Thanks!

Wrapping up the case of the eResources Challenge I'd first like to say thank you so much for this opportunity and the weekly comments. The personal touch and the ability to follow other bloggers kept me motivated and interested in discovering new ideas. I'd say my biggest discovery was the wealth of information one can find in ArchiveGrid. I had never given much time to exploring this one and was thrilled to see that my investigating ended up at actual exhibits that are still available online. Just using this resource alone as a focus for a research project would be a great experience for older students.

As I visit schools and talk with school librarians or participate in presenting the eResources at inservices and conferences, I will now make sure I include something intriguing from ArchiveGrid. I always advise people to start with just one of the resources, develop a project that integrates it and then move on to the next one rather than try to become an expert in all of them at the same time. The structure of looking at one resource per week allowed me the time to follow my own advice!

Thank you!

AncestryLibrary, HeritageQuest, Sanborn Maps

Investigating my past through AncestryLibrary
led me to some surprising information. The U.S. Public Records Index Volume 1 revealed my last three addresses before I moved from Chicago to South Dakota and a very old phone number. Volume 2
listed an even older address. The U.S. Phone and Address Directories, 1993-2002 even let me click on info related to my neighbors. There are many Upells listed and most I have never located in real life. I found my twin sister's marriage license, but not my own!

When searching the Census I used the last name of Upell, born in Canada and died in USA. This came up with relatives from 1850 and on. I found my grandfather, Richard Upell, who was age 40 in 1920. In addition to my grandmother and my two older aunts, it lists my Great-Aunt Nora as age 28 and living in the same residence. I'm going to have to call my mom about that one… so when did she marry Uncle Charlie?

In Photos & Maps from among the "South Dakota" results I decided to look into the U.S. Indexed County Land Ownership Maps, 1860-1918. To refine my search I entered "Dewey" under county and came up with no matches. OK, when did Dewey County become a county? Wikipedia says 1893… Potter County is in there, oh well. Backing up I took at look at the Library of Congress Photo Collection, 1840-2000. First image was interesting – "Free homes, government lands, and cheap deeded lands in South Dakota" appears to be an ad from 1890. With over 900 photos the ability to refine the search was useful. Tons of other fun info to look at here – the Rapid City High School yearbook from 1938 says "Don't groan when I mention Algebra. Really, it isn't so bad. Miss Krieger can fill you up with equations faster than any other teacher on earth."

In HeritageQuest I searched for Eagle Butte, South Dakota under Books and found four results. One is the 1925 title Doane Robinson's Encyclopedia of South Dakota. I discovered Eldon Clark who came to Eagle Butte from Michigan in 1910. He was a lawyer and represented Dewey County in the legislature in 1913. Found Frederick Upell who was my great-uncle in Michigan Volunteers of '98: a Complete Photographic Record of Michigan's Part in the Spanish-American War of 1898. He was listed in the muster roll for the 34^th Michigan Volunteers. This type of research takes time and so much patience – imagine tracking this info down before the world of digital!

Sanborn Maps didn't have a thing for north-central South Dakota, so I took a look at Fort Pierre in 1903. Looks like things were going on in Fort Pierre back then – an opera house, lumber yard, school, churches, boarding houses, etc. The population is listed at 500. This resource was easy to navigate and the key was helpful. I also found the PDF download easy to read.

 

Learning Express Library

For my personal testing experience in Learning Express Library I selected the GED Social Studies Practice Exam. I received a phone call while I was testing so the Finish Later feature was very handy. I also like that it showed me exactly what was unanswered when I clicked on Continue and went back to testing. After scoring my test the first screen broke my results into sub-categories such as geography, world history, etc. This would be helpful to focus review and instruction for individual students. Also, "based on my performance" I was given several options for further preparation. I only answered the first 12 questions yet I was able to view the correct answers for all 50 questions. The explanations for each correct answer are fantastic, but from past experience once students figured this out they would write down the correct answers and try to scam the test. So, I went back and added the test to My Center and tried it again – questions were identical! Well… let's hope "real" users are more motivated.

