Wednesday, June 20, 2012
unit 7
ines/Journals
Primary/Secondary
Periodical Indexes
2. From the Library Web Site, select FIND and articles and databases, this takes you to page with an alphabetical list of databases and on the right hand side the Librarian Tips area lists the popular databases; start with either ProQuest Research Library Complete or EBSCOhost Academic Search
3. Refer to the comment I left in your blog post for Unit 6 (where you wrote the search statement
for your topic). I may have suggested revisions or options for your search statement. If so, play
around with your original and my revisions and see if there are any differences. You will likely revise
this statement even more as you progress through the assignment and build your vocabulary.
Enter your search statement in the database.
Examine the results. Did your search statement retrieve relevant results? Did you get too few results?
Too many? Revise your search if necessary, taking time to play around with different words and ways
to combine them.
4. Focus on types of articles. Once you have a search that seems to be effective, Locate three
different types of articles – credible and relevant to your topic -- as follows:
a) One article from a popular magazine
b) One research article from a scholarly journal. Examine the article to make sure it is a research
article, and not a book review, editorial, etc.
c) One article from a newspaper (ProQuest is the best database for newspaper articles).
Refer to the information in the IRIS Tutorial (popular/scholarly) if you need a refresher.
The images show how to limit:
For each of your three articles, use the citation tools in the databases to get a rough citation.
Choose MLA format.
But be WARNED: Database-generated citations will create a citation that’s pretty close to “correct.” but for most college classes you will likely need to tweek citations to make them conform to a format that your instructor specifies. Because this activity is focusing on search techniques and types of sources, the citation provided by the databases is close enough for this assignment.
5. Post an entry (or entries) in your blog that document/s:
1. The successful search statement you used. Include the actual format as well as any search modes you might have chosen.
2. Citation for an article in a popular magazine article, and an annotation:
What’s an annotation? An annotation is a short paragraph, 2-3 sentences, addressing why you chose this article. The annotation can address the evaluation criteria you learned about in Unit 4. The annotation should not be a mini-summary of the article, rather, you’re explaining why it’s worth looking at. One good way to start an annotation is, “I chose this article because…” You do not need to read the article to write an annotation. A quick skim is sufficient. Even an article that’s not full text provides enough information to let you know if it would be useful.
By the way, a list of citations is called a bibliography. A list of citations that each has an annotation is called an annotated bibliography. Here is a page with tips on this topic. It’s on the library webpage (FIND, How to…, Annotated bibliography: Tips for writing).
3. Citation for a research article in a scholarly journal, and an annotation. The annotation for this citation should include a brief discussion noting three things that identify this as a research article.
4. Citation for an article from a newspaper, and an annotation.
5. A paragraph summarizing this activity, including a discussion on how your search statement, concepts, words, etc changed (or did not change) as you worked through the activity.
unit 9
The search engine that I am using is Google and the topic I am researching is Ayn Rand.
Search one
ayn rand site:.gov
Library of Congress
The Thoughts of Ayn Rand
Library Receives Collection of Author's Handwritten Essays
May 2003
6-20-2012
http://www.loc.gov/loc/lcib/0305/random.html
This site is credible because of the authority, Library of Congress and the purpose, to describe a new collection of writings by Ayn Rand in a neutral way.
ayn rand site:.com
The Ayn Rand Lexicon: Objectivism from A to Z
Wednesday, June 20, 2012
http://aynrandlexicon.com/
This site is not very likely to be credible especially when it comes to a controversial topic like Ayn Rand. The editor of the book that the website promotes was a long time friend of Rand and therefore he may not be able to present an unbiased viewpoint.
ayn rand site:.edu
Ayn Rand on the Virtue of Selfishness
Tuesday, February 10, 1998
http://brindedcow.umd.edu/140/rand.html
© copyright Allen Stairs, 1997
This site appears to be that of a college student who has posted an assignment on Ayn Rand. He argues against many of the ideals that Rand was known for. For this reason, I believe this site is not credible. Also, the author provides no citations, no links to sources.
ayn rand site:.org
Ayn Rand Institute
http://www.aynrand.org/site/PageServer?pagename=index
The Ayn Rand Institute is considered to be the foremost authority on all things AR. And they do have an enormous collection of writings and links to her work as well as the work of others in Objectivism, the philosophy founded on AR's principles. The site does however only publish information that serves it's purpose of promoting the works of AR. No contrary viewpoints are to be found.
I think that it is valuable to be able to search for specific top level domains. I found that the only results I felt were trustworthy were the .gov sites. This would make Ayn Rand roll over in her grave! The sites that I found within the other searches seemed to be far more likely to have the purpose of trying to sway opinion one way or another. If I were really researching a topic, I would try all of them top level domains to see what sort of results I could get.
Tuesday, June 19, 2012
Final exam
The Future of Print: The Book
This was not an easy title to find! First, I had to determine what Feliciter was. A bit of searching told me that it’s a publication put out by the Canadian Library Association. I was able to locate the journal by searching the database on the CLA.CA website. Full text versions of all of the issues of this journal are available online. The link to this particular journal is here: http://www.cla.ca/Content/NavigationMenu/Resources/Feliciter/PastIssues/2011/Feliciter5Vol57_w.pdfAuthority- Distad is a librarian at the University of Alberta. He is also the author of a few books. This would make him a good authority on the topic of the future of books.
