Exploring these online resources has been very educational. I knew that there was lots of resources out there but I didn't know that these resources were available through the library. I know that I will be using them in the future especially if I'm teaching next year. It's good to know of reliable resources that are appropriate for children/students/adults and accurate. I would say that the most exciting resource for me right now would be the geneology resources. However, I'm not sure how much I will use them considering my distance from the library/school. I know World Book and Learning Express will be used most by me and my family. If I am teaching next year in the same capacity as this year, I'm sure some of the research resources such as SIRS and Proquest are going to come in handy. Printing out the handouts to have on hand for parents and students maybe a great idea just in case it comes up.
I have already been promoting these resources to friends, family and collegues. Many people don't know that the resources are there and are intruged when I tell them that I've been doing this challenge. I need to share this with the homeschool families I know, too!
This has been a very educational experience. I thank Jane and Julie for providing this learning opportunity.
Thursday, March 22, 2012
Heritage Quest
I have spend the last several hours on Heritage Quest as well as half an hour long distance on the phone with my Dad. Left a message on Mom's phone. Wow! Found lots of cool stuff. I was able to locate several family members on the Census and find family names in several different books. I don't have many names that go back very far and some information is pretty vague. It is always very neat to see a digitized copy of the actual document.
I decided to google some of the names I had a found a geneology that someone already had. I then took the names and punched them into Heritage Quest to check them. You have no idea how excited I am. I meet my paternal grandparents when I graduated college in '98. Our family is not that close. Even when I called my Dad, he didn't know much and doesn't really care too. I found my great, great, great grandparents. They came from Ireland and then to Canada and ended up in Michigan where most of that side still lives. I will definately be using this resource more!
There were several publications that our name appeared in too. I tried to search Proquest for those publications but no luck!
I am so excited I can hardly stand it. My husband is warning me not to become a computer zombie since I've been on most of the day!
I decided to google some of the names I had a found a geneology that someone already had. I then took the names and punched them into Heritage Quest to check them. You have no idea how excited I am. I meet my paternal grandparents when I graduated college in '98. Our family is not that close. Even when I called my Dad, he didn't know much and doesn't really care too. I found my great, great, great grandparents. They came from Ireland and then to Canada and ended up in Michigan where most of that side still lives. I will definately be using this resource more!
There were several publications that our name appeared in too. I tried to search Proquest for those publications but no luck!
I am so excited I can hardly stand it. My husband is warning me not to become a computer zombie since I've been on most of the day!
Sandborn Maps
I chose to look at Sturgis. That is the closest city to where I live and the one I'm most familiar with. One of the things that stuck out to me was the growth of Sturgis from 1885 to 1891. In 6 years, the city seemed to almost triple, if not more. And basically from then on the town just kept on growing and getting denser. That was over 100 years ago. I expect that kind of growth now but back then? Wow!
I'm sure Main Street is full of building that have been around since then but I personally couldn't pick one out that I knew for sure was that old. I'm also sure there are many houses but I couldn't say exactly which ones. I could zoom in and around the maps and if I was really familiar I'm sure it would be much more exciting. I'll have to locate an old building next time I'm in town and try to find it on the map.
There is a Sanborn Map legend that explains the various types of construction, types of structures, their "fireproofness" and a glossary as well as an index on each map that explains the symbols. It would be very interesting to see the maps in color to see all the various materials used.
I'm sure Main Street is full of building that have been around since then but I personally couldn't pick one out that I knew for sure was that old. I'm also sure there are many houses but I couldn't say exactly which ones. I could zoom in and around the maps and if I was really familiar I'm sure it would be much more exciting. I'll have to locate an old building next time I'm in town and try to find it on the map.
There is a Sanborn Map legend that explains the various types of construction, types of structures, their "fireproofness" and a glossary as well as an index on each map that explains the symbols. It would be very interesting to see the maps in color to see all the various materials used.
Ancestry
Wow! I put my name in the search and there were 3 results that were me. The "wow" was that there was an area to click on neighbors. It listed several of the people in the neighborhood, along with spouses, phone number and years resided.
The family history part of this exercise is very interesting to me. I wish I could access this from home since I'm 45 miles away from the school/library. I am not very familiar with much of my family and I would love to get more info. My half-brother just told me the other day that he is doing some research on family history. He has been using Ancestry.com which I'm guessing is the commercial version of this. He has much of his mother's side of the family traced pretty far back but our Dad's side, not so much...yet!
I found my maternal grandmother and grandfather. There was more info on my grandfather than grandmother. I believe that I found my maternal great grandparents. There were from Puerto Rico. Neither had attended any schooling but they knew how to read and write. I found that out from the records I was able to access. Very interesting. I need to get more info from my parents about our familly in order to do more research.
When searching South Dakota in photos and maps, which took me a minute to figure out, I found many photos of people and buildings. I don't recall the number of results but it was lots.
I hope that I am able to complete all of this before the time is up, considering the distance I have to the school. Eeek!
The family history part of this exercise is very interesting to me. I wish I could access this from home since I'm 45 miles away from the school/library. I am not very familiar with much of my family and I would love to get more info. My half-brother just told me the other day that he is doing some research on family history. He has been using Ancestry.com which I'm guessing is the commercial version of this. He has much of his mother's side of the family traced pretty far back but our Dad's side, not so much...yet!
I found my maternal grandmother and grandfather. There was more info on my grandfather than grandmother. I believe that I found my maternal great grandparents. There were from Puerto Rico. Neither had attended any schooling but they knew how to read and write. I found that out from the records I was able to access. Very interesting. I need to get more info from my parents about our familly in order to do more research.
