Final Week

What was my biggest discovery?  Hmmmmm!  Everything was a big discovery for me, but maybe I can narrow it down.  The fact that all the newspapers can be found  online was very exciting because  I have tried to get on some Maine newspapers website and was denied access because I wasn't a subscriber.  I also looked at the entire ProQuest Newsstand  publications and it is huge.  It isn't something that I would use everyday, but it was exciting to discover that it will be there when I need it.

I also loved the Hobby and Craft section. Previous to this course, I had no idea that even existed.  There were so many hobbies and things that I want to explore further; beading, woodworking, photography; I could go on and on.

And last, the health section.  On the internet it is so easy to find unreliable sources, but if you look here, you know that you will find reliable information.

I have several ideas on how to share this information with my colleagues.  Probably the easiest would be to post my discoveries, one at a time, on email so they can  read about what I learned.  You would think that teachers would at least know about Novelist, but they don't.   I  also plan on  writing something for the schools' newsletter each month, so I can inform parents about these valuable resources.  

Thank you for offering this course.  It was fun and I learned a lot.

EBSCO Host

 I looked in MiddleSearch Plus to see if Seventeen was included and it wasn't, so I did a search for Teen and that gave me me Teen magazine and Teen People.  I noticed that there seemd to be many sports magazines, Ski, Skiing, Soccer Digest, etc.  I was surprised that Seventeen was not there.

I did a basic search for "sports and concussions" and had about 5 pages of results.  I noticed that most of the results were from periodicals and many from Sports Illustrated.  I picked an article from Scholastic Choice called The Invisible Injury.  What was really interesting was that you could listen to it with an American accent or British or Australian. There was a Contents box on the left side which included which included Words to Know, Discussion Questions and Test Yourself.   I thought the article contained quite a lot of information, more than I had actually expected.  Looking at the right column I noticed you could add to folder, save cite, etc; but you could also translate the article into many languages.  I tried French just for fun.  I also tried SmartText searching which gave me 987 more hits.

I read a few other blogs and discovered similarities.  One person had the same trouble I did using the elementary  part, it really didn't seem to list periodicals.  Hmmmmm? I know that we were looking in the right place.  The periodicals I found were by entering the name in the search box.

I did my ebook search on alcoholism.  There were a few books that looked very promising, but a few didn't seem to have anything to do with alcoholism.  Surprisingly, it seemed that the two best where "juvenile" literature.  I searched several different ways, alcoholism, alcohol, etc. and the results were much the same.

Doing the search for Constitution Day didn't seem to yield much that was worthwhile.  I added American to the topic and got some books that seemed a little better.  I really didn't find much on this at all.  Maybe Founding Fathers, or The Bill of Rights, or The Constituion of the United States of America.

After putting Nebraska in the publishers box I found 11 books that were published by the University of Nebraska.  There were some interesting books. One that caught my eye in particular was Mountains We Have Crossed, Diaries and letters of the Oregon Mission,  1838.  I can see that by using a State University publisher you might come up with some lesser known interesting titles. I tried putting Maine in with no results and then Massachusetts which gave me University of Massachusetts publications.

Learning Express

I really got sidetracked looking at all the options.  I had to check out each area and see what they contained and then I did a tiny bit of a Excel tutorial.  I think I will use this myself.

But I forced myself to go back and I did the whole 4th grade Math Diagnostic 1 test.  Scored the test and looked at the answers.  This was quite good because it explained how to solve the problem and why the other answers were incorrect. I think showing why the other answers were incorrect is a plus. It also said what skill the problem was testing, for example, place value.

I looked at Goof Proof Interiews  and discovered that it was an ebook.  It looked good, but I wanted a course so I went back and  looked at Career Course; Interview Tips to Get the Job You Want. I started taking the course and was impressed by the information I was getting. I went as far in the course as I could without having to submit anything and found it to be extremely  helpful and practical.   Many of the pages contained bulleted information which I think is so much easier to read than a big paragraph;and you also were given the option of printing the page for future reference. I wish I had taken this before I went on an interview last summer.