Under the Job Search & Workplace Skills I added the Career Course: Succeeding on the Job. The course outline is listed on the left and items that will be saved once you submit them are labeled as such. Content seems to be very practical with good everyday-type advice. Where's the Finish Later option? I just closed out and when I went back in the program was right where I had stopped.

In the ebooks section I took a look at vocabulary as this is an area where many of my former students struggled. Just in Time Vocabulary looked interesting so I took a look at the table of contents. $5 words began on p. 175 and I was able to click right to it. Needed paper and pencil from that point, but it contained good, basic content that a teacher might use or direct students to for practice. I was able to save the PDF file of 222 pages. What about copyright?

ArchiveGrid & CAMIO

Using ArchiveGrid I learned that whoever wrote the Notes and Summaries for the Sitting Bull autograph card needs to do a little more research about Sitting Bull. Shaman is an unusual term to use to refer to him and the info never uses the work Lakota. There is also a misspelling of the word Hunkpapa. Nevertheless, I found it interesting that this item is at Cornell University and also that it has been digitized. So, I clicked on the Cornell link and went to the link for past exhibitions and found "Vanishing Worlds, Enduring People" was on exhibit at the library in 2005-2006. The Native American collection was purchased from the Huntington Free Library in the Bronx, New York in 2004. The online version of the exhibit is still available and you can actually see the autograph card under the subheading Sideshow to Powwow – Sitting Bull.

For a search of my own I tried Sherlock Holmes and came up with 449 items. Browsing through I found things located in the U.S. and around the world. At the University of Minnesota, Twin Cities there is an intriguing article from the Sherlock Holmes Journal. Many other items are programs and related materials from productions of various Sherlock Holmes plays. I found this resource very easy to use and the "Contact an archivist to learn more about access to materials in this collection" box useful. The link to the University of Minnesota led me to info about two current Sherlock Holmes exhibits there – who knew they had a special collection? What a great connection for a field trip!

My Paul Revere search in CAMIO found a spoon, a sugar bowl and cover, several teapots, bowls, etc. But what is a salver? Looks like a tray and after looking it up – it is a tray for serving foods or beverages – use around 1661, derived from both French and Spanish. The results from the term Sioux included clothing, books, jewelry, artifacts such as pipes, drawings, etc. as well as photographs of Sioux Springs in Nevada. Using the term Lakota I found a painting entitled "Custer's War" by One Bull among other things. Clicking on rights gives you the info "Licensed for non-commercial, educational use" and a link to the holding institution for more info. I can see teachers and students using this resource for visuals in units and projects. For example, a history teacher might use the One Bull painting as a way to introduce the Native American point of view about the Battle of the Little Bighorn. For my favorite artist I tried Joanne Bird – nothing; Oscar Howe – nothing; Terry Redlin – nothing; Paul Goble – nothing; Edward Curtis – 161 items! Most are held by the Minneapolis Museum of Art and all are photographs, of course. Advanced Search allows you to select which collection/s to search which is a nice feature. So, how does CAMIO decide what is included? About CAMIO explains that "premier museums worldwide contribute…" Searching the artist Monet resulted in 111 works and I added four of them to my Favorites. In View Favorites all of the features are intuitive and would be useful in teaching and presenting. What a cool thing to do if you had a white board!

WorldCat, etc.

In working with the NEA's Big Read titles I was surprised to find The Shawl by Cynthia Ozick listed as one of their great classics. So, that title came to mind when searching WorldCat. The first item that came up was The Best American Short Stories of the Century owned by 2,307 libraries. In the full record I found the title listed in the contents; it's really more of a novella and again I was surprised to see it included in a short story collection. The first library listed was Augustana College in Sioux Falls, followed by other SD locations then those from Iowa, Minnesota, Montana, Nebraska, North Dakota and Wyoming. Is there a pattern there? The record gives the LC and Dewey call numbers, plus the Fic designation for fiction. When clicking on the editor of the collection, John Updike, I found 4,795 items! Back in the results list I went to item five which lists the title as a separate volume. It lists the title as including both a short story and a novella – mystery solved! Ozick has 536 items of which 48 are sound. And one is the NEA recording "An Introduction to the Shawl" by Cynthia Ozick. Clicking on the subject Holocaust, Jewish (1939-1945) Fiction and browsing through I discovered Milkweed by Jerry Spinelli – need to add this title to my "want to read" list. The investigation could go on and on – what an easy way to discover what exists out there and who owns it – all in one stop searching!