When searching South Dakota in photos and maps, which took me a minute to figure out, I found many photos of people and buildings. I don't recall the number of results but it was lots.
I hope that I am able to complete all of this before the time is up, considering the distance I have to the school. Eeek!
Wednesday, March 21, 2012
ArchiveGrid & CAMIO
ArchiveGrid would appear to have a crazy amount of "stuff". When searching "Sitting Bull Autograph Card", I learned that Sitting Bull or Tatanka Iyotake was a Native American leader that fought in many battles including the battle of Little Bighorn and was against the encroachment of the white men. Sitting Bull toured with the Buffalo Bill Cody's Wild West Show and was killed while resisting arrest. After going through all he did, that is ironic to me.
I did a search for Titanic passengers. Many of the results were family papers or correspondence regarding memorial funds for passengers and crew. Sources varied from New York City Department of Records & Information Services to Yale University to Mystic Seaport. I will be thinking about some other things to search. This would come in handy if you were doing research. The proximity search looks interesting too.
In CAMIO, you can put in your search and refine it very easily. You can refine format, subject, date and creator. Paul Revere is quite the silversmith. There are many photos of sterling tea service sets, a tea urn, teaspoons and other pieces. Who knew? Not I!
There were 63 results for Sioux, various formats, creators and times. From pencil drawings to clothing. Amazing.
I searched Georgia O'Keeffe and spelled her name incorrectly. It showed no matches. I knew that wasn't true so tried various spellings until I got it. Through this I learned that CAMIO will only search exactlly what you put in.
There are 69 results for O'Keeffe. Four of them being Gelatin Silver Prints. Never heard of such a thing! They are photographs of the artist. Therefore telling me that the results show things created by the artist as well as things containing the artist.
I was telling my in-laws about this resource and asked them how they thought it could be used by the community. My father-in-law said that when he was in 1st and 2nd grade his teacher used "masterpieces" to teach basic art concepts such as composition. I believe that would be a great use of this resource. We are far from many museums and such and this resource would be great to see those items we may not be able to see in person. Even if it's just for exposure to them.
The view favorites feature in Camio was very easy to use and fairly extensive. You can zoom in on an item and pan around to focus on a portion of the item. You can compare 2 works next to each other and scroll through others, create a slide show and even a webpage. This feature would be beneficial for someone comparing and contrasting styles or artists or anything really. Pretty neat.
I did a search for Titanic passengers. Many of the results were family papers or correspondence regarding memorial funds for passengers and crew. Sources varied from New York City Department of Records & Information Services to Yale University to Mystic Seaport. I will be thinking about some other things to search. This would come in handy if you were doing research. The proximity search looks interesting too.
In CAMIO, you can put in your search and refine it very easily. You can refine format, subject, date and creator. Paul Revere is quite the silversmith. There are many photos of sterling tea service sets, a tea urn, teaspoons and other pieces. Who knew? Not I!
There were 63 results for Sioux, various formats, creators and times. From pencil drawings to clothing. Amazing.
I searched Georgia O'Keeffe and spelled her name incorrectly. It showed no matches. I knew that wasn't true so tried various spellings until I got it. Through this I learned that CAMIO will only search exactlly what you put in.
There are 69 results for O'Keeffe. Four of them being Gelatin Silver Prints. Never heard of such a thing! They are photographs of the artist. Therefore telling me that the results show things created by the artist as well as things containing the artist.
I was telling my in-laws about this resource and asked them how they thought it could be used by the community. My father-in-law said that when he was in 1st and 2nd grade his teacher used "masterpieces" to teach basic art concepts such as composition. I believe that would be a great use of this resource. We are far from many museums and such and this resource would be great to see those items we may not be able to see in person. Even if it's just for exposure to them.
The view favorites feature in Camio was very easy to use and fairly extensive. You can zoom in on an item and pan around to focus on a portion of the item. You can compare 2 works next to each other and scroll through others, create a slide show and even a webpage. This feature would be beneficial for someone comparing and contrasting styles or artists or anything really. Pretty neat.
Friday, March 16, 2012
World Cat
When initially logging on to World Cat, it looks intimidating but pretty basic. I noticed that you could change the page to various languages, set up an account and have a staff resouce sharing. I saw the 13 databases that you could search.I found the various types of materials interesting as well as the ability to limit audience, content and format. I used advanced search, changed to title phrase and typed in The Elevator Family per my 10 yrs. request. There were 11 results and 671 libraries had result #1. Alexander Mitchell Library was the first library on the list. The book is found in Juvenile Fiction and contains elevators, hotels and motels for subjects. The author had 31 other results under his name some of which were duplicate titles. I had the option to access specific materials such as sample text and biographical information. When I did a different search, it gave me information of Genre, art techniques used and awards.
When searching through OAIster, I found a digital image of a log shanty, flag, woman and 7 boys. I got to see the very old photo that was possibly taken in South Dakota in 1908. The Stevens County Museum & Historical Society, in Morris, MN has possession of the original photo. Very cool resource.
It seems that other participants had trouble with long downloads or inability to access. Mine came right up, no problems.
When searching through OAIster, I found a digital image of a log shanty, flag, woman and 7 boys. I got to see the very old photo that was possibly taken in South Dakota in 1908. The Stevens County Museum & Historical Society, in Morris, MN has possession of the original photo. Very cool resource.
It seems that other participants had trouble with long downloads or inability to access. Mine came right up, no problems.
Saturday, March 10, 2012
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