I had a hard time getting back to the homepage and finally decided to just logout and re-login. Voila! When I clicked on logout I was taken to the homepage, but I did have to login in again.   I decided to browse all the ebooks rather than do a search and came across The Career Changer's  Manual and added it to My Center.  I spent  good 30 minute or more looking at this.  It was packed with information about changing careers.  Lots of little tests to take to see if you were ready for a change and websites to visit.  Very informative and I will definitely look at this again.

 

Ancestry Week

I went to the public library in Lisbon Falls and ended up having  to use one of their computers because I could not get on the site with my laptop even though I was using the library  network.

I did a simple search using my married name and found 5 US Public Record results.  Funny to look at the addresses, one being incorrect and none of them showing my newest address.  There is another me in Austalia!  I did another search using my maiden name and found my marriage information.  Many relatives popped up, but not me so much...interesting!!!

Looked up my great grandfather and found him in the 1910 census.  Looked at view record and could see the names of his children including my grandmother, but a great aunt and great uncle hadn't even been born yet so they weren't on the list.   I could  look at the actual record too, though those handwriting documents are hard to read.

Maybe I'm not following the directions absolutely, but I looked under maps and picture on the bottom left and did another search for my great grandfather.  He was in the class of 1890 at Dartmouth College, was born 25 Dec 1868 in Woolich ,Maine, and was  Capt MRC 1917-18.  Middle name Andrew.

I did watch the MSL tutorials and found them most helpful.  Sometime I will go back and explore more.  My searches mostly pertained to my Dad's sideof the family, but I'd like to search on my Mom's side too.

Marvel Health

I spent some time exploring under Publications.  I found it a bit difficult to determine what type of publication was being referenced,  For example, when I clicked on one I discovered it was actually a book and not a journal or a report.  I will have to go back and see if there is an easier way to determine what type of publication I'm looking at before I actually look at it.

I did do a Diabetes search and then sorted by most current date.  The article I read was Go Nuts for Health which was abut how eating nuts was very healthy and how it can help prevent Type 2 diabetes, The article was very easy to understand.

Now on to MedLine Plus. Just looking at the main page I can see how useful it might be.  On the right are the top health news headlines and one of today's is about alcohol adding about 100 calories per day to the average adult diet.  I actually read that article in the newspaper yesterday.  On the left are some of the most often searched topics.  I see autism, diabetes, hypertension and Vitamin D in very bold print.

I researched the drug Lorazepam and found wonderful information.  Why it might be prescribed, side effects, how to take it, what to do in case of missed pills or an overdoes,etc.  This was really interesting.  I looked it up under it's other name Atevan and found  that it was  referenced to Lorazepam which was excellent.

I researched diabetes and compared this site to health Source Consumer edition.  I much preferred this site.  I seemed much easier to narrow down to the exact information that I wanted because it had all those suggestions on the left hand side.  I did discover that if I wanted something really specific that was on the list on the left, there was no way to search.  I wanted to see if there was a link between alcoholism and diabetes.  With health source I was able to do an advanced search and find the information  that I wanted. I did search MedlinePlus by typing alcohol and diabetes in the search space at the type right.  I was able to get information, but I had to sift through many results to find what I wanted. The information in MedlinePlus seems easier to understand and less technical. I found both sites to be extremely useful and it is good to know the pros and cons of each of them.

I had a technical issue with watching the videos, but was finally able to get them to play.  I watched the entire food allergy video that was on the homepage of the videos and tutorial pages and then watch a video about aortic aneurisms and surgery.  Wow! That was fascinating, especially the animated segment, but I stopped when they showed the actual surgery.  If I was having that procedure done I probably would want to watch the whole thing.  So much information is available that it is just mind boggling.

I really enjoyed learning about these sites and I personally will use them in the future.

Business

I have to admit that this is way over my head. I don't know much about business so it is hard to understand anything that I find.

