I know it sounds ridiculous, but for me the biggest discovery was that all these resources were available to our patrons. As a new librarian, I have been steadily working to learn all that I need to know to fulfill my job responsibilities. The previous librarian either wasn't really technologically savvy or she didn't see the possibilities for patrons. I have spent some time in the past few months making resources accessible to our patrons (we didn't even have an online catalogue) so it was great news that these databases were available! I very much appreciate the opportunity to learn what these databases contain and how to use them so I can then transmit information to our patrons.
As I have worked through this class I have printed out the information sheets provided by the State Library. I made a binder at the library that is labeled "Online databases" and put these info sheets in the binder and placed it on our computer table along with a sign. I have also made an effort to tell people who I think might be interested in using them like students, college students, and community members who do research. I intend to launch a media campaign shortly to inform the community of all the new happenings at our library - new hours, databases, weekly story time, book club, and ebooks coming in the summer.
Monday, March 12, 2012
Thursday, March 8, 2012
Ancestry Library - photos and maps
After talking with Julie I was able to navigate to the photos and maps section of Ancestry. I did a search on South Dakota in the panoramic maps section and that turned up 151 records. There were amazing photos from many of the SD towns, Rapid City, Lead, Sioux Falls, Yankton, Deadwood, etc. There were also photos of Indian Schools and a stock parade. All of the photos seemed to be from the late 1800s through early 1900s. I also looked at a couple of the maps, I just love old maps! There seems to be alot of stuff kind of hidden away in this database. I'm glad I found the links to other things besides the name search. I'll probably have to go back and look at the photos of the old ships because that sounds really cool also!
Wednesday, March 7, 2012
Ancestry Library, Heritage Quest, Sanborn Maps
These are really cool databases! A real time sink! Okay, when I searched for my own name I found my husband's name and his records from about 15 years ago plus. I had to search on my maiden name before I found myself and then it seemed like old census records, no birth records or anything. While messing around in this database though I did find a copy of my parent's marriage record - the original obviously typewritten with a carbon copy, nearly impossible to read, but there it was.
Next I searched on my grandmother and found that using her maiden name didn't work well. When I finally searched on her married name I found a death record and an obit notice. I also found a census record from the 80s. Kind of funny that we'd have opposite results, but I guess it makes sense since she was her married name for longer than her maiden name and I was my maiden name longer than my married name. I am wondering if there are incomplete records from the early 1900s (when she was born) and maybe that affected my search.
I looked and looked for the photos and maps tab in Ancestry and honestly couldn't find anything that even remotely resembled that. Am I looking in the wrong place? I do not know how to search for a place in Ancestry.
In Heritage Quest I searched books for Tucson, AZ and got 6 results. I clicked on the Arizona State Business Directory from 1930, Denver, CO Gazetteer Pub. It was really cool! It was a listing of all the businesses, banks, hotels, senators, universities, forests, dept of labor, etc from that time. I found a listing for the lumberyard that my grandfather managed during his working life. It was so interesting to see all the names of people who ended up having a huge impact on Tucson as it grew into a huge city. I grew up in Tucson and remember it being a small to mid-sized city but these records are of a Tucson that was a bustling town - pretty neat!
In Sanborn maps I wanted to look at Wall, but since that wasn't available I search Rapid City since that is really the only other town in South Dakota that I know anything about. In 1885 there wasn't much to Rapid City, lots of liveries. I couldn't find anything I recognized. In 1915 there was more to choose from, although not too much. I did find the courthouse. It seems like things really started happening in 1930 because the town really grew and there were alot more recognizable buildings such as the Masonic Temple and the Alex Johnson Hotel, that are still in use. I wonder what happened to cause the boom. This was a fun assignment because I just LOVE looking at maps. I could pore over old maps all day! What a great resource! Why aren't these available for smaller towns like Wall?
Next I searched on my grandmother and found that using her maiden name didn't work well. When I finally searched on her married name I found a death record and an obit notice. I also found a census record from the 80s. Kind of funny that we'd have opposite results, but I guess it makes sense since she was her married name for longer than her maiden name and I was my maiden name longer than my married name. I am wondering if there are incomplete records from the early 1900s (when she was born) and maybe that affected my search.
I looked and looked for the photos and maps tab in Ancestry and honestly couldn't find anything that even remotely resembled that. Am I looking in the wrong place? I do not know how to search for a place in Ancestry.