OAIster (still picturing the cat in pearls from your previous webinar) found a little gem from 1931 entitled Occurrence of the alligatoroid genus Allognathosuchus in the Lower Oligocene. This immediately caught my eye as I was browsing the results list because I have found pieces of prehistoric alligator when out on a dig with the Timber Lake Museum! It was published by the Field Museum in Chicago and digitized by the University of Illinois. Wow – you can read online, Kindle, PDF, etc. A little obscure topic, I know, but when you can't find it anywhere else, look here, plus it had already been downloaded 144 times.

NetLibrary

To get started with NetLibrary I searched for the classic author John Steinbeck. After browsing the first page of the 279 items found, I discovered an interesting title, Americans View Their Dust Bowl Experience. I then was able to search the content and go directly to pages where my search term appeared – very cool. Some info was bibliographic and some discussed The Grapes of Wrath. It was easy to navigate within the eBook and the Knowledge Tools would be helpful for all kinds of student projects. I can see both students and teachers using this for background information and research, but it's definitely not a first choice for pleasure reading!

Constitution Day is here and they needed materials yesterday is the more likely scenario! So, oops, just noticed that I went back to Basic Search but never closed out of my first title. OK, in English students may want to try a few of the 2,635 items located. How about Our Elusive Constitution: Silences, Paradoxes, Priorities or The Illustrated Dictionary of Constitutional Concepts? Found a few things in Spanish and French too.

Entering Oklahoma in the Advanced Search under subject, publication year 2000, language English and format eBooks resulted in zip. So, leaving publication year blank I tried again. The 82 items that came up were a nice mix of biography, travel, Native American, history, etc. A Boyhood in the Dust Bowl, 1926-1934 would tie in with my earlier search for Steinbeck and The Grapes of Wrath. First chapter is intriguing… "Not the Worst of Times." This resource adds a wealth of research possibilities to any library collection!

Gale Virtual Reference Library

In getting to know the titles in GVRL I selected Literature and Its Times to look for some background information on Big Read classics for a new webinar I am working on with Jasmine about book clubs. Browsing the table of contents was too slow, so I used the search box. I found great info on the Maltese Falcon, Grapes of Wrath, Joy Luck Club, My Antonia, The Heart is a Lonely Hunter, A Lesson Before Dying, and The Death of Ivan Ilyich. I selected the e-mail option for each and sent them to myself to read fully later. In addition to plot info, etc. the articles also give historical background about the time of the novel. This will help me brainstorm some themes readers might explore, other titles, etc. The Shawl and Housekeeping were not in this reference title so I went back to the home page and did an author search for anything related to these titles anywhere in GVRL. I found a few references but nothing as concise as the other articles.

For the Basic Search I typed in impetigo as it is currently spreading among my hunka grandchildren. The search brought up articles from nine different titles. I took a look at the article in the Gale Encyclopedia of Medicine. Yuck, it is so contagious although easy to treat, which I knew, but left untreated it can be very serious – kidney disease, sepsis, bone and joint infection, pneumonia. The photo was helpful and the read aloud feature was easy to listen to. Key Terms gave some basic definitions, but it would be helpful if the other articles linked to the term had hyperlinks.

ProQuest

To begin tracking down the "clues" in ProQuest, I searched for "school library standards." This brought up over 700 documents, so I clicked on Standards AND School Libraries in the Results box and narrowed it down to just 22 documents. The second title "Sticky Standards" caught my eye. At this point I had a plethora of options. I could translate the article to another language, print it, e-mail it, copy the link, cite it, or mark it. I could read just the abstract or go to the full text. Once in full text I could choose to follow the subject links, the author link, or even go to the complete issue of the publication. I selected mark it and then went to the folder entitled My Research which gave me another list of choices. The one I found most useful was Create Your Bibliography. Selecting MLA from the seven styles offered I next went to download which gave further directions and a list of instructions about MLA style in general. Both older students and adults will find this feature valuable and time-saving when working on research projects. You can e-mail up to 50 documents with a bibliography. Under My Research it even tracked all of my recent searches and offered the option to Set Up Alert and/or Create RSS Feed. But once you close out of ProQuest, My Research is cleared. I should be using this when I'm creating resource lists for trainings and conferences – it's elementary, my dear librarians!