Business Source Complete
I searched for FM radio and advertising.  I had a lot of information, mostly from trade journals such s Media Week and Marketing Weekly.  I couldn't get the visual search to work at all.  I tried the visual search again using the search term radio broadcasting, but really don't understand how it works very well. I think my lack of knowledge about business really hinders me and to use this successful I would need someone to actually show me, rather than me just playing with it.

EconoLit
 I searched using the term Small Business and got many results.  The tried to limit it to only articles about the US and had no success doing that.  I did notice each result had a subject list so you could focus on something more  specific if you knew what you were looking for.

Searching using Small Business and Environmental Protection Agency was very disappointing.  I tried reversing the terms and still no luck.  I knew there must be tons of information, but where was it.  The I searched using small business and started typing in Environmental and the drop down menu suggested Environmental policy so I went with it.  Much more information.

Searching Small Business and Tax Policy yielded many results, but I would really need to set some limits in order to focus on what I actually wanted.  There were many articles which pertained to other countries.

Regional Business News
I chose Sears Roebuck and Co to research and had many results. I then limited my search to only information from 2011 and 2012. Once again, I would want to limit even more if I had something specific to look for.

I searched using Verso Paper and discovered that it is a company based in Tenn.  So much for regional, but I added Maine to my search and did get some results.

Value Line
Sunday morning is a good time to access this.  Looked ay Description, then at all the suggested reports.  This was very difficlut for me to understand, but I think if someone was looking for specific information I would be more successful. Slect and Opinion seemed the easiest to understand.

I searched for information on Burt's Bees with quite a few results. Once again I would have to set limits on results because some of the information was just about how great their moisturizers were, not really about the business aspect.  Interesting.

Researched Honda  but am really frustrated by what shows on the screen. It doesn't seem to jive with what I am supposed to be looking for.  I am totally disgusted by my inability to understand this!!!!

Wall Street Journal
A small business owner might be interested in policy questions , such as will the business have  to provide health care for its employees and how much will it cost.   I actually changed my search  to health insurance and small business and got more of the type of articles that I wanted.  I did look at how to set up and alert and an RSS feed which would be helpful with a small business owner who is trying to keep up with new policies and how they would affect his business. You could also save to My Research.  Just like Maine Newsstand.

I searched for the series about Mitford which I had read quite a while ago.  Looking at  the dropdown title suggestions I was able to determine that the series was actually called the Mitford Years.  I liked how the first book in the series was prominent and then underneath the entire series was listed in order.  This is particularly helpful since most of the time I do a series search it is to see what book comes next or if there are any new additions.

I looked at all the views and determined that it depends on the purpose of the search as to which view is most helpful.  I found the grid to be the one I would use the most.  It showed the covers and I could easily determine which books I had already read.  I could go to the detailed view if I needed to refresh my memory as to what the book was about and had I actually read it.  The list view would be great for parents who have children reading a series and who are trying to keep track.  I would print  it out and post it next to where the series was.  For example students are always asking about the order of the Magic Treehouse series.

2. Using the Read Alikes information could give patrons many options to choose from for their next read.  The little blurb that you see when using the little magniying glass is very helpful; you can quickly see if this author appeals to  you.  For example you many not like political thrillers so you could quickly eliminate those authors. When you find an author that appeals to you, click and you will get all the information about what the author has written.  All the work has been done for  you.  You don't have to have all this in your head because the information for your patron is all right there. It also gives your patron a degree of independence.  Show them this and they can explore it themselves.

3. Being an elementary librarian I did some exploring on Novelist K-8.  Wow, it is just full of information.  I searched "SteamPunk" and was amazed at what I found.  So many books at so many levels and at the bottom of each book you can look at Read alike or author alike.  I could see you using this to compare how your library collection of steampunk matches up with Novelist's.  And you could do this for many genres, subjects etc. The sidebars of the homepage for Novellist K-8 are packed for of great information, too.  I will be using this and telling lots of people about it.