This has been an interesting, educational and often fun set of challenges. I'm a big proponent of online databases, and I think they're one of the most underused resources in many libraries. Seeing the effort put out by so many librarians to learn and explore these tools has been wonderful, and I know my voice will be one of many promoting these wonderful tools in the future.
While teaching students to use databases was a big part of my earliest years of a librarian, I have found that I've learned a lot by undergoing these challenges, and it will definitely have an impact on my work. One of the things I've learned will help out 'behind the desk' through the Crafts and Hobbies section we studied early on. As a Children's Librarian I'm often looking for craft projects to make the children's area more exciting and interesting as well as for craft and art projects that I can do with the children.
Another of the sections that really impressed me was the Learning Express section. There were a number of wonderful guides and practice tests there, a lot that the older students to visit my library could benefit from. I'll definitely be promoting these tools. I just wish I had known in advance of the most recent round of the SAT's!
While many of the other weeks don't find an -immediate- use for me as a children's librarian, as I'm sure is true with all my colleagues, I often end up wearing a stack of different hats at the library and I'm quite sure that the business, medical, genealogical and other databases will be useful resources, and my practice with them over the recent months will hopefully let me provide the proper answers and resources when I might otherwise have been stumped.
Friday, December 14, 2012
Thursday, December 6, 2012
Week 10 - EBSCO Databases
One of the first Databases I ever became proficient with was Academic Search Premier, back when I was in library school I used it both for assisting patrons during my internship at an academic library and also for my personal research for classes.
With that history I gave into the temptation to see another face of the Premier database line from EBSCO, and chose MasterFile Premier. I was impressed to find some of my favorite research magazines offered with many articles in full text, and largely impressed in general.
My disappointment in this process was fairly small, and was focused mostly when it came to browsing the publications included. Namely in that the browsing view, while subdivided by first letter, has no 'next page' arrow within the scope of that letter. That is to say, publications listed that begin with the letter 'D' are listed in alphabetical order up to "Dan", and then the rest are completely unbrowsable until the letter 'E' takes over. If you know the publication to search for it can be found easily through search, but I would have been a lot happier to see a fully-fledged browsing feature that let patrons discover new titles.
I used the fallback question of Zinc in Food and immediately found that there has been a wealth of information written on the topic, particularly on the divide between food-born zinc supplements versus a direct liquid supplement. There were also prominent discussions on ways to enrich foods with zinc in order to help in areas that have chronically underweight children. This is more or less exactly the sort of thing I had hoped to find. As always, EBSCO provides excellent filter options, with the after-the-search options to restrict the results to Peer-reviewed or full-text titles being of particular note and merit for students.
With that history I gave into the temptation to see another face of the Premier database line from EBSCO, and chose MasterFile Premier. I was impressed to find some of my favorite research magazines offered with many articles in full text, and largely impressed in general.
My disappointment in this process was fairly small, and was focused mostly when it came to browsing the publications included. Namely in that the browsing view, while subdivided by first letter, has no 'next page' arrow within the scope of that letter. That is to say, publications listed that begin with the letter 'D' are listed in alphabetical order up to "Dan", and then the rest are completely unbrowsable until the letter 'E' takes over. If you know the publication to search for it can be found easily through search, but I would have been a lot happier to see a fully-fledged browsing feature that let patrons discover new titles.
I used the fallback question of Zinc in Food and immediately found that there has been a wealth of information written on the topic, particularly on the divide between food-born zinc supplements versus a direct liquid supplement. There were also prominent discussions on ways to enrich foods with zinc in order to help in areas that have chronically underweight children. This is more or less exactly the sort of thing I had hoped to find. As always, EBSCO provides excellent filter options, with the after-the-search options to restrict the results to Peer-reviewed or full-text titles being of particular note and merit for students.
Week 9 - Learning Express
Well, this week's challenge certainly goes a long way to reminding me how long it has been since I've done any standardized testing. I bit the bullet and plunged into some old SAT prep materials to try a few questions. It brought back lots of memories, and I felt almost guilty for not using a number 2 pencil. :)
I also found it to be very true to what I remember of the test in format, and I encourage that to give students as much familiarity as possible going into the situation. The nicest touch of all was the review, going through afterwords not only to get my score, but being able to go question by question to identify what I had done wrong. This is exactly the approach any preparation materials need to have to be self-guiding for a student, and happily this test showed a full accounting of what was chosen and what was correct.