On to searching by the title of a publication… using the keyword "school library" I found School Library Journal and School Library Monthly. Searching just the word "library" brought up 24 results. Selecting Library Media Connection I then searched the publication for "reading." Although this is a broad term it came up with just 253 documents. Full text is not offered for this publication, but an abstract is available and clicking on Find Text for the article "Free Reading is UTOPIA" took me to EBSCO sources that had full text and Holding Information for ILL use. I am definitely tracking down "Weed 'Em and Reap: the Art of Weeding to Avoid Criticism." I set up an alert for this topic in this magazine which will last for two months and then I'll be notified via e-mail if I'd like to continue the alert. It's interesting that the alert notes that this service is for individuals age 13 and older. Overall, ProQuest is a very serious looking resource – I think most kids under 13 wouldn't be interested in it – there's a wealth of information, but even SIRS is more fun to use.

SIRS continued…

Cyberbullying is one of the Top 10 Pro vs. Con Leading Issues in SIRS Issues Researcher found easily on the homepage. There are also many other features and search options. I especially like the Visual Browse which gives brief info about the topic and a link to the leading issue materials. Plus, RSS feeds are available. Once in the Cyberbullying section there are five major areas: a Topic Overview gives background information; Essential Questions offers pros and cons; Interactive links to the WiredKids site Stop Cyberbullying; Narrow Your Results reports sources found by type with the actual sources listed with Lexile score, summary, and subject links; Research Tools provides six options. The Note Organizer would be a great tool to use for beginning organization with students who are writing a persuasive speech or paper. The newly released Common Core Standards stress this type of writing. Standards Correlations are linked to both national (AASL is included) and state standards and I would predict that the Common Core info will appear soon. In addition to the summary when you click on "more" in Topic Overview or select it from the Research Tools, there are Terms to Know and Further Research suggestions which links to Primary Sources among other things. There is so much information the key would be to guide students to skim and use all of the options and not click through at the speed of light!

In Curriculum Pathfinders I explored Language Arts and ended up at Mythology with 365 matching subjects and 59 all source types in the Narrow Your Results box. I sorted the results by Lexile level low to high and the first thing that appeared was "The Lore of Harry Potter" from USA Today. Although the article is from 2001 with a Lexile score of 1060, I would use this as an intro to a project about the mythological allusions in the entire series in print and movie formats. In my former school we always offered a one semester English elective on mythology. This would give it a new twist and make a great connection between the "old school" stuff and popular culture – I'm sure even Twilight would lend itself to the same concept.

Again, much of the content in both SIRS resources is valuable to teachers as well as students. As a school librarian I would make sure I passed on a few links to these resources to staff when they ask "What does the library have on ________?"

SIRS Discoverer and SIRS Issues Researcher

Continuing my inquiry about prairie dogs from last week, I typed the term into the search box of SIRS Discoverer. My results came up with 175 items - newspapers, magazines, reference, and pictures, but no websites. In browsing the first 25 items, I noted various Lexiles levels, several activities, many photos and that a few items were fiction. The article "Dog Eat Dog" from Current Science caught my eye. It has a 1070 Lexile level and was marked as challenging, so I knew it was most likely for older students. I found three photos of prairie dogs, Internet links, a Critical Thinking activity, and a Multiple Choice quiz on the content. Priaire dogs are cannibals! Moms eat other mom's babies to give them protein to nurse their own babies - oh my. Speaking of baby prairie dogs, "Roadrunner Rescue" from Highlights for Children was one of the fiction items listed. It has a much lower Lexile at 560 and turned out to be a short story with illustrations about a roadrunner who saves a baby prairie dog from being eaten by a rattlesnake.

