Wrap Up

I didn't have a big database discovery during this Electronic Resources Challenge, but many smaller discoveries such as finding new tests available in Learning Express, using visual search in EBSCO EBooks  and locating information from AncestryLibrary newspapers.  I will continue to promote all the great electronic resources that the State Library provides!

Thanks for another great learning challenge!

Lesson 9 -- History and Genealogy Resources—Ancestry Library, Heritage Quest and Sanborn Maps

1.  Using Titanic as a keyword in the Passenger and Ships database brought 6 results including photographs. The description of the Olympic mentioned it being a sister ship of the Titanic.

2.  Using the phrase “The Hindenburg”, eliminated many articles not related to the airship disaster.

The Stars and Stripes newspaper had several articles concerning the crash. Two that caught my attention were one about a survivor of the crash and another about the builder of the Zeppelin airships.

3.  For general historical information about Minnehaha County I chose to search Books. I clicked on Places and typed in “Minnehaha County”. The first two items in the results were books specifically concerning the history of Minnehaha County. PERSI can also be used to search for county information, however, this is an index and not full-text articles. I chose “History” for the record type. The results included more individual stories happening in the county and in Sioux Falls.

Lesson 8--ArchiveGrid and CAMIO

1.  Theodore Schultz Papers are available at University Archives, Iowa State University Library.

Theodore Schultz was an agricultural economist and graduate of South Dakota State University and the University of Wisconsin. He taught at Iowa State for thirteen years and resigned following the “oleomargarine controversy”. He also was awarded the Nobel Prize for Economics in 1979.

2.  I first searched for information using the terms – dress Victorian fashion; and 1837 -1901 as the date.

The results included photographs of dresses from that era. I then tried using fashion as a subject term with the same date preference. This brought up many illustrations of women’s fashions in the Victorian Era. Finally, I substituted “clothing” as the subject term. The results included a couple of men’s clothing illustrations.

WorldCat and More FirstSearch Indexes

1.   Using Advanced Search I typed in Luther, Martin in the first search box and selected subject. In the next line I selected “not” and put Jr. in the search box. This will exclude many items concerning Martin Luther King, Jr. Other limits I used: Language: English; Type: Year: 2000-; Books; Subtype limits: Juvenile, not fiction.

    Not personally knowing the reading level of the students, I would choose Martin Luther: a man who changed the world by Maier and Copeland and Martin Luther: father of the Reformation by Somerville. The first one is geared for younger readers, and the other for more advanced. Also, both are available at many regional libraries.

2.  I chose to look for “graphic novels” as a subject phrase and Jane Austen as author and limited by search to only books. (Yes, I am a Jane Austen fan!) The results included several graphic novels adapted by Nancy Butler and published by Marvel.

3.  I typed “My Fair Lady” in the first search box and selected “title”. I then put vocal score in the next search box and checked the box for Musical Scores. The item with the most holdings was accession number 26429906.

EBooks on EbscoHost

1.  I used Visual Search to find Alaska tourist information. I compared searching using the block and the column display and found I prefer the block format. Several books concerning travel or cruising to Alaska were available, however nothing newer than 2005. I found an interesting chapter in one of the books about the history of Fairbanks and interesting museums to visit there.

2.  Using the term “fairy tales” in the search box in both the basic search and visual search resulted in finding books by Andrew Lang: Blue, Violet, Red, and Yellow Fairy Books. For those you like seeing full records immediately plus books covers, Basic Search is the way to go. However, I preferred using Visual Search with the block display style. 

Lesson 5 -- Gale Virtual Reference Library

1.  Typing Spring Festivals brought up 444 results. The best resource for general information concerning holidays appeared to be the Junior Worldmark Encyclopedia of World Holidays. Several results covered spring holidays from this resource.  Clicking on Holiday cooking under Subjects brought up many examples from the Junior Worldmark Encyclopedia of Foods and Recipes of the World. It might be more useful to limit any further searching to these two resources.

2.  Using Advanced Search and limiting the publication year to within 2012 brought up 28,952 item results. On the left hand side nine titles were listed under Publication Title.  I think a faster way of finding the newest titles is to click on Title List and sort by Publication Date (Descending.

     I first chose to browse through Gale E-Commerce Sourcebook because my younger daughter’s job is as an e-commerce merchandise coordinator. This sourcebook appears to be a good overview of the expanding facet of business today.

    I then browsed the Junior Worldmark Encyclopedia of Foods and Recipes of the World  (I was hungry and lunch was calling…). Because I am a proud Scandinavian, I looked for recipes from those countries. No Danish or Norwegian recipes, only Swedish. Pictures accompanied some of the recipes, and I appreciated the links to internet sources.

Lesson 4 - Proquest

1.  Les Miserables:

  To limit the results, I chose Reviews under Document Type and Novels under Subjects. That reduced the selection to forty. I then chose Literary Criticism within the Novels subject area which reduced the results to eight.

2.  Hurricane Sandy and libraries:

  I decided to use advanced search, and inserted hurricane Sandy in one search box and libraries AND librarians in another search box. I decided to leave both boxes at all fields + text to get as many hits as possible. I narrowed the results by using the publication date bar graph and choosing Oct 2012 and up. I also sorted the results by publication date – most recent first. The most recent article out of eleven was published February 13, 2013.