Sunday, May 20, 2012
Final Project
I couldn't figure out how to link my powerpoint presentation!! I dropped it in the drop box and your email. SORRY!
Blog Reflection #8
This is my first time taking any library related class and I believe I have learned an incredible amount in the last few months about researching and databases available to patrons. I believe patrons need to be taught about all the resources out there that are available to them and not just library resources. Instruction is not limited to face-to-face. In addition to face-to-face instruction, online chats and email contact can be used very effectively to spread information about research and the information available. I chose an academic library to talk further about and a college student would be my number one patron at this type of library. I think the best types of library instruction that should be made available to college students are online resources. I know from personal experience that life can be overwhelmingly busy and having an online chat available through the library website has proved to be a valuable commodity. Also being able to email a librarian for a request works to college student's advantages, as many students have full schedules and work in addition to school.
Sunday, April 8, 2012
Blog Reflection #7
When advising a student about using information contained on the web for crashes caused by texting while driving I would first warn them about some misleading sources on the internet. I would make sure they knew to validate the website they were using before taking the information provided into account.
I would then steer them in a direction of a .gov website which I believe would have the most accurate and up to date information. I would next suggest an encyclopedia.com site, which would have good facts and reliable information on the subject. Third, I would send them to Proquest to look up articles about crashes that have recently happened, which would provide first hand accounts of people in the situation they're researching. Next, I would suggest wikipedia because it possibly has some statistics and background information on the subject, but would require more research to make sure the information was correct. Lastly, I would suggest to the student to search via their favorite search engine. This search can be overwhelming and bring a huge amount of results, with a lot of false leads.
I would then steer them in a direction of a .gov website which I believe would have the most accurate and up to date information. I would next suggest an encyclopedia.com site, which would have good facts and reliable information on the subject. Third, I would send them to Proquest to look up articles about crashes that have recently happened, which would provide first hand accounts of people in the situation they're researching. Next, I would suggest wikipedia because it possibly has some statistics and background information on the subject, but would require more research to make sure the information was correct. Lastly, I would suggest to the student to search via their favorite search engine. This search can be overwhelming and bring a huge amount of results, with a lot of false leads.
Sunday, March 25, 2012
Blog Reflection #6
The amount of resources we have gone over in the last few weeks is definetly overwhelming. It's always tempting to fall back into my old habit of returning to my homepage, Google, to do all my researching. Although it's tempting I really appreciate the new resources we have been shown throughout this course. I am able to do more focused and concise research in areas online that I never knew existed before. I really enjoy the homework research questions and have fun with them every week. Exploring these websites freely makes the homework more fun and interesting, actually getting me to use the tools you have provided for us. Thanks for a great class so far!
Sunday, March 11, 2012
Blog Reflection #5
When using search engines like Google to find information it seems as though the answer you come up with is the luck of the draw. Which website title looks most promising? Which website seems to contain the information you're looking for? When using online databases such as ProQuest you can rely more heavily on the accuracy of the information provided, whereas information found through the many search engines can be misleading and even completely incorrect. Determining if information you have found on the internet is accurate is somewhat of a science. A great way to start off is to make sure the website you are viewing is maintained or funded by a reputable source. Generally a learning institution is a source that provides accurate and supported information.
A blog that I have referred to several times before is written by Dr. Robert Harris called virtual salt. One of the links on virtual salt provides guidelines for Evaluating internet research sources. A good tip Dr. Harris gives is the CARS checklist. When evaluating a website for accuracy and quality, using the CARS checklist is one of the first things I think of. CARS stands for credibility, accuracy, reasonableness and support. This checklist helps to separate good quality sites from bad quality sites and makes it easy to weed out the innaccurate information.
A blog that I have referred to several times before is written by Dr. Robert Harris called virtual salt. One of the links on virtual salt provides guidelines for Evaluating internet research sources. A good tip Dr. Harris gives is the CARS checklist. When evaluating a website for accuracy and quality, using the CARS checklist is one of the first things I think of. CARS stands for credibility, accuracy, reasonableness and support. This checklist helps to separate good quality sites from bad quality sites and makes it easy to weed out the innaccurate information.
Sunday, February 26, 2012
Blog Reflection #4
These past few weeks have opened my eyes into the work of print resources. Although I knew they existed, I relyed so heavily on internet resources that print resource have practically become obsolete and I believe this is the view of so many people my age and younger. If I were managing a library and deciding on what new materials to buy, I would put the majority of the money toward internet resources. I believe print resources are slowly, but surely becoming taken over. If you have the proper online datebases it makes research a simple, more streamlined effort. Before purchasing any of the new materials for the library I would do lots of research on the internet resources, finding the one/ones that would be most beneficial to my particular library. Using internet resources not only allows patrons to view millions of options by searching a topic right in front of them, it also allows for quick and easy browsing of this material. As opposed to finding a section in the library on the topic you are researching and going through books individually until you find the one you need to complete your research.