On to Database Features: Country Facts... no England, no Great Britain.. it's under United Kingdom! In addition to a map, there are three levels of graphic organizers for notetaking, major facts listed by categories, a timeline of events, contact info, a list of sources and links to related articles. When clicking on the map there is also a link to "show all articles related to this picture" which took me to an 2001 article about a new species of T-Rex.

Maps of the World allows searching by clicking on a category, typing in a search term or browsing by letter. Using the search term "United Kingdom" I found six different maps. The first was an outline map of the country and the surrounding area which could be printed for students to label or projected for a class activity. The second map listed was the answer key. Other maps are full color and all are printable in PDF.

Pathfinders contains four major sections: Born This Month, Holidays & Celebrations, Suggested Research Topics, and Challenge Quest. Born this Month lists famous people with links to a list of items about them. For example, selecting Beatrix Potter I discovered 15 websites which led me to an electronic copy of The Tale of the Flopsy Bunnies with text and illustrations. Holidays & Celebrations lists links (Canada Day, Independence Day, and Bastille Day for July) under Subject Headings, Subject Tree Paths and Keywords. Suggested Research Topics is arranged in the same manner for major subjects of interest to kids and schools - Explorers, Dinosaurs, Global Warming, etc. Challenge Quest has a question of the month with the question, the answer and a pathfinder from the previous month.

Overall, I think SIRS Discoverer is an excellent resource for both students and teachers. It contains a wealth of sources and would be a valuable tool to use to teach beginning and intermediate research skills, to find articles on the same topic at different reading levels, to locate age appropriate websites, etc.

On to SIRS Issues Researcher tomorrow....

World Book Online

World Book School Edition
Although I have used this edition the most, it continues to surprise me! When I opened World Book Kids for this lesson I was immediately drawn to the World Of Animals video clip. Clicking enter and then filter I checked out the mammals and decided to pursue the black-tailed prairie dog. I found a few facts with the photo and then choices to go to the exhibit or article. The exhibit contained quick facts, related photos, and web links. But the best part was the Compare Animals feature. I selected guinea pig, clicked on Compare Now, and had an instant side-by-side chart. (Guinea pigs are actually raised to eat in parts of South America! Well, I've been told that prairie dog stew is very tasty too.) The article page included three paragraphs of text, related web links (same as the exhibit), a Lexile level, a Play It question, citation information, an illustration, a link to see the article in Spanish, a link to the article in World Book Student, and a toolbox of options (print, email, save, translate this text, hear text read aloud, double click to define a word).

So, on to the trail of the prairie dog in World Book Student... I knew I could arrive through the link in the Kids article, but headed to the home page and entered the term "black-tailed prairie dog" in the search box. My results came up with 1 article, 1 sound, 1 picture and 2 back in time items. In the article itself the amount of information is doubled and is written in more complex terms. The habitat info is about the same, however, Student gives details about the conflict with people and livestock. The related web link is different, a content standards link is included, and tools also include options to highlight the search term and save to My Research. I did the same search selecting the option to search Students and Kids at the same time and came up with the 2 articles, but no link to the cool exhibit stuff in the Kids' World of Animals. Searching just Media didn't find it so I tried Advanced Search and saw that Student is only searching the articles in Kids - too bad - the comparison feature would interest older kids as well.

Leaving the prairie dog behind, World Book Advanced took me to England. Wow - 3074 items, 180 primary sources, 27 e-books, 11 Supreme Court cases and the list goes on! In the article itself the outline on the left links to major topics covered, maps, flag, photos, a fact box, etc. On the right the Related Information links to other information in the encyclopedia as well as out on the web. Here I found an extensive list of biographies which would be great to help students select a topic they may never think of for those 8th grade biography assignments. Also, The World Remembers D-Day is found in Special Reports. I might use this as background reading for a U.S. History class and have them compare/contrast and/or interview relatives and/or neighbors about the Honor Flight program going on in SD right now. Depending on the project, all of this content-rich article would be helpful to students and teachers, plus the content standards link is an added perk for lesson planning.

