest to me right now because I am helping the 7th grade teachers and students at my school with their endangered species research paper project. This search brought up 33 results. I noticed that within those results, I could sort by relevance, date newest, date oldest, author, title, and date added. Another feature would allow me to limit my results to full text, download available, publication date, and more. I opened the first eBook, which was "Endangered Species: A Reference Handbook." At the top of the page, I was given the basic information about the eBook including authors, publication information, description, subjects, categories, and more. Below that, it showed me the "Most Relevant Pages from this eBook" with the option to view those pages. This was an interested feature and one that I have not seen in any of the other resources that we have explored in this Challenge. There was also a Table of Contents with clickable links. On the right side of the page, there was a tool bar with the following options: search within, create note, dictionary, save pages, email pages, add to folder, cite, export, permalink, and share. Overall, I found this resource to be user-friendly and easy to navigate with good, relevant information.
For the second part of this Challenge, I was asked to find information about the Constitution of the United States of America for students needing more materials for a Constitution Day project. I searched for the term "Constitution of the United States of America" and was given 30 results. From these results, I would recommend these titles: "AP U.S. Government and Politics, "The Constitution of the United States of America," "The Reader's Companion to American History." I chose these titles based off of the link for the most relevant pages from the books. I also tried a few different search terms, but I didn't have much luck finding relevant eBooks with my other searches.
Finally, I was given the following task: "A class is doing projects on Western history. They have exhausted the library's print collection. In eBooks on EbscoHost, click 'Advanced Search.' In the 'Select a Field' box, choose 'PB Publisher.' In the search box, type 'Nebraska' or 'Oklahoma.' Report your findings." So, in the search box, I typed in "Nebraska." From this search, I was given 56 eBook results all from the University of Nebraska Press. This seems like a great alternative method for looking up information of this type and in this format.
I still feel like I have some exploring to do with this resource so that I can discover all of its options, but it certainly seems to be a useful research companion.
Friday, March 6, 2015
South Dakota Library Challenge: Electronic Resource Edition
Lesson 6 | Gale Virtual Reference Library | March 5, 2015
*The South Dakota Library Challenge: Electronic Resources Edition was developed by the South Dakota State Library staff to introduce you to the statewide subscription electronic resources. The Electronic Resources Challenge encourages library staff to learn more about the resources that provide expanded access to information and research tools to all schools, libraries and citizens of South Dakota.
For Lesson 6 of this Challenge, my task was to explore Gale Virtual Reference Library. GVRL provides all South Dakota libraries and schools with a core reference collection that's accessible 24/7 to an unlimited number of users. It contains selected multi-volume reference titles in many subject areas, including medicine, education, history, science, and literature. Users can also search across the entire collection at once, frequently finding information in areas one wouldn't look. GVRL articles have "read speaker" technology, which allows every article to be read aloud or downloaded in MP3 format.
To better get to know the titles in GVRL, I performed a few searches. It was very similar to exploring the titles of any library's reference collection. I first clicked on "Title List, which pulled up a list of all available titles in the collection. I noticed that there were some sorting options and that I could also access the list as CSV, XLS, or KBART. There were many titles on this list on a variety of topics. I chose to look at Junior Worldmark Encyclopedia of World Holidays because there is a 6th grade teacher that I work closely with that does a cultural unit every year. GVRL has 4 volumes of this encyclopedia, which is dated back to 2000. I viewed the table of contents, and I also looked through each volume. Because Easter is approaching, I clicked on the article about Easter traditions around the world. The article provided a wealth of information and pictures, and just based on the one article, I discovered that this resources would be very beneficial to students studying world cultures and holidays, and that I could bring the students into the library to show them how to use GVRL as a research tool. I am going to do some more exploring to see if I can find information about endangered species in GVRL because I am helping out in an upcoming 8th grade endangered species research paper project.