Sunday, February 19, 2012
Project #1
As I am taking a sociology class this semester, I decided to do my project on different aspects of sociology, including the broad idea of sociology, race, ethnicity and discrimination.
Reference Website #1
1) Race: Are We So Different? http://www.understandingrace.org/home.html
2) The American Anthropological Association
3) This website is about a project by the American Anthropological Association exploring race.
4) Although there are a few things for sale on the website, I believe they are fairly unbiased and for the most part just trying to educate.
5) The purpose of this website is to open people's eye's about the different aspects of race, through history, human variation and lived experiences.
6) This website is very valuable to someone exploring the idea of race and the questions it brings up. This gives views of experiences from real people past and present dealing with racial issues and explains how we can get past judging someone by the color of their skin.
7) There's a resources tab that you can click, leading you to a page that has links for families, teachers and researchers. There are also links for scholarly papers, related websites and more on this page.
8) The information is organized by easy to click and view links, and readily available to all that would like to view it.
9) I'd rate this resource a 9 because it's easy to use and contains a lot of information.
10) The website has a copyright of 2011, so there's a possibility it needs some updating.
11) I would say this is a credible site because it is a project of the American Anthropological Association, which is well known.
12) I don't have any suggestions for improvment. The site is attractive and easy to use.
Reference Website #2
1) The SocioLog http://www.sociolog.com/
2) Julian Dierkes
3) There is no about us information on the website.
4) Julian Dierkes is also using this website to plug his blog and a link for books he has written. Although he is providing a good resource guide to different aspects of sociology it seems as though he has his best interest at heart.
5) The purpose of this website is to provide lists of different sociology departments in Canada and the U.S., in addition to different links for referencing sociology.
6) Students can use this site to explore different institutions with sociology departments, research different topics in sociology and also have contact with other students and professors of their same area of study.
7) You're able to search the site by topic, country, alphabetical and many more options.
8) The information is freely available and very well organized in a column on the left hand side, with clearly titled links.
9) I would rate this resource an 7 because it's fairly straightforward and gives you many options to explore, but some of the links I tried didn't work.
10) It states the website was last updated in 2006, explaining why some of the links I tried didn't work.
11) At first I believed this to be a credible site but once I did more exploring and found that the last update hasn't been for 5-6 years it lost come crediblity because I believe for a website to be completely credible it needs to be constantly updated.
12) A great way to improve the site would be to update it and make sure all the links were working properly.
Reference Website #3
1) Resources for and about Multiracial/Multiethnic Americans http://www.ipl.org/div/pfarch/entry/81356
2) It just says that it is no longer being maintained by ipl2
3) None
4) It seems as though this website was originally educationally sponsored, but no longer being maintained.
5) The purpose of this website is to give resources to students and researchers looking into the topic of multiracial and multiethnic Americans.
6) This website has value to students by providing links to different resources and organizations with more information on the topic they are researching.
7) You are unable to search on this webiste but it does provide you with links to internet resources, books and magazines, organizations and associations and other places to look.
8) All the information is free to anyone looking and is organized by bold black headlines and blue hyper links.
9) This website would be rated a 5 as a reference resource because for how broad the topic is, it doesn't provide as much information and additional links as I would have hoped for.
10) I'm unsure if the content is up to date because it is stated at the top of the site that it is not actively maintained.
11) I wouldn't use this a a credible reference site in itself because of it not being actively maintained. I found that some of the links it listed were credible and run by well known organizations.
12) A great way to improve the site would be to maintain it and update often.
Reference Website #4
1) Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Discrimination Against Women http://www.un.org/womenwatch/daw/cedaw/
2) United Nations sponsors this website.
3) The division for the advancement of women, department of social and economic affairs.
4) This is a government sponsored website, providing straightforward, unbiased information.
5) The purpose of this site is to promote the elimination of discrimination against women worldwide. The site gives information about conventions, history and so much more.
6) This is a valuable site for anyone researching this topic because of the vast amount of information available through it. This site expands the topic into many different directions and smaller topics the further you look into it.
7) A search box is provided at the top of the site, allowing you to search by keyword.
8) All information is freely available and organized in a list on the left hand side of the site with hyper links.
9) I would rate this site an 8 because although it provides an extensive amount of information, I believe it could have been organized slightly better.
10) Although the copyright is 2009, it seems as though all the content is up to date and I would believe that the UN keeps on top of the information they make available to the public.