Lastly, browsing World Book Discover allowed me to start at History and Government, Government, American Government, People, and end up at Coolidge, Calvin. I could then translate, save to My Research, read aloud, email, print, look at the photo, double-click to define a word, etc. All of these features would enable an ELL or IEP student to work independently and locate information needed. If more detail were needed the feature at the end of the article to go to Student would link them to further information there.

Library Challenge: e-Resources Edition

Reviving the old blog to switch trails to Library Challenge: Electronic Resources Edition...

The Game Never Ends: Wrap-up

The "game" has been interesting, fun and very educational. Of course, it never ends! I already have several of the recommended sites in this lesson on my Bloglines. I have made it a daily habit to check Bloglines and will continue that to remain current on library-related info. I know I will continue to apply the info I find there to my work with school libraries in SD. I have also started making time for personal news on Bloglines. I would like to start a school library blog or wiki and will try to work on that soon with Lee and other Library Development staff. Sherlock never really quit his work, he just retired to Sussex to raise bees.So, on with the Web 2.0 game... it's elementary my dear Watson.

Wikis

Wikis had become an everyday part of my life at SDSL even before this lesson! I've been involved in several conversations relating to Wikipedia, participated in the PBWiki about the library's website, checked out and edited conference info on the SDLA conference wiki, joined Quynn's wiki about the Halloween party, and joined the CE Forum wiki. On Friday I visted Carmen Wilcox at Elk Point-Jefferson School/Public Library and she suggested that SD school librarians needed a way to share information and projects in addition to announcements on the listserv - why not a wiki? Why not a wiki for our WUE (weekly electronic updates)? The Library Success Wiki led me to Blogging Libraries Wiki which links to good examples of blogs from all types of libraries, associations, etc. Take a look at this one http://newtrierlibrary.blogspot.com/ which is from a high school in the northern suburbs of Chicago or this one http://casl.wordpress.com/ from the Colorado Association of School Librarians. But back on the trail of wikis, not blogs... The Stevens County Wiki Project would be a great idea for one my local communtities to try out as they are trying to gather info for their 100th year celebration. I e-mailed that suggestion to them. The ideas are endless...

Delicious

Delicious is an excellent and useful Web 2.0 application. The tag cloud on the SDSL page for this challenge caught my eye and then I saw that a few others had included these clouds on their blogs, so I investigated and have been using Delicious for weeks. I have My Favorites organized into folders, but Delicious allows me to use it on any computer and to search by tags. I have used it many times while researching a question for school librarians and on site visits when I needed to get to a site quickly to share information. At first, I was trying to keep a notebook of this info and found it cumbersome and inadequate. Delicious helps me do my job! To expand my use to some of its other services I just subscribed using the tag school_libraries and found 1,353 bookmarks! I think this is going to be a "two pipe problem." This would be a great tool for high school students to use when evaluating websites. (One point of irony... the terms "tags" and "tagging" and the actions associated with them at my former school usually meant you spent some quality time with the principal after expressing your creative talents.)

MySpace

The footprints led up to the falls... but Sherlock was alive and well! As for me, I was not traveling abroad, but in South Dakota and Montana and am now back on the trail of Web 2.0. After taking a look at both MySpace and FaceBook I decided to set up a My Space account. I was curious about it because so many of my former students loved it and it made a lot of news on 20/20. The whole process took only a few minutes and was much easier than setting up a blog. Tom is not my friend, but I did invite one friend, yes, only one friend. I don't see a personal use for this at this time, but liked the teen library stuff I browsed through and think it has great potential for school libraries. However, most schools have blocked all social networking sites. Beebo is another very popular site and students quickly figure out the proxy for it and use it anyway on school computers. Students could create a yearbook type site or even a newspaper style site for schools using this. Oh, it probably wouldn't be as cool then! But the possibilities of linking music and video in addition to photos would be great. The ads are a little too much but can be ignored.