Sources- Distad draws on some interesting sources for his article. Most are historical references to past perceptions that books would be replaced by some newer technology.
Purpose- Distad is arguing that e-books and readers will not replace the printed book, but will exist along side it.
Coverage- Distad covers the topic, but in a superficial way. He doesn't go into real statistics to back up his claims that books are in no danger.
Timeliness- This article is less than 1 year old, so still very relevant to the topic.
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Are books dead, and can authors survive?
I typed the full title of the article into a Google search. The first result was for the full text Guardian article.
Authority- The article was written by Ewan Morrison, a well-known Scottish author. I believe that would make him an authority on books and the future of books. However this fact can also make his opinions biased.
Sources- Morrison quotes many sources and statistics in this article. He is sure to note where the information that he is using comes from. Some of his sources include Barnes and Noble, Amazon, and Wired Magazine, all of whom are reputable sources.
Purpose- Morrison’s purpose with this article is to share statistics about what happens when a particular medium goes digital and to predict the future of the printed book based on those statistics. Evenness- the overall tone of the article seems to be even.
Coverage- Morrison was very thorough in the coverage of the topic. He even went so far as to touch on the porn industry and the effect the Internet has had on it’s sales over the years.
Timeliness- The article is less than a year old, it is very timely.
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
The Future of Print: The Book
In this article, the author, Merrill Distad, discusses why he feels that the printed book is in no danger of becoming a relic of the past. He draws upon several historical sources to show times when men have feared that the book would be replaced by some new technology. He argues that because this had not come to pass any of those times, it surely will not come to pass now.
He feels that people have such a strong emotional connection to books that they would never be able to let them go. I think he wrong on this point. I think as we become more connected and dependent on technology in the future, we will move away from single use items like books. Why would a person choose to carry boxes and boxes of books, when they can have all of their books with them at once in a device that weighs about a half pound.
He also argues that college students would not want e-books because they could not sell them back at the end of the semester. I would really like to see statistics for this assertion. I disagree with him on this point very strongly. As a college student, I would purchase all of my text books as e-books if that option were available to me and the price was fair. I believe that e-books should cost less than half that of print books because the cost of production and distribution is almost nothing.
Distad does make a very good point about children and literacy however. I would agree that it is vital for development for children to have books at a very young age. But does this exclude e-readers? I can see this going either way. Children today begin using computers as early as 3, an e-reader could be adapted to be usable by a small child. I don't know that there is anything about a book that could not be gained through an e-book.
I think that Distad is correct in that tree books will not be replaced e-books. Not all of them any way. There will always be print books, but e-books will most likely become the way of the future. Portability and convergent technology is the way of the future.
Sunday, June 3, 2012
Unit 8
In your blog, please let me know the name of the search tool, and teach me about 5 search features of this search tool. You only need to do this for ONE search tool per column from that page.
1. Search tools - Gigablast.
Gigablast has a new feature called Event Guru, the largest event search engine in the U.S. It claims to be 90% wind powered. It is a human powered search engine, so all of the content is added by users. This is similar to wikipedia, but instead of being a dictionary, it's a search engine. The advanced search feature will allow you to refine your search as follows,
2. Metasearch tools - Meta Crawler. MetaCrawler seems to search several search engines at once for specific items. It compiles all of the top hits from all of the major search engines. It also allows users to refine their searches to videos, images, shopping etc. Dogpile and infoseek are other examples of meta crawlers.
3. Subject directories - Subject directories are online collections that
organize resources by subject. Most seem to be linked to specific libraries. There are some that are for searching the Library of Congress and others that will let you search the deep web for things that are not readily accessible by using a regular search Engine like Google. CompletePlanet is a deep web search engine. It will search over 70,000 databases and specialty search engines. The topics it will search are
1. Search tools - Gigablast.
Gigablast has a new feature called Event Guru, the largest event search engine in the U.S. It claims to be 90% wind powered. It is a human powered search engine, so all of the content is added by users. This is similar to wikipedia, but instead of being a dictionary, it's a search engine. The advanced search feature will allow you to refine your search as follows,
| Search for... | ||
|---|---|---|
| all of these words | ||
| this exact phrase | ||
| and this exact phrase | ||
| any of these words | ||
| none of these words | ||
| In this language: | ||
| Restrict to this URL | ||
| Pages that link to this URL | ||
| Site Clustering | yes no | |
| Number of summary excerpts | 0 1 2 3 4 5 | |
| Results per Page | 10 20 30 40 50 100 | |
| Restrict to these Sites | ||
2. Metasearch tools - Meta Crawler. MetaCrawler seems to search several search engines at once for specific items. It compiles all of the top hits from all of the major search engines. It also allows users to refine their searches to videos, images, shopping etc. Dogpile and infoseek are other examples of meta crawlers.
3. Subject directories - Subject directories are online collections that
organize resources by subject. Most seem to be linked to specific libraries. There are some that are for searching the Library of Congress and others that will let you search the deep web for things that are not readily accessible by using a regular search Engine like Google. CompletePlanet is a deep web search engine. It will search over 70,000 databases and specialty search engines. The topics it will search are
Agriculture
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