Wrap-up

Of course, I was aware of all the great information that State Library made available to libraries and the citizens of South Dakota but it's been a long time since I really went out and explored everything.  The breadth of information is amazing.  I knew that Learning Express was an important tool but was still surprised to see the wide array of resources available. 

I don't work with the public in my library so don't have the opportunity to share but whenever the opportunity arises I mention the great resources that are available through the State Library to my family and friends. 

Thanks Jane and Julie!

History and Genealogy Resources—Ancestry Library, Heritage Quest and Sanborn Maps

Ancestry
Tried a number of different ways, both maiden and married name, but didn't find myself in Ancestry.

This is the 1910 Census record I found for my grandfather:

Edward Meylor


Age in 1910: 9

Birth Year: 1901

Birthplace: Iowa

Home in 1910: Marcus, Cherokee, Iowa

Race: White

Gender: Male

Relation to Head of House: Son

Marital Status: Single

Father's Name: Robert Meylor

Father's Birthplace: Wisconsin

Mother's Name: Margart Meylor

Mother's Birthplace: Wisconsin

Neighbors: View others on page

Household Members: Name Age

Robert Meylor 50

Margart Meylor 46

Patrick Meylor 23

Robert Meylor 20

Teresa E Meylor 17

Ellen V Meylor 15

Leonard Meylor 13

Raymond Meylor 11

Edward Meylor 9

Clifford Meylor 5

From this I know his father's and mother's names and their birth places and the names of all of his brothers and sisters.  I used Ancestry recently to verify birth years for a family photograph.

This is one of the photos I found by searching "South Dakota" in photos.

Prairie chicken shooting in the South Dakota wheat fields a stereograh taken between 1900-1910.

Heritage Quest
Tried looking up some of my family names in books but didn't find any matches so decided to try my home county, Cherokee County, Iowa.  I found an interesting WPA publication that hadn't read before -
The Iowa Writers' Program of the Work Projects Aministration for the State of Iowa. Cherokee County, Iowa. Des Moines, Iowa?: unknown, 1940.
I found this excerpt interesting

Besides the description of the sod house, I found this interesting because part of  the old wagon trail to O'Brien County was  in the pasture on the farm where I grew up.

Sanborn Maps

I haven't taken time to look at the maps yet so this was interesting.  It would take some time and a lot of patience to figure out what your actually looking at.  I looked up Ft. Pierre.  Moving around on the maps is kind of frustrating but they are interesting. 

I tried inserting a portion above and printing a section.  I was viewing the map at over 200% but it didn't seem to want to print or save the view at that size so it's kind of hard to read (although I just made it bigger in edit here).  I did find a old bank building on the corner of Deadwood and Main that is still there. 



This is my neighborhood in 1927.  Number 128 should be the block where my house is but really can't tell from this what is there.

Ok, now I'm all caught up with lessons. 

ArchiveGrid and CAMIO

ArchiveGrid - The search for "Sitting Bull autograph card" only one match. The record included some history of Sitting Bull. Cornell University Library owns an autograph card with an envelope for the card. There is also a link to contact information for the library's Division of Rare and Manuscript Collections with their hours so that you know when you can go to this library and view this card.

I just searched for my maiden name, Meylor. There were two matches both from the University of Wisconsin, Wisconsin Historical Society, Register of Wisconsin. One just happened to be the name used on a box of pension records, Meylor-Mielke. The other was interesting though. Seems that an ancestor (cousin) back in 1900 was found guilty of doing business under another name. My first search brought up these two records. When I selected each each one there was another option to search within the finding aid. The contact info on this page was a broken link.

Flanigan, William
doing business under a different name.
1900
Joseph Meylor and William Flanigan, partners, doing business under the name of Maylor and Flanigan. They were found guilty.

CAMIO - There are photos of various tea services, sugar baskets, spoons, etc.

There 63 matches for the word Sioux. This is everything using the word Sioux in the record somewhere. It is possible to narrow your search by using the "Refine your search" on the left but it didn't seem that all of the matches were included in groups, at least in the format group. By clicking on the title you can view a larger picture of the item and see a full description. You can also view a high-resolution full image of object by clicking on that phrase above the image. The museum that holds the item is also listed.

If you can't go to the museum, you can view the collection or part of it on-line. Not the same but sometimes the best you can do. This would be great to use in the a classroom. An art student can be inspired or a history student can see an object or painting that was part of history. If you are going to a museum that is listed in the browse screen, you could check here to see what you might see on display.

The other features were easy to use. It would take some time to gather favorites. You're not going to find everything by an artist for some there is only one or none. Gathering photos of artifacts would also take a little digging. The records are only as good as the metadata added. It's still a useful database to have access to though.

WorldCat/First Search

I searched for "The Dressmaker of Khair Khana". I forgot to limit by books on my first try so clicked on tab that said books on my results screen. I had 10 matches. Three of which were not English so I could limit to English language also to just get a list of the 7. The first match said that 1522 libraries world wide owned this. When I clicked on the link, the libraries were listed with the SD libraries first. The first library was Alexander Mitchell. The call number or class descriptor listed are LC: DS375.K2; Dewey: 958.1; B. This is the author's only title and it wasn't really a good choice to find other titles with the subjects links. Most of them just listed the same editions of this title again but under one subject I did find, "Kabul Beauty School : an American woman goes behind the veil ".

I searched for South Dakota in OAIster. On my screen in "Advanced Search," I don't have "subject phrase" just "subject" in the drop down so it searched as a boolean search as "south and dakota". There were over 53,000 matches of which almost 1,900 were in OAIster. Then I searched it as "south dakota" (south w dakota) which resulted in a few less matches. From the records, I was able look at photos in some collections. Some of the records I tried to access required a login or were restricted. The list of records indicates what type of material the item is. So if you were looking for visual materials you could pick these out. I didn't see a way to limit the results by type of material like you can in a WorldCat search.

I also tried another search, Afghanistan. I wanted to see how the black buttons, above left of the results screen, worked. I clicked on related subjects and related authors. Related subjects is an easy way to look at the subject list for the titles in the results list. They're ranked by the % of use. Could be a useful way to zero in on a research topic. I tried selecting some titles and then emailing them to myself. So far, no email but that might have something to do with firewalls. I've used this before so I'm sure it works.

eBooks/EBSCO Host

I have to say I found this kind of frustrating. I had trouble searching for something that interested me and finding results that were really of use. I tried environment and then used some of the phrases that popped up. I had to make that a phrase search so that the matches were better but there wasn't much that I would use. It was easy to search though and titles were easy to pull up and look at. If the title has a detailed table of contents, it's easy to go the particular part of the title that you want to see.

The following title would be a good book to recommend to the student. I also found this title by searching the SDLN catalog. The ebooks are cataloged so that all book sources could be found with one search.

eBook
Our Elusive Constitution : Silences, Paradoxes, PrioritiesFull Text Available By: Hoffman, Daniel N. In: SUNY Series in American Constitutionalism. State University of New York Press. 1997. eBook. 299p.
Subjects: LAW / Constitutional; LAW / Constitutional; LAW / Public; LAW / Constitutional; LAW / Public; Law and politics
Database: eBook Collection (EBSCOhost)

Searching Nebraska using publisher brought up a list of titles published by University of Nebraska Press. This can also be done in SDLN but you will get a list of all of the titles, electronic and physical copies, held by the libraries.

GVRL

I haven't used this before so I'm learning something new. It seems fairly easