Basic Search Part 2

In conjunction with his Febrary 12 birthday and Presidents' Day, I did a basic search for information about Abraham Lincoln. The search produced multiple results, which could help a learner decide which segment of Lincoln's life he or she would like to investigate further. There were also plenty of drawings or photos to enhance the learner's assignment.

Basic Search in Gale Virtual Reference Library

Patron inquiry: I'm going to start kidney dialysis, and I want to know what's going to happen

A search for the term "dialysis, kidney" yielded several results. The most appropriate seemed to be two nearly-identical articles, one from The Gale Encyclopedia of Medicine and the other from The Gale Encylcopedia of Nursing and Allied Health. Although each article cited a different author, the content was virtually identical. Both provided information about the purpose and types of kidney dialysis, along with necessary precautions, aftercare, and risks.

These articles would provide good basic information for the patron, and perhaps better prepare him to ask questions of his medical care providers.

Weird computer pronunciation of "hemodialysis" with the ReadSpeaker option, but otherwise helpful.

Lesson 5 - Gale Virtual Reference Library

I selected Literature and Its Times from the Literature category. I'm currently reading some of Nathanael West's work, and searched for some details. Literature and Its Times did not yield any results. A broader search led to a brief mention of two of West's novels in an entry about literature in the Dictionary of American History.

I tried a second search in Literature and Its Times, this time searching for information about Louisa May Alcott, since I'm also currently reading her biography. This search led to an entry about Little Women. It did include a helpful section about Events in History at the Time of the Novel.

It seems to me that the literature resources would be helpful to a student trying to decide on a topic for a paper. The student could do a search on Gale and then decide which topics were covered in sufficient detail for his or her intended project.

I also looked up some information in The Gale Encyclopedia of Medicine. This provided concise, printable overviews of a variety of medical conditions.

Lesson 4 - Proquest Publications

This part of the assignment was actually fun from the start. By the time I got to this part, I was feeling much more positive about the whole Proquest experience.

I searched for several different topics and was pleasantly surprised to discover how many common, and not-so-common, publications were available. I also found some blogs included in my searches. I would not necessarily view them as reference material, but they did point me in the direction of additional research ideas.

As with everything else in this challenge, I need to play with this component some more. But I look forward to sharing it with our patrons. I'm sure that the hard-core researchers will take to it much more quickly than I did.

Lesson 4 - Proquest

This has been the most challenging part of the Challenge for me so far. I have literally spent hours playing with Proquest, trying to understand it. I think the light bulb finally came on this evening.

Proquest is very "unencyclopedic." I just made up that word, for lack of a better term. In other words, it's very different from the previous sites I've used during this Challenge. And it's been a very long time since I have had to write a research paper.

First, I tried going in cold, and entering keywords. Didn't really understand the results I was getting. Seemed like the text articles I was finding were all book reviews. Began thinking "Why would I ever want to use this????" Today I talked to our Adult Services Librarian, Nita, and asked her that very question. Nita is very smart and very nice and VERY patient with me. She is also younger than I am, and I believe her brain to be much more nimble than mine.

Nita helped me see the value of Proquest as a research tool, and how it would be of value to someone doing research. It is a step up from the range of the World Book and SIRS sites. OK, that makes sense.

I did take time to read through the User Guide, which helped some. But mostly I sat down this afternoon and evening and played with the site. It took me a while, but I learned to find helpful information. I searched a bunch of different topics, in order to better understand the scope and limitations of a Proquest search.

My main observation: I think it would be difficult (or frustrating) for a patron to use Proquest for the first time without some guidance from someone who has previously worked with it.

I really enjoyed Filia's post on her blog. It's great to read about her enthusiasm for Proquest. I think she had a much better vision of its potential than I initially did.

SIRS Issues Researcher

My goodness. I had no idea such a resource existed. I wish I had known about it when a teen patron was asking for resources for a speech about lowering the drinking age. This would have been perfect.

The Timeline feature helps learners understand the history and background of an issue. The Global Impact and Statistics features are downright nifty. And the Note Organizer would really aid learners in putting their ideas in order.

The Groups option allows learners to consider various topics within a range of issues, such as Environment and Science, or Health, Drugs and Wellness.

I wonder if students who participate in forensics know about this resource? I wish I'd had access to it when I was in high school.

Curriculum Pathfinders: Oh for neat! I selected Fine Arts, Theatre and found a link to the Internet Broadway Database for a list of current shows. There was also information about Kabuki Theatre in Japan, as well as theatre in Victorian England. This is so intensely cool!

SIRS Discoverer Database Features

Oh fun, fun, fun! The featured Drama interactive for Skills Discoverer was "Do Your Own Shakespeare." How on Earth can people be so creative in designing these things??? And the smARTkids interactive for art was really packed with information too.

The Biographies entry I selected on Abraham Lincoln had numerous, brief paragraphs about Lincoln's life. It would serve as a great starting point for students, suggesting more specific matters of interest to pursue.

I like the uniform format of the Country Facts entries. It would help learners compare and contrast more easily. (Although the World Book feature that lets you compare two entries side by side is even more handy.)

The various Maps of the World options are great. The numerous historical maps are helpful, and I like the outline maps for use as a learning tool.

SIRS Discoverer - Armadillos

How do you cut and paste in this thing? I wanted to divide my latest post into two parts, then lost the second part after I cut it.

Anyway, I did a Keyword Search for armadillos. Then I played with the results list, sorting by reference, date, and Lexile. There was a lot of concise information contained in the Summary lines of each entry. Armadillos, or 'dillos as they are also called, are interesting creatures.

SIRS Discoverer

On Monday night, I spent a rewarding hour watching the full training tutorial for SIRS Discover. Wow. What a terrific amount of information, and a tremendous selection of features. The Monthly Challenge Quest was particularly interesting to me. Need more time to play with it.