In Heritage Quest I searched books for Tucson, AZ and got 6 results. I clicked on the Arizona State Business Directory from 1930, Denver, CO Gazetteer Pub. It was really cool! It was a listing of all the businesses, banks, hotels, senators, universities, forests, dept of labor, etc from that time. I found a listing for the lumberyard that my grandfather managed during his working life. It was so interesting to see all the names of people who ended up having a huge impact on Tucson as it grew into a huge city. I grew up in Tucson and remember it being a small to mid-sized city but these records are of a Tucson that was a bustling town - pretty neat!
In Sanborn maps I wanted to look at Wall, but since that wasn't available I search Rapid City since that is really the only other town in South Dakota that I know anything about. In 1885 there wasn't much to Rapid City, lots of liveries. I couldn't find anything I recognized. In 1915 there was more to choose from, although not too much. I did find the courthouse. It seems like things really started happening in 1930 because the town really grew and there were alot more recognizable buildings such as the Masonic Temple and the Alex Johnson Hotel, that are still in use. I wonder what happened to cause the boom. This was a fun assignment because I just LOVE looking at maps. I could pore over old maps all day! What a great resource! Why aren't these available for smaller towns like Wall?
Thursday, March 1, 2012
Archive Grid and CAMIO - take 2
Now that I can access the databases, let me tell you what I learned about Sitting Bull:
I searched on Monet and got 198 entries. There were such things as letters, exhibition catalogues, bills, artist files, books in French, miscellaneous uncatalogued material, institutional files including clippings and reviews of an exhibition, and special collections of research work. The institutions included the Brooklyn Museum, MOMA New York, The University of Virginia, the Research Library of the Getty Research Institute, the National Gallery of Art, Columbia University, Dartmouth College, and the Smithsonian Institute. Each entry had similar information as the Sitting Bull autograph card, there was information on the holdings and contact information for the institution. If you were doing research on a specific subject, this would be a great place to begin your search although I suspect your would need to be independently wealthy to visit all the institutions who had items of interest, could be kind of fun though!
In CAMIO my search on Paul Revere turned up many objects such as teaspoons, tea urns, sugar bowl, cream pots, a sauceboat, goblet, wine quart and Federal style tea service; in short, everything you might expect a master silversmith to make.
My Sioux search brought up 63 works including artifacts of and made by the Sioux and art done by and about the Sioux. There were beaded artifacts, like a shirt and gauntlet and doll, sculpture, jewelry, drawings, paintings, and photographs. Each entry included the what, where, dates, format, size, a good photo, and copyrights.
I searched on Nampeyo, a famous Hopi potter. There were 4 results and each included the what, where, dates, format, size, picture and copyrights.
Let me just say that these are incredible photos of the object, high resolution, very nice! I think one might be able to use this site for research and information gathering if your were looking for a specific artist. It could also be used for educational purposes or your own pleasure, but the entries I looked at were very specific that the images not be used for public purposes.
For my search I continued with the Hopi theme and selected the pots as my favorites. The slideshow is very cool, as are the comparison tools. I'm not sure what I would use the web page feature for - could you add it to your library webpage for special events or would that violate copyright issues? Pretty fun little interactive tool!
- AKA Tatanka Iyotake, Tatanka Iyotanka, Ta-Tanka-I-Yotan
- Native American shaman from the mid to late 1800s
- fought against the Crow Indians
- wounded in battle on several occasions
- opposed the encroachment of the white man
- led Sioux and Cheyenne warriors against US soldiers of the 7th Cavalry at the Battle of Little Bighorn
- after battle, led tribe into Canada where they lived until surrendering to the US
- after capture, toured with Buffalo Bill Cody's Wild West Show
- killed in 1890 while resisting arrest for Ghost Dancing
I searched on Monet and got 198 entries. There were such things as letters, exhibition catalogues, bills, artist files, books in French, miscellaneous uncatalogued material, institutional files including clippings and reviews of an exhibition, and special collections of research work. The institutions included the Brooklyn Museum, MOMA New York, The University of Virginia, the Research Library of the Getty Research Institute, the National Gallery of Art, Columbia University, Dartmouth College, and the Smithsonian Institute. Each entry had similar information as the Sitting Bull autograph card, there was information on the holdings and contact information for the institution. If you were doing research on a specific subject, this would be a great place to begin your search although I suspect your would need to be independently wealthy to visit all the institutions who had items of interest, could be kind of fun though!
In CAMIO my search on Paul Revere turned up many objects such as teaspoons, tea urns, sugar bowl, cream pots, a sauceboat, goblet, wine quart and Federal style tea service; in short, everything you might expect a master silversmith to make.