In the Job Searching and Resume Building section I jumped right into the latter of the two topics and invested a little bit of time investigating how the would help guide a patron in building a resume. I'm glad to say that it seems that they really thought this through, providing not only a broad array of different format types, but also including a quick questionnaire that will help guide patrons to the style of resume that best suits their situation. I didn't realize how in depth these tools were, and have been impressed enough that I will point a job-seeking friend of mine to this tool very soon.
I was similarly impressed when I did some searching and downloaded an ebook. First of all, it's a fully-fledged ebook. No onerous check out systems or delays, or DRM schemes that I could tell. It was refreshing to see a 240+ page book referenced and just as easily fully accessed. The job title I was searching under was Journalistic Research, and the top hit was a book describing how to search online. The book was even framed with a plotline about a woman who's been given a business research assignment without a clue how to proceed. Being asked for results on an unfamiliar set of search terms is something I think nearly every librarian has had to go through, and it would be easy to see a journalistic researcher being put in that same spot frequently.
Learning Express has been an even stronger resource than I had assumed, I'm quite impressed by the results I've found today, and it will certainly be a database I recommend more often!
I also found it to be very true to what I remember of the test in format, and I encourage that to give students as much familiarity as possible going into the situation. The nicest touch of all was the review, going through afterwords not only to get my score, but being able to go question by question to identify what I had done wrong. This is exactly the approach any preparation materials need to have to be self-guiding for a student, and happily this test showed a full accounting of what was chosen and what was correct.
In the Job Searching and Resume Building section I jumped right into the latter of the two topics and invested a little bit of time investigating how the would help guide a patron in building a resume. I'm glad to say that it seems that they really thought this through, providing not only a broad array of different format types, but also including a quick questionnaire that will help guide patrons to the style of resume that best suits their situation. I didn't realize how in depth these tools were, and have been impressed enough that I will point a job-seeking friend of mine to this tool very soon.
I was similarly impressed when I did some searching and downloaded an ebook. First of all, it's a fully-fledged ebook. No onerous check out systems or delays, or DRM schemes that I could tell. It was refreshing to see a 240+ page book referenced and just as easily fully accessed. The job title I was searching under was Journalistic Research, and the top hit was a book describing how to search online. The book was even framed with a plotline about a woman who's been given a business research assignment without a clue how to proceed. Being asked for results on an unfamiliar set of search terms is something I think nearly every librarian has had to go through, and it would be easy to see a journalistic researcher being put in that same spot frequently.
Learning Express has been an even stronger resource than I had assumed, I'm quite impressed by the results I've found today, and it will certainly be a database I recommend more often!
Wednesday, November 21, 2012
Week 8 - Ancestry
Hmmm. This week has turned out to be something of a challenge for me, for a variety of reasons.
First and foremost, searching for myself on Ancestry: I couldn't find myself! That really surprises me, given that I had full details to feed into the search engine. I tried a variety of searches and still couldn't find anything but false hits. Then again, Brown is one of the more common last names, so there is an element of sense there.
Second up was searching for my Grandfather. Surprisingly this was a much easier find. A far less common name may have helped me locate him, but I rapidly turned up a little bit of information. Birthplace and date, addresses he had lived in. One search even gave me what looked to be a SSN, which I hadn't been expecting.
The last of the three challenges has been the most perplexing to me, as we were instructed to search for "Maine" under the photos and maps tab of Ancestry Library.. Only Ancestry Library doesn't have a tab marked "Photos and Maps". There is a tab marked "Charts and Forms", but it's a download page for a single template and offers no form of search. I'm a little at a loss how to handle that, and if I'm missing some part of the interface I hope a fellow Marvel Blogger will point it out to me. Thanks!
First and foremost, searching for myself on Ancestry: I couldn't find myself! That really surprises me, given that I had full details to feed into the search engine. I tried a variety of searches and still couldn't find anything but false hits. Then again, Brown is one of the more common last names, so there is an element of sense there.
Second up was searching for my Grandfather. Surprisingly this was a much easier find. A far less common name may have helped me locate him, but I rapidly turned up a little bit of information. Birthplace and date, addresses he had lived in. One search even gave me what looked to be a SSN, which I hadn't been expecting.