Office 2.0

Web-based is the key to it all! Google Docs was the quickest and easiest of all of the lessons so far. Maybe it just felt that way because bandwidth didn't seem to be an issue. The "any where, any computer" concept I am already in love with, in addition to the sharing. I've been working on a revised school library site visit form in Word so I uploaded it to Google Docs. At first, the formatting was an issue, the logo was unclear, and it produced three pages where I only had two in Word. The Help was easy to navigate, I changed the margins, deleted and re-inserted the logo off the SDSL webpage, deleted the line, and was back in business. Not much of a hassle, but it would have been easier if I had created the document in Docs. Next, I tried a PageMaker document. It first had to be changed to a pdf and when uploaded the font changed. (I have lots of documents in Pagemaker because I used it to create the school newspaper and yearbook at TTS.) The Google Groups caught my eye and I checked out the link to the National Writing Project. They have an interesting writing project in progress for high school students using Google Docs. The South Dakota connection is the Dakota Writing Project at USD. The subgroup Rural Sites Network has some interesting info. As always, I click on one thing and discover a ton more. Office 2.0 would save money and server space for schools and libraries. No more "I forgot to put my file on my memory stick" or "I forgot to e-mail my file to myself" as excuses for uncompleted homework. "I lost my disk or CD" has been long outdated. But there will still be "The internet was down!" I also tried out 30boxes because it was a clever name. The integration of Flickr, etc. is cool, but yet another account to create, another login, and another password...

Video Part 2

Podcast & Video

Personal On Demand media... MediaFly looks fun, but I like the simplicity of Feedzie. Nevertheless, using MediaFly I subscribed to Audiopolis which contains reviews from Audio File Magazine. The first one I listened to was a review of Sherman Alexie's newest and first book for young adults The Absolutely True Dairy of a Part-Time Indian. It includes Sherman Alexie reading excerpts. How cool is that! My former students and I love Sherman Alexie and it would be great for any student to hear the author's real voice. This could be used before, during or after reading the novel as part of a literature circle, AR assignment, to highlight new books in the library, etc. Next, I subscribed to a video feed using Feedzie http://www.evtv1.com/that came up when I searched "Sherlock Holmes." Oldies, but goodies would be great to use in the classroom or the library to introduce units, authors, titles, etc.

While I was in my Bloglines account doing that, I checked The Shifted Librarian and just had to use her mini poster link to create this one of my niece Emilee. She is a sophomore at Ohio State University and although she does read books, she spends a huge amount of time personally demanding her media on her laptop. (The cell phone is always nearby too.) I took this picture months ago but it reminds me of the recent article about what qualifies as real reading - it's all real reading!http://www.ala.org/ala/productsandpublications/READ_Mini_Posters.cfm

I have used YouTube a lot so I checked out Goggle. There were 3,990 hits for the term "librarians." As I was browsing the first list "NJ State Library Outreach to School Librarians" caught my eye. I recently looked at the NJ State Library's website and liked it, so here's the video. Watch out for your favorite School Library Coordinators at SDLA! (Hopefully the video comes up - did I embed it correctly?) The quality is not the best, but the idea is fantastic. All of Web 2.0 can be used for PR from the SDSL. Graphics are great, but photos and video are even better. (Update: I went back and added the video to a new post & it works!)

P.S. The most important thing I have learned from this lesson is you must never try all of these podcast & video things on dial-up! Wild Blue where are you? Thanks to Quynn for the advice on layout and I'm now going to steal her Shelfari idea!

A Red Herring

Well, I started to work on Podcasting & Video, but then decided to check my Bloglines first. The Librarian in Black recommends a search engine http://www.feedzie.com/ that searches audio and video - very cool. Also, there is new information that shows that hadrosaurs were so successful living with T-rexs because they grew bigger faster. For example, when a young hadrosaur was as big as a cow, a young T-rex of the same age was only as big as a dog. And of course, these two species of dinosaurs represent some of the most common fossils found in parts of South Dakota. OK, back on the trail of Web 2.0... If you haven't seen it already look for "Library Dominoes" http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cwihz7iZlx0 on You Tube. It gave me the great idea to play library dominoes with the reference books in my library last year as part of our National Library Week celebration. Yes, it is OK to play with the books like that and win prizes! Lots of others come up under that title search now. More later...