and welcome to Week 5. This week, we’re going to try a library specific activity, and we’ll take a quick look at two collections of electronic books. While I’ll admit that few people like eBooks per se - they’re not particularly comfortable to read, nor can they be transported very easily [unless you’re using a laptop] they do have some interesting advantages. The major advantage is that they are immediately accessible, from wherever the student happens to be. That makes them particularly useful as a last minute sort of tool. Additionally, they’re easily searchable – not just the bibliographic information, but the entire text of the eBook. They also have some interesting features, one of which we’ll look at a bit later.
For this week, what I hope you’ll all do is take a look at a NetLibrary eBook that interests you, record the bibliographic information on your blog, and talk a bit about how useful you think it might be for our users. Also, take a peek at the Concept map in Credo Reference, and give us some indication about whether you think that would be useful.
Oesterle eBooks are available from: http://library.noctrl.edu/books/ - netLibrary is the larger collection of eBooks, and contains the full text of a large portion of the Project Gutenberg free e-text collection as well. Searching is easy, and most subjects are covered, though our collection is limited.
Credo Reference is a collection of 100 reference titles, dictionaries, subject encyclopedias and etc. Take a look around, but by all means, make sure that you give the Concept Map a try. If nothing else, it can serve as a good overview of a subject area, and can give you some additional ideas for search terms. If nothing else, the Concept Map is a fun piece of technology to play with, and make sure that you use the slider for the Link Levels, to add more nodes to the map. I think you may find it to be fun.We have a few other collections of eBooks as well, and they’re all located on that same page. If you’re interested, give those a quick look, too.
jjs
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3 comments:
In experimenting more with NetLibrary, I took the approach of trying to find a resource that I thought would be helpful to the students in one of the instruction sessions I've done this fall. I came up with "More Social Studies Through Children's Literature : An Integrated Approach" by Anthony D. Fredericks. This title was published by Teacher Ideas Press in 2000.
Remembering the days when I could barely figure out how to even get a student into a NetLibrary title, I think their service has come a very long way! (Or, maybe I have :) I like the navigation tools in the left hand bar - particularly working from the contents and being able to search the contents. The only thing I still find confusing when I first work with a title is figuring out how to get to the next page! One becomes so focused on that left hand navigation, that it's hard to remember to use the buttons in the upper right hand corner for this simple task.
I don't think I would advocate that a student go in and search NetLibrary directly. Our collection is just not big enough to make this practical. But, if they come across a title when searching CardinalCat, I would certainly suggest they take a look to see what it can offer on their subject. It certainly would be as easy and as effective, in many cases, as searching for an article available in full-text.
I don't see most of our students as being to the point of wanting to "curl up with their computer" just to read a good book, but I do think that they will make more use of these NetLibrary titles as subject matter fits their need - especially if we all can remember how to help them get started.
As for CredoReference... I was already fairly familiar with this resource. I like the fact that the interface now goes directly to a page that searches across the titles, rather than to a listing of subject areas.
I did try out the "Concept Map." Let me just say that Geometry was never my best subject! I'm a visual learner in that I prefer to see the printed word rather than just hear it. But, tools that try to give you this type of visual picture just confuse the heck out of me! I think it's wonderful for folks who find it helpful... but I'm not likely to ever be in that category. At least I think I understand them well enough that I could help a student get started with it, if they are a map-type person.
Belinda
I'm a little behind on the 21 Things @Oesterle. But, I did take a look at NetLibrary briefly tonight and found it actually quite frustrating. I tried several searches for popular books and had no results show up. So, I think I need to try tweaking my search terms as I've actually used some of these occasionally directly from the catalog. I haven't yet had a chance to try Credo Reference. Hopefully soon!
I as well had a bit of trouble finding anything I'm interested in. Some rather popular people and authors were not yielding any results. Once I did hit on something that was interesting to me and available, I was pleasantly surprised to find it available in full text.
How to Do Everything With Photoshop CS2
by Smith, Colin.
Is the book I found and perused for quite a while. I will certainly keep net library in mind the next time I'm looking for information quickly - especially if it's at odd times.
I think if more books were available, this would really prove to be a great resource.
Credo seems to be a very easy to use resource. Typing in "Belle Gunness" a small town woman who advertised for husbands overseas only to have them arrive in LaPorte Indiana, marry then mysteriously disappear (under the soil of her farm) yielded a perfect result the first time.
The concept map was quite an interesting piece of technology!
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