My Sioux search brought up 63 works including artifacts of and made by the Sioux and art done by and about the Sioux. There were beaded artifacts, like a shirt and gauntlet and doll, sculpture, jewelry, drawings, paintings, and photographs. Each entry included the what, where, dates, format, size, a good photo, and copyrights.
I searched on Nampeyo, a famous Hopi potter. There were 4 results and each included the what, where, dates, format, size, picture and copyrights.
Let me just say that these are incredible photos of the object, high resolution, very nice! I think one might be able to use this site for research and information gathering if your were looking for a specific artist. It could also be used for educational purposes or your own pleasure, but the entries I looked at were very specific that the images not be used for public purposes.
For my search I continued with the Hopi theme and selected the pots as my favorites. The slideshow is very cool, as are the comparison tools. I'm not sure what I would use the web page feature for - could you add it to your library webpage for special events or would that violate copyright issues? Pretty fun little interactive tool!
Wednesday, February 29, 2012
Archive Grid and CAMIO
I am having much difficulty with this particular assignment. I accessed Archive Grid via the state library website and searched on the sitting bull autograph card. I found," Sitting Bull autograph card (18_) Sitting Bull 1834?-1890 autograph card and envelope for card." This was not a link however and I could not access any more information. I tried to search on Monet and found three listings; Institutional Files, Exhibitions. for Monet's London: Artists' reflections on the Thames 1859-1914, Monet and his contemporaries, and Monet and the Mediterranean. All of these were from the Brooklyn Museum of Art, Department of Painting and Sculpture. Once again, no links, just a listing of items.
As for the CAMIO part of the assignment I also accessed it via the State Library page but I couldn't get any further than the home page. I couldn't log in with either my own library card or the Wall Library card. Is there another authorization and password I am supposed to be using?
I tried both of these a couple of times with the same results - what am I doing wrong?
As for the CAMIO part of the assignment I also accessed it via the State Library page but I couldn't get any further than the home page. I couldn't log in with either my own library card or the Wall Library card. Is there another authorization and password I am supposed to be using?
I tried both of these a couple of times with the same results - what am I doing wrong?
Tuesday, February 21, 2012
WorldCat
On the advanced search page for WorldCat there appears to be 30 different ways to search including: access search, accession #, 6 ways to search by author, language phrase, material type, material type phrase, musical composition, musical composition phrase, notes/comments, publisher, publisher location, standard number, ISBN, ISSN, 7 ways to search by subject, and title phrase and series title. Whew!
For the first search I typed in The Hunger Games. I got 104 results. Under item 1, there were 5042 libraries worldwide that had that item. The top library in the list was Alexander Mitchell Library. I noticed that the libraries listed seemed to be in South Dakota. The call number for the first item was PZ7.C6837 and PS 3603.04558 the Dewey classification was FIC. The author has written the sequel books Catching Fire and Mockingjay and also the 5 books in the Gregor the Overlander Series. I clicked on the subject "Survival - Juvenile Fiction" and got a lengthy list that included Catching Fire, Mockingjay, and Julie of the Wolves. Other information in the record included almost everything you could think of. There was the year, the physical description of the book, the ISBN, the genre, awards, language, series, descriptors, and even the vendor information. In short, it had everything you woud expect to see in a catalogue record and more!
In OAIster the record I chose was the "Effects of Maintenance Treatments on Asphalt, Concrete Pavement Management". (A fascinating topic if ever there was one!) It appeared to be a document prepared by the SDDOT about roads. There were two links next to access, WorldCat and SDDOT. Unfortunately, when I clicked on WorldCat a message popped up that said, "item requested cannot be found". It clarified that items were added or updated daily and I may need to try my request later although it did add that the item may have been deleted or moved. I gave it a second chance and got the same error message. Well, no problem, my item had two access links so I tried the other one from SDDOT. This one said, "Specified request cannot be executed from current applicant pool". So I suppose the mysteries of asphalt and concrete road maintenance will remain a mystery, at least to me. I was hoping for the full text of the document and assume that is what one would find under other records.
I checked many of my fellow blogger's posts and found that no one had quite gotten to the WorldCat assignment yet. It must be a busy week in libraryland.
For the first search I typed in The Hunger Games. I got 104 results. Under item 1, there were 5042 libraries worldwide that had that item. The top library in the list was Alexander Mitchell Library. I noticed that the libraries listed seemed to be in South Dakota. The call number for the first item was PZ7.C6837 and PS 3603.04558 the Dewey classification was FIC. The author has written the sequel books Catching Fire and Mockingjay and also the 5 books in the Gregor the Overlander Series. I clicked on the subject "Survival - Juvenile Fiction" and got a lengthy list that included Catching Fire, Mockingjay, and Julie of the Wolves. Other information in the record included almost everything you could think of. There was the year, the physical description of the book, the ISBN, the genre, awards, language, series, descriptors, and even the vendor information. In short, it had everything you woud expect to see in a catalogue record and more!