The last of the three challenges has been the most perplexing to me, as we were instructed to search for "Maine" under the photos and maps tab of Ancestry Library.. Only Ancestry Library doesn't have a tab marked "Photos and Maps". There is a tab marked "Charts and Forms", but it's a download page for a single template and offers no form of search. I'm a little at a loss how to handle that, and if I'm missing some part of the interface I hope a fellow Marvel Blogger will point it out to me. Thanks!
Friday, November 16, 2012
Week 7 - Medical Databases
Health Source - Consumer Edition
Looking through the journals that this database draws upon it's clear that it will provide answers from a broad variety of expert medical sources. Once I moved forward into my search I found that results were clearly intended for a consumer level, with most of the article I read being written so that a layperson could understand it easily. At the very end it had a paragraph that quickly rose to dizzying levels of medical terms and jargon. I was glad to see them not holding back entirely on the terminology, as it might prove useful to a researcher looking find similar articles, or wishing to step up into the realm of other more technical information.
Medline Plus
The articles on the right revolve around smoking, alcohol, and diabetes at the start of my investigations into Medline. On the left the Popular Searches tag cloud shows Autism, Diabetes, Hypertension and Vitamin D as the chief search terms of late.
Entering the section on prescription drugs it's clearly a tool meant for consumer use, the drug information closely resembles the information and warnings that will accompany over-the-counter medications or the safety sheets that come with prescriptions.
When entering into health concerns I find the overall amount of information quite similar to Health Source Consumer's search, but I find that the organization and presentation of the information here is far better. There are more links to continue or narrow the research in different directions, and overall I feel like the information here has a much easier 'flow' for the reader to absorb.
For the Video and other 'Cool Tools' I chose an interactive test. The questions were simple and direct, the presentation was neat and professional, using graphical elements to draw the eye to the quiz, and the information supplied was succinct and gave a good amount of information at the end along with a one-click option to find out more information at the end. All in all, a well-made and simple self diagnostic tool for home users, and a good one to spread information.
Looking through the journals that this database draws upon it's clear that it will provide answers from a broad variety of expert medical sources. Once I moved forward into my search I found that results were clearly intended for a consumer level, with most of the article I read being written so that a layperson could understand it easily. At the very end it had a paragraph that quickly rose to dizzying levels of medical terms and jargon. I was glad to see them not holding back entirely on the terminology, as it might prove useful to a researcher looking find similar articles, or wishing to step up into the realm of other more technical information.
Medline Plus
The articles on the right revolve around smoking, alcohol, and diabetes at the start of my investigations into Medline. On the left the Popular Searches tag cloud shows Autism, Diabetes, Hypertension and Vitamin D as the chief search terms of late.
Entering the section on prescription drugs it's clearly a tool meant for consumer use, the drug information closely resembles the information and warnings that will accompany over-the-counter medications or the safety sheets that come with prescriptions.
When entering into health concerns I find the overall amount of information quite similar to Health Source Consumer's search, but I find that the organization and presentation of the information here is far better. There are more links to continue or narrow the research in different directions, and overall I feel like the information here has a much easier 'flow' for the reader to absorb.
For the Video and other 'Cool Tools' I chose an interactive test. The questions were simple and direct, the presentation was neat and professional, using graphical elements to draw the eye to the quiz, and the information supplied was succinct and gave a good amount of information at the end along with a one-click option to find out more information at the end. All in all, a well-made and simple self diagnostic tool for home users, and a good one to spread information.
Tuesday, November 6, 2012
Week 6, Business Tools
I'm a big fan of MARVEL's academic tools, but I haven't had terribly much experience with the business end of their tools. I'm quite familiar with the Academic Search Premier, as it used to be called, and the clear similarities with the Business Source Complete are quite nice. The interface is straightforward and uncomplicated, encouraging users to jump right in.
The first set of results show that the pool of sources include business journals and serials as well as industry focused technical articles. Excellent materials for business research, and just what I would hope to see! The visual search left me uncertain here. The interface is slick and responsive, but the suggested sample search of "FM Radio" came back with so many technical articles that I'd likely need more information than either visual search format would provide. I suspect that for technical details I would want to skim some of the abstracts in ways the visual style doesn't permit at a glance. Less technical articles where I may be able to judge the content off a title more accurately would certainly be useful.