So next, I went back to the GVRL homepage and typed "endangered species" into the search box. This gave me 1253 results, which I know that I would want to narrow down if I was doing a search on a specific endangered animal; however, I thought it was so great to get so many results! I quickly scrolled through the results and found that for each result, I could see the name of the article, the name of the encyclopedia, the number of pages of the article and the word count, the citation information, and a short overview. GVRL also gives the option to view the article as text or as PDF or to save the article. I clicked on an article for the Puerto Rican Boa. The article provided basic information, maps, pictures, more in-depth information, source citation, and links to other articles about this topic. At the top of the article, I was given options to e-mail, download, or print the article. I could also download it as an MP3, download a PDF to an eReader, or listen to the article. I tried the "listen" feature and was impressed that the reading wasn't choppy or robotic sounding. There is also a feature that allows readers to translate the article to different languages. This will be a great resource two weeks from now when I am teaching the 8th graders how to research endangered species!
To finish off this week's challenge, I viewed a few blogs from other librarians and teachers who are also doing this challenge. One challengee researched Forensic Science, Cancer, and Zinc. Another looked up World War II and Transvaginal Mesh Implants, while yet a third explored Terror Attacks, Zinc. It was fun to see the different searches and to know that there is so much information available in this resource!
Lesson 6 | Gale Virtual Reference Library | March 5, 2015
*The South Dakota Library Challenge: Electronic Resources Edition was developed by the South Dakota State Library staff to introduce you to the statewide subscription electronic resources. The Electronic Resources Challenge encourages library staff to learn more about the resources that provide expanded access to information and research tools to all schools, libraries and citizens of South Dakota.
For Lesson 6 of this Challenge, my task was to explore Gale Virtual Reference Library. GVRL provides all South Dakota libraries and schools with a core reference collection that's accessible 24/7 to an unlimited number of users. It contains selected multi-volume reference titles in many subject areas, including medicine, education, history, science, and literature. Users can also search across the entire collection at once, frequently finding information in areas one wouldn't look. GVRL articles have "read speaker" technology, which allows every article to be read aloud or downloaded in MP3 format.
To better get to know the titles in GVRL, I performed a few searches. It was very similar to exploring the titles of any library's reference collection. I first clicked on "Title List, which pulled up a list of all available titles in the collection. I noticed that there were some sorting options and that I could also access the list as CSV, XLS, or KBART. There were many titles on this list on a variety of topics. I chose to look at Junior Worldmark Encyclopedia of World Holidays because there is a 6th grade teacher that I work closely with that does a cultural unit every year. GVRL has 4 volumes of this encyclopedia, which is dated back to 2000. I viewed the table of contents, and I also looked through each volume. Because Easter is approaching, I clicked on the article about Easter traditions around the world. The article provided a wealth of information and pictures, and just based on the one article, I discovered that this resources would be very beneficial to students studying world cultures and holidays, and that I could bring the students into the library to show them how to use GVRL as a research tool. I am going to do some more exploring to see if I can find information about endangered species in GVRL because I am helping out in an upcoming 8th grade endangered species research paper project.
So next, I went back to the GVRL homepage and typed "endangered species" into the search box. This gave me 1253 results, which I know that I would want to narrow down if I was doing a search on a specific endangered animal; however, I thought it was so great to get so many results! I quickly scrolled through the results and found that for each result, I could see the name of the article, the name of the encyclopedia, the number of pages of the article and the word count, the citation information, and a short overview. GVRL also gives the option to view the article as text or as PDF or to save the article. I clicked on an article for the Puerto Rican Boa. The article provided basic information, maps, pictures, more in-depth information, source citation, and links to other articles about this topic. At the top of the article, I was given options to e-mail, download, or print the article. I could also download it as an MP3, download a PDF to an eReader, or listen to the article. I tried the "listen" feature and was impressed that the reading wasn't choppy or robotic sounding. There is also a feature that allows readers to translate the article to different languages. This will be a great resource two weeks from now when I am teaching the 8th graders how to research endangered species!
To finish off this week's challenge, I viewed a few blogs from other librarians and teachers who are also doing this challenge. One challengee researched Forensic Science, Cancer, and Zinc. Another looked up World War II and Transvaginal Mesh Implants, while yet a third explored Terror Attacks, Zinc. It was fun to see the different searches and to know that there is so much information available in this resource!
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