In OAIster the record I chose was the "Effects of Maintenance Treatments on Asphalt, Concrete Pavement Management". (A fascinating topic if ever there was one!) It appeared to be a document prepared by the SDDOT about roads. There were two links next to access, WorldCat and SDDOT. Unfortunately, when I clicked on WorldCat a message popped up that said, "item requested cannot be found". It clarified that items were added or updated daily and I may need to try my request later although it did add that the item may have been deleted or moved. I gave it a second chance and got the same error message. Well, no problem, my item had two access links so I tried the other one from SDDOT. This one said, "Specified request cannot be executed from current applicant pool". So I suppose the mysteries of asphalt and concrete road maintenance will remain a mystery, at least to me. I was hoping for the full text of the document and assume that is what one would find under other records.
I checked many of my fellow blogger's posts and found that no one had quite gotten to the WorldCat assignment yet. It must be a busy week in libraryland.
Monday, February 13, 2012
EBSCOhost
I went to the clinic today because I've been feeling punky for about a week and a half - diagnosis - a virus. Since I was in a virus kind of mood I decided to do my search on holistic remedies for viruses. I restricted my search to ebooks and medical-type databases. The search returned 4 entries; 3 ebooks - Medically Speaking: A Dictionary of Quotations on Dentistry, Medicine, and Nursing; Encyclopedia of Natural Pet Care; and Supercharging Your Immunity. I also got one article from the Alternative Healthwatch Database - Toward a Unified Theory of Homeopathy and Coventional Medicine. The Dictionary of Quotations seemed of limited value in making me feel better, so I ignored that entry. The Natural pet care was interesting - might want to look at that later since I have many assorted animals, but hardly useful for helping people with viruses. Supercharge Your Immunity seemed like my best bet so I looked at that resource. It was an ebook that seemed interesting but was frankly impossible to read on screen because the type was so small. I tried a few different things but was unable to zoom in or otherwise increase the font size. Probabaly some easy solution but at this point I must say it escapes me. The book seemed like what I was looking for (the little of it that I could read). Perhaps downloading the ebook might make for more options when it comes to increasing the font size. I glanced at the article to see a different entry/format but it too had incredibly small type. The article seemed a bit more academic though.
A search on Constitution Day in ebooks netted many sources. I thought the best bets for high school students were the Illustrated Dictionary of Constitutional Concepts and AP US History. Younger students might be better served by Colonies and Revolution, a junior non-fiction ebook, which was definitely easier to read.
My advanced search of western history and Oklahoma turned up 40 results. As a side note, I couldn't find PB publisher in select a field - the only options were TX-all text, AU-author, TI-title, SU-subject, SO-source, AB-abstract, and IS-ISSN (am I looking in the wrong place?). In my search there were 23 ebooks, 11 ERIC records, and 6 from Healthsource Nursing/Academic Edition. There were reasonable results about the American West, an article about adult education in the state of Oklahoma, and many resources on Native Americans from Oklahoma. Perhaps the oddest result was an ERIC resource on Japan. I clicked on it to see why it was included and found that corporate source for the article was the Oklahoma State Department of Education, Oklahoma City. Probably a good idea to narrow your search if at all possible.
A search on Constitution Day in ebooks netted many sources. I thought the best bets for high school students were the Illustrated Dictionary of Constitutional Concepts and AP US History. Younger students might be better served by Colonies and Revolution, a junior non-fiction ebook, which was definitely easier to read.
My advanced search of western history and Oklahoma turned up 40 results. As a side note, I couldn't find PB publisher in select a field - the only options were TX-all text, AU-author, TI-title, SU-subject, SO-source, AB-abstract, and IS-ISSN (am I looking in the wrong place?). In my search there were 23 ebooks, 11 ERIC records, and 6 from Healthsource Nursing/Academic Edition. There were reasonable results about the American West, an article about adult education in the state of Oklahoma, and many resources on Native Americans from Oklahoma. Perhaps the oddest result was an ERIC resource on Japan. I clicked on it to see why it was included and found that corporate source for the article was the Oklahoma State Department of Education, Oklahoma City. Probably a good idea to narrow your search if at all possible.
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