NoveList Plus and NoveList K-8 Plus

1. How can the view component make your job connecting readers with books easier? The series I chose to search for was the Susan Wiggs’ series. I love her style of writing. She has the ability to captivate me for hours while I am reading. I would use the view component on NoveList Plus or NoveList Plus K-8 to interest adults and kids in other books in a series that they might enjoy. I would choose the detailed view because it shows the student what the book looks like, gives all the important information on how to get it and gives a general overview of what the book is all about. That way they can preview the book that they are interested in reading before they begin reading it. It reminded me a lot of the book orders that my son comes home with because they also give a brief description along with the important book information so they can find it later or before they order it. It is important to be able to preview the book they are choosing to read so they do not spend (waste) a lot of time trying to figure out whether or not they will like the book when they start reading.

2. How can using this tool make your job easier and promote better customer service in your library? I am not a librarian, but I could imagine that having a tool like this will definitely increase my customer service approval and make my job easier if I were a librarian. My patrons would be able to look up their favorite author and find books by other authors with the same writing style. It introduces them to new authors, expands their reading lists and allows the librarian to assist others with other issues while these patrons find books of their liking. The librarian is freed up from having to suggest new reads and the patron is still getting spectacular customer service because they are finding new reads on their own.

3.  How can using NoveList Plus help you to increase awareness of the collection you have worked so hard to build, for both new and older items? Using NoveList Plus can help increase your awareness of the collection you have built because it keeps a record of all the books in a series from beginning to end. As the years go by, the librarian would only have to search up the series to see when new books are added to these collections. It would also show the librarian which series he/she might add if one particular series is real popular with the patrons. This will help them increase their collections and still keep their patrons pleased.

4. I guess I took the question in Question 3 too literal. Other participants answered in ways that they could help their patrons find particular books that their patrons would enjoy reading, where I answered ways that the librarian might use the NoveList Plus to keep their collections complete and up-to-date. I did manage to find one other participant that understood the question like I did. I am feeling better now.

Hobbies and Crafts Reference Center Week 4

1.  I chose two of my favorite hobbies that I never have any time to do. The first was scrapbooking. There are a lot of articles on scrapbooking through a three different periodical choices. My closest library, Lewiston Pubic Library, does not have any of these three choices listed. The second hobby I chose was photography. I love to take pictures, but never time to learn more about my camera and its abilities. There are two periodicals listed on Marvel, Popular Photography and Shutterbug. Popular Photography was one of the periodicals listed for my nearby library so it did have some of the same periodicals, but the hobbies and craft resource center offered more. 

2. I looked at projects for scrapbooking and they were awesome. Two in particular that I would love to try are Chalk Ink Technique Triple Play and Incredible Archival Inks. I love the way they use chalk to create some great background pages in the first project. The second project has ways to create pre-made stamp sayings for your scrapbooking page. I love the way they make the letters so bold and loud. The photography search did not offer any projects, which I thought was too bad. A lot of teachers would be able to use photography projects that they could do with their students or better their photography skills on their own.

3. On the help section I looked up Wildcard and Truncation. This information was very helpful because they will search for information without having to know the exact word you are searching. The wildcard choice allows you to put a ? where you don’t know the letter or correct spelling for a word. If you put the word co?t It will return results for words like coat, cost, colt, etc that have the same letters with the question mark replaced by a different letter. The truncation allows you to put a * on the end of a word so you will get all results for the base of the word. For example, you can write construct* and you will get results for constructed, construction, constructing, etc with the same base word you searched for. I also watched the tutorial on using the Hobbies and Crafts section and that’s where I realized that I could have searched for photography as my hobby, also. The tutorial was very good and showed how to use Boolean and advanced searches.

Maine Newsstand Proquest Discovery Exercise

           The tutorial was very helpful to learn how to navigate through the newsstand search. It was simple and easy to follow and understand. After watching the tutorial, I jumped right into the basic search. I searched for the full text articles about apitherapy (bee venom therapy) first and received 4 results. The newest article was from 2009, but it was still very informative. I noticed that the ones from the same year basically had the same information just through a different writer. My second search, bee venom and arthritis, produced almost the exact same results with the exception of one different article about a beekeeper from New Portland, who used bee venom to treat his aches and pains. I liked the ability to sort the articles from the most to least recent. It made it easier for me to find the latest news about apitherapy.

Saving the search was easy once I made an account. I was able to save my search so I can go back to it later. I was able to preview my articles and print right from the preview page. It was very easy to use. I tried to create an alert, but I was not able to do that. It kept telling me that there was a server error and to contact the tech support if it kept happening, which I did do.

To date I have used the K-12 Britannica Online School Edition and K-2 Britannica Learning Zone. My fourth graders are researching mammals to be able to write a report and we used the Britannica Online School Edition for the Elementary level. The kids had no problem using the site and really enjoyed that it read to them. My teachers, however, were amazed that such a resource was available to us for free. My second graders used the learning zone for their continent research. They were able to watch and learn new facts about each continent and write down those facts. It was easy to use, however, we seemed to have problems using Internet Explorer while watching those videos. My Firefox browser worked great. Next week, they will revisit this topic using the K-12 online school edition. They will be able to easily search the continents within the subcategory of the continent section. Also they will be able to use the speaker and have the entire page of information read to them.