11) Yes, I would say this is a credible reference site, being run by the Department of Economic and Social Affairs.
12) The only suggestion I would have to improve the website for reference use is to make the topic hyperlinks larger on the left side and the subtopic links a little smaller because it was hard to distinguish between the two.
Reference Website #1
1) Race: Are We So Different? http://www.understandingrace.org/home.html
2) The American Anthropological Association
3) This website is about a project by the American Anthropological Association exploring race.
4) Although there are a few things for sale on the website, I believe they are fairly unbiased and for the most part just trying to educate.
5) The purpose of this website is to open people's eye's about the different aspects of race, through history, human variation and lived experiences.
6) This website is very valuable to someone exploring the idea of race and the questions it brings up. This gives views of experiences from real people past and present dealing with racial issues and explains how we can get past judging someone by the color of their skin.
7) There's a resources tab that you can click, leading you to a page that has links for families, teachers and researchers. There are also links for scholarly papers, related websites and more on this page.
8) The information is organized by easy to click and view links, and readily available to all that would like to view it.
9) I'd rate this resource a 9 because it's easy to use and contains a lot of information.
10) The website has a copyright of 2011, so there's a possibility it needs some updating.
11) I would say this is a credible site because it is a project of the American Anthropological Association, which is well known.
12) I don't have any suggestions for improvment. The site is attractive and easy to use.
Reference Website #2
1) The SocioLog http://www.sociolog.com/
2) Julian Dierkes
3) There is no about us information on the website.
4) Julian Dierkes is also using this website to plug his blog and a link for books he has written. Although he is providing a good resource guide to different aspects of sociology it seems as though he has his best interest at heart.
5) The purpose of this website is to provide lists of different sociology departments in Canada and the U.S., in addition to different links for referencing sociology.
6) Students can use this site to explore different institutions with sociology departments, research different topics in sociology and also have contact with other students and professors of their same area of study.
7) You're able to search the site by topic, country, alphabetical and many more options.
8) The information is freely available and very well organized in a column on the left hand side, with clearly titled links.
9) I would rate this resource an 7 because it's fairly straightforward and gives you many options to explore, but some of the links I tried didn't work.
10) It states the website was last updated in 2006, explaining why some of the links I tried didn't work.
11) At first I believed this to be a credible site but once I did more exploring and found that the last update hasn't been for 5-6 years it lost come crediblity because I believe for a website to be completely credible it needs to be constantly updated.
12) A great way to improve the site would be to update it and make sure all the links were working properly.
Reference Website #3
1) Resources for and about Multiracial/Multiethnic Americans http://www.ipl.org/div/pfarch/entry/81356
2) It just says that it is no longer being maintained by ipl2
3) None
4) It seems as though this website was originally educationally sponsored, but no longer being maintained.
5) The purpose of this website is to give resources to students and researchers looking into the topic of multiracial and multiethnic Americans.
6) This website has value to students by providing links to different resources and organizations with more information on the topic they are researching.
7) You are unable to search on this webiste but it does provide you with links to internet resources, books and magazines, organizations and associations and other places to look.
8) All the information is free to anyone looking and is organized by bold black headlines and blue hyper links.
9) This website would be rated a 5 as a reference resource because for how broad the topic is, it doesn't provide as much information and additional links as I would have hoped for.
10) I'm unsure if the content is up to date because it is stated at the top of the site that it is not actively maintained.
11) I wouldn't use this a a credible reference site in itself because of it not being actively maintained. I found that some of the links it listed were credible and run by well known organizations.
12) A great way to improve the site would be to maintain it and update often.
Reference Website #4
1) Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Discrimination Against Women http://www.un.org/womenwatch/daw/cedaw/
2) United Nations sponsors this website.
3) The division for the advancement of women, department of social and economic affairs.
4) This is a government sponsored website, providing straightforward, unbiased information.
5) The purpose of this site is to promote the elimination of discrimination against women worldwide. The site gives information about conventions, history and so much more.
6) This is a valuable site for anyone researching this topic because of the vast amount of information available through it. This site expands the topic into many different directions and smaller topics the further you look into it.
7) A search box is provided at the top of the site, allowing you to search by keyword.
8) All information is freely available and organized in a list on the left hand side of the site with hyper links.
9) I would rate this site an 8 because although it provides an extensive amount of information, I believe it could have been organized slightly better.
10) Although the copyright is 2009, it seems as though all the content is up to date and I would believe that the UN keeps on top of the information they make available to the public.
11) Yes, I would say this is a credible reference site, being run by the Department of Economic and Social Affairs.
12) The only suggestion I would have to improve the website for reference use is to make the topic hyperlinks larger on the left side and the subtopic links a little smaller because it was hard to distinguish between the two.
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