You are currently browsing the monthly archive for October, 2007.
I’m glad to be back from my journey west for the AASL conference. I had a great time presenting to an audience of professors, researchers, technology experts, teachers, administrators, and fellow librarians, as well as attending dynamite sessions. At one of the sessions, the presenter (Joyce Valenza) mentioned some nifty web 2.0 tools I haven’t had a chance to play with yet (some I’d heard of, some I hadn’t).
If you’ve used any of the following widgets, let me know what you think of them:
- Voicethread
- The Flickr Toys Badge Maker and Motivator (and there are many others)
- Animoto
Talking to lots of librarians who share my passion for continually improving library services and research-related teaching also motivated me to move forward with more ideas I have for the MW library blog, such as integrating surveys/polls and adding search tools for finding blogs and podcasts to our bookmark account.
If you haven’t heard, check out what Coach Hall and his students at MLWGS have been doing with art news using CoRank. In addition, Mr. Benesh and his students have been using a data-sharing tool called Swivel.
What ideas do you have? Let me know!
Read gazes out at the fog-shrouded San Francisco Bay alongside this memorial to sailors (you can see the fog rolling off of the mountains in the background). You’ll find this same memorial beside Lake Champlain in Burlington, Vermont. Have you seen this sailor in other ports?
Read enjoyed a clear sunny day beside the San Francisco Bay today, exploring Fisherman’s Wharf and Alcatraz Island. His visit to Alcatraz transported him with its educational and engaging audio tour and startled him with the unexpected beauty he found in such a rugged, inhospitable place.
How many of you read the bestselling novel Al Capone Does My Shirts (2004) in middle school? It’s about Moose Flanagan and his family moving to Alacatraz in 1935 when his father gets a job at the prison.
Stiff and weary after nearly 12 hours in airports and airplanes, Read felt rejuvenated by the beautiful view from Vista Point on the north end of the Golden Gate bridge.
Meet Read (pronounced like the color), the library dragon for the LMC @ MW - friends of readers, knowledge questers, and dragons everywhere, particularly the MLWGS Green Dragons. Read will be accompanying me on my journey to the AASL conference next week. Check the library blog (and photo gallery) for updates on Read’s adventures.
Starting in 2nd nine weeks, Read will be available for check out by faculty, coaches, and club sponsors so that he may accompany MLWGS students on their adventures - and have photos of his adventures added to the library’s photo gallery.
A few minutes ago, a couple students checked out the amazing attention to detail on the nearly bald head of poet Allen Ginsberg in this pencil portrait by Mr. Bear O’Bryan.
This portrait and several more are currently on display in the main area of the library media center. Drop by to take a look - and watch for new displays of creative talent in this faculty showcase area approximately every four weeks.
Earlier this month, based on comments from students and teachers, I conducted a test of how accurately free citation-making tools rendered CMS and MLA formatting.
Using Diana Hacker’s Resource and Documentation Online web site as a guide to proper format, I compared Hacker’s sample citations with the ones the citation-making tools created when I input the information for three types of sources: a book with one author, a web site with no specific author for the web page content, and an article from a database.
The test results? Although Citation Machine and Source Aid claim to format citations in CMS/Chicago, neither do it very well. You’ll see the errors in red when you view the test results. Green indicates items that are not necessarily wrong, but that may be redundant or unnecessary. The bottom line? For CMS, consult pages 130-158 of Jules R. Benjamin’s A Student’s Guide to History instead (the book you used in FIRC as a freshman).
For MLA, NoodleBib Express was more accurate than the other two (in fact, 100% accurate for the three samples tested). A tip when using this tool to cite an article in a database - when given the choice to enter the database information manually, DO enter it manually instead of using the subscription database wizard.
Have you ever searched the library catalog and found a source with the call number ZLaw? Where are materials with this mysterious call number located? You’ll find these sources in the Making of Modern Law (MOML) database.
You can access these sources through the library catalog OR through the database. In the library catalog, select the WebConnect tab when you’re viewing the record for the item and then click on the WebConnect button to open the item within the MOML database.
OR open the MOML database from this post or the Databases page, do a title search for the item, and - voila - you can read it on your computer screen.
The MOML database is accessible from school, or from home with the user name and password for the Gale databases.
I discovered an intriguing online exhibit in an email newsletter I receive weekly. The exhibit is from the Exploratorium (The museum of science, art and human perception in San Francisco) and focuses on listening. Check out “listening to nature” with wildlife tracker Doniga Markegard and let me know what you think - is listening a skill we’re losing as a culture? If so, how do we reclaim and nurture it?
A few students have asked me where to find the links to our online databases on this new library site. You’ll find them on the Databases page (this should be on the navigation menu near the top of the page - beside Home and About). User names and passwords are available in the library. Thank you for your feedback - based on your comments, I changed the page name (and menu link) from Articles to Databases since Databases seemed to make sense to more people. Keep the feedback coming!
The library collection includes preparation books for several AP and SAT tests. They are located near the main group of computers. Please see Ms. Sellors or a library volunteer to check one out.
These books are available through the generosity of your peers who have donated them to the library. Do you have a recent AP or SAT prep book from which others might benefit? Consider donating it!
Are you familiar with this source type? In the age of digital archives, particularly open access ones, this is a term you’ll want to know.
“Eprints are the digital texts of peer-reviewed research articles, before and after refereeing. Before refereeing and publication, the draft is called a preprint. The refereed, accepted final draft is called a postprint” (ePrints FAQ). They are integral to the open access movement in the academic research community - primarily in scientific fields (a movement with both supporters and detractors) and can be found in archives and digital repositories around the globe such as Cornell’s arXiv and many in ROAR.
Keep in mind that citation-making tools like Citation Machine (which now supports Chicago style), NoodleBib Express, and Source Aid (supports Chicago and CSE) are only as accurate as the information you input. This includes which source type you select from their menus.
For instance, if you find an article online, take a minute to determine whether you’re viewing an online magazine, an article from a database (free or subscription), report on an organization web site, etc. - and then pick the correct source type (if available) in the citation-making tool. Over the past week, I’ve noticed many students incorrectly choosing web site as the source type when they should be selecting online journal or article from a database.
Since formatting is often lost when you copy and paste, check your finished citation against an example from Diana Hacker’s Research and Documentation Online for MLA , APA , Chicago, or CSE (select the source type from the drop-down menu on the page).
You may find that using Hacker’s site, a similar reputable site recommended by your teacher, or an actual printed style manual is more efficient than typing the pieces of the citation into a citation-maker and then fixing the formatting after you copy and paste it into Word.
If you discover an online resource that would benefit students and faculty who share your interest in a particular field of study, please consider submitting an annotated link for possible inclusion in the library’s del.icio.us account.
To submit a resource to Ms. Sellors for consideration, log in to your del.icio.us account and as you annotate and tag the resource for your account, simply include the tag for:dragonlibrary.
You are also welcome to copy bookmarks you find in the dragonlibrary account to your personal account by clicking the SAVE THIS link beside the bookmark.