Exploring the Britannica Editions

Exploring the Britannica Editions:

Elementary, Middle, High School, Public and Academic

By: Carol Reed

2A

1. Using Britannica Elementary, search for information on a mammal of your choice. Find a picture and information about its habitat.

 I searched the wapiti, which is a relative to the elk. I learned that the wapiti used to live all over North America, but now resides mainly in northwestern U.S. and southwestern Canada. It chooses to live in “open woodlands and mountain meadows.

2. Using Britannica Middle School, search for information on the same mammal you searched in Britannica Elementary and compare the amount of information.

The Middle School version does not focus on quick facts to learn about the wapiti. It focused completely on which countries they come from and what the wapiti is called in each country. This section said that in the United States it is referred to as an American elk. It also reports that the name, wapiti, came from the Shawnee, meaning “white deer”. While the elementary version had a lot more facts about the animal, the middle school version seemed to be more in depth about the animal’s beginnings. It was formatted in paragraph form instead of blocked sections created for easy reading.

3. Using Britannica High School, search for a country. Notice the types of information available on the right side bar of the results screen. What types of information will be most valuable to your patrons?

The multimedia options are great for students with disabilities and the learning materials are a great option for the teacher who is teaching about the country. The actual encyclopedia piece was 125 pages, but you can jump ahead to different sections within the article and it also offers links to expand your research and even a primary source link. This is a great tool for my elementary teachers because they can get some great teaching resources here for free.

4. Using either the Middle or High School level, click on Help (top right).  In the index which is on the left side, click on “Working with Articles” and then on “Workspace”.  How useful will this feature be for your students and teachers?

This feature is great for both teachers and students. I think both would find this feature very valuable. Students can save their resources as they are searching as they find them and they can evaluate and delete ones they will not use at a later time. Narrowing down resources will help students be able to find valuable information instead of being overwhelmed with info. Teachers can offer resources to their whole class without worrying about the links getting deleted. The teacher can create a workspace for the whole class to start from that has links ready to view and have them look at info that the teacher has already narrowed down for them. Teachers could also have their students research the topic and save to individual student workspaces and then the teacher could review these resources with their students. As a technology teacher I will use this for research integration with my classes that are researching a certain topic. It makes everyone’s lives easier.

2B

1. Using Britannica Public Library Edition, search for information about a current event, such as the Arab Spring.  Notice the 3 sections of the result screen.  Click on any of the articles and read a little about the topic you chose.  Notice the Google Translator at the bottom of the article.  Would this be helpful for any of your patrons?

I think this would be very helpful in our schools for the ESL students and for the language teachers. The language teachers would be able to print out the articles in both languages to help show comparisons between the two languages being studied. The ESL students may have an easier time doing their reports if they could have them translated into their native language while they are learning English.

2. Using Britannica Public Library Edition, click on any one of the Research Tools on the left side of the homepage.  To get back to the homepage, just click on the Britannic Public Library Edition logo at the very top of the page.

The research tools are great here also. I love the multimedia and videos. I would use those to integrate with my lower grades at the ES to go along with what they are learning in the classroom.

3. Now, just explore the other features available on the main page such as the Biography of the Day or This Day in History.  What types of information will be most valuable to your patrons?

Depending on the topic they are teaching, the biography of the day or what happened on this date might work in nicely with what they are teaching. Teachers could even use it as a morning activity as they get their students ready for learning or morning meeting. Students interested in what happened on their own birthdays would find this tool very useful.

2C

1. Using Britannica Academic Edition, search for information about a current event.  Notice that the result screen is divided into 3 sections.  The middle section contains the list of articles that met your search criteria.  When you scroll over any of the titles, a short overview of the articles appears on the right side of the screen.  Click on any of the articles and read a little about the topic you chose.  Notice the citation style choices at the bottom of the screen.

I chose the US Presidential Election of 2012. It had a featured article fully explaining the race and how the Republican choice was elected. One really nice feature of this page is that you can make the font size of the article bigger if needed. I love the citation style choice at the bottom and wished I had this when I went to high school and college. I always had a difficult time remembering which citation style was written in which form. It is nice not to have to wonder when it spells it out for you.

2. Using Britannica Academic Edition, click on any one of the Research Tools on the left side of the homepage.  To get back to the homepage, just click on the Britannic Academic Edition logo at the very top of the page.

I like the research tools, but I think the Public Edition had more tools that might be useful for educators. I really like the ability to compare countries under the World Data Analyst and find that to be a useful tool for high school teachers.

3. Now, explore creating a workspace by clicking on the logo and returning to the homepage.  Tell us briefly how you might use the workspace at your institution.

I created a workspace I could use with my younger grades. My first grade class is going to be learning about spiders and I found a video to add to the workspace. What I would like to do is add more content to it and have them login to the workspace with my username. I like that they are able to view the content I put on there, but they can’t change it at all. I could also use it with my 3^rd, 4^th and 5^th graders because I could have them create their own workspace and have them research their topics and store their search results there. Then the classroom teacher and I could work individually with the students to help them narrow down the info based on their own individual abilities.  I could also see this as a huge benefit to middle and high school students who are working on a report. This would allow them to store their research info they found until they were ready to complete the report. As a high school or college student I wished I had this ability to store my resources without having to constantly change website pages. I think this is my favorite tool I have found so far, but I am sure there will be more. Although I also really liked the Britannica K-2 Learning Zone for quick center work or for free lab time.