Econlit
Econlit seemed like a very simple, utilitarian search at first. The search instructions gave me little hope for a big discovery here, yet I did have one very pleasant surprise. Within my first three searches, I had a search that 'failed'. This didn't give me a blank results screen, or even an error screen. Instead, I found that in a very google-like move that the database had corrected my search terms and informed me of it with a bold message up top stating: Note: "Your initial search query did not yield any results. However, using SmartText Searching, results were found based on your keywords"
This is a wonderful step forward for databases, particularly those with controlled vocabulary. This enables users unfamiliar with the intricacies of controlled vocabulary systems to make use of them without devoting a great deal of time and care into learning the systems. Not only does this help direct users to the information that they're seeking, but it gives them enough feedback to begin teaching a more complicated search system to them. Sure, one encounter with this form of user correction is unlikely to make a huge difference, but repeated use of it will help the user form more appropriate search strategies each time.
Regional Business News does a good job from the macro to the micro. I began with world-spanning business news by looking up a few articles on BP, and worked my way back to something a little more local and closer to our hearts with one of my favorite Maine companies, LibraryThing! I don't have a lot to expand on, as the RBN delivered results quickly, clearly, and in full-text, which is all I tend to hope for from most Databases. :)
Value Line
Value Line certainly starts out as the black sheep of the databases for me. Not for it's content, but for poor design and execution. The first and most notable impact of Value Line is how it immediately locked my browser up for over 30 seconds. I would have quit out of the browser in normal circumstances, it was only my panic at potentially losing this current post that stayed my hand. Next came a moment of confusion as I tried to click on the link for the "Investment Survey" and got no results. The icon of a lock beside it made me wonder at first if I was missing some way of access, as it wasn't even making a request for the passport. Instead the answer was simpler, I was already -on- that page, and there was no good titling or other indications of the fact.
I began to check out more specified reports, but at nearly every click came another lengthy browser freeze. It became such a problem I would have suggested the print source of valueline over the internet database if I were assisting a patron, so I abandoned further searches. I know from familiarity with Valueline that it is full to bursting with useful figures and information, but a laggy day at best to terrible coding at worse make me hesitant to add this to a list of first-response online sources. If I had another alternative, I would use it over Valueline's frustratingly slow performance.
Wall Street Journal Online
It's lovely to have a source to get past the WSJ's paywall, of course, but other than that I'd rarely made use of this database before. What immediately struck me were the search refinements available. While selections such as publication title and date are frequent limiters, WSJ goes beyond, offering options for location, language, person, subject and even tags to be selected. The date-limiting comes with a lovely visual bar-graph to show how much content is available from a given time period, making it easy to know how strictly you're limiting a search by timeline, and showing as well a visual timeline of when a given topic/search term was producing a lot of results in the media. It's an intuitive set of options any researcher will instantly grasp the potential of. I hope that more of our databases follow that trend and provide such user-friendly tools.
The first set of results show that the pool of sources include business journals and serials as well as industry focused technical articles. Excellent materials for business research, and just what I would hope to see! The visual search left me uncertain here. The interface is slick and responsive, but the suggested sample search of "FM Radio" came back with so many technical articles that I'd likely need more information than either visual search format would provide. I suspect that for technical details I would want to skim some of the abstracts in ways the visual style doesn't permit at a glance. Less technical articles where I may be able to judge the content off a title more accurately would certainly be useful.
Econlit
Econlit seemed like a very simple, utilitarian search at first. The search instructions gave me little hope for a big discovery here, yet I did have one very pleasant surprise. Within my first three searches, I had a search that 'failed'. This didn't give me a blank results screen, or even an error screen. Instead, I found that in a very google-like move that the database had corrected my search terms and informed me of it with a bold message up top stating: Note: "Your initial search query did not yield any results. However, using SmartText Searching, results were found based on your keywords"
This is a wonderful step forward for databases, particularly those with controlled vocabulary. This enables users unfamiliar with the intricacies of controlled vocabulary systems to make use of them without devoting a great deal of time and care into learning the systems. Not only does this help direct users to the information that they're seeking, but it gives them enough feedback to begin teaching a more complicated search system to them. Sure, one encounter with this form of user correction is unlikely to make a huge difference, but repeated use of it will help the user form more appropriate search strategies each time.
Regional Business News does a good job from the macro to the micro. I began with world-spanning business news by looking up a few articles on BP, and worked my way back to something a little more local and closer to our hearts with one of my favorite Maine companies, LibraryThing! I don't have a lot to expand on, as the RBN delivered results quickly, clearly, and in full-text, which is all I tend to hope for from most Databases. :)
Value Line
Value Line certainly starts out as the black sheep of the databases for me. Not for it's content, but for poor design and execution. The first and most notable impact of Value Line is how it immediately locked my browser up for over 30 seconds. I would have quit out of the browser in normal circumstances, it was only my panic at potentially losing this current post that stayed my hand. Next came a moment of confusion as I tried to click on the link for the "Investment Survey" and got no results. The icon of a lock beside it made me wonder at first if I was missing some way of access, as it wasn't even making a request for the passport. Instead the answer was simpler, I was already -on- that page, and there was no good titling or other indications of the fact.
I began to check out more specified reports, but at nearly every click came another lengthy browser freeze. It became such a problem I would have suggested the print source of valueline over the internet database if I were assisting a patron, so I abandoned further searches. I know from familiarity with Valueline that it is full to bursting with useful figures and information, but a laggy day at best to terrible coding at worse make me hesitant to add this to a list of first-response online sources. If I had another alternative, I would use it over Valueline's frustratingly slow performance.
Wall Street Journal Online
It's lovely to have a source to get past the WSJ's paywall, of course, but other than that I'd rarely made use of this database before. What immediately struck me were the search refinements available. While selections such as publication title and date are frequent limiters, WSJ goes beyond, offering options for location, language, person, subject and even tags to be selected. The date-limiting comes with a lovely visual bar-graph to show how much content is available from a given time period, making it easy to know how strictly you're limiting a search by timeline, and showing as well a visual timeline of when a given topic/search term was producing a lot of results in the media. It's an intuitive set of options any researcher will instantly grasp the potential of. I hope that more of our databases follow that trend and provide such user-friendly tools.
Saturday, November 3, 2012
Week 5 - Novelist
Novelist is likely to be my favorite of all the MARVEL databases, and in this I'm sure I'm not alone. It just comes in handy in so many ways!
When playing around with the various views that results can come in, I quickly reaffirmed that 'Detailed' was one of my favorite views. Like many librarians, I'm a glutton for information, and being able to read a synopsis along with the other quick-view information lets me check with a patron that I've matched the book they're seeking, or allows me to give a 'quick sell' pitch to see if a new title might be a book that appeals to their tastes.
I was struck by the thought that the 'grid' view might help in instances where the strongest memory a patron has of the book is of the cover image.
The Book, Series, and Author Read-Alike suggestions are wonderful when you're in a pinch. When providing Reader's Advisory services I often find that I have my own read-alikes that pop to mind. When my first choices are checked out, or I'm asked about one of the genre's I'm not as knowledgeable about, Novelist provides quick options that are often quite handy.
A great way to expand this beyond face-to-face interactions and to encourage discovery of similar works would be to make bookmarks printed with Novelist read-alike choices and leave them in the appropriate book. For the books that are really hot item and won't stay on the shelves, I sometimes make a mock stand-in with the cover image on one side and basic information and a bar-code on the reverse. (For easy requests when brought to the circulation desk) Including Novelist's read-alike lists would help give patrons a book in hand to walk out with while they wait for their request.
When playing around with the various views that results can come in, I quickly reaffirmed that 'Detailed' was one of my favorite views. Like many librarians, I'm a glutton for information, and being able to read a synopsis along with the other quick-view information lets me check with a patron that I've matched the book they're seeking, or allows me to give a 'quick sell' pitch to see if a new title might be a book that appeals to their tastes.
I was struck by the thought that the 'grid' view might help in instances where the strongest memory a patron has of the book is of the cover image.
The Book, Series, and Author Read-Alike suggestions are wonderful when you're in a pinch. When providing Reader's Advisory services I often find that I have my own read-alikes that pop to mind. When my first choices are checked out, or I'm asked about one of the genre's I'm not as knowledgeable about, Novelist provides quick options that are often quite handy.
A great way to expand this beyond face-to-face interactions and to encourage discovery of similar works would be to make bookmarks printed with Novelist read-alike choices and leave them in the appropriate book. For the books that are really hot item and won't stay on the shelves, I sometimes make a mock stand-in with the cover image on one side and basic information and a bar-code on the reverse. (For easy requests when brought to the circulation desk) Including Novelist's read-alike lists would help give patrons a book in hand to walk out with while they wait for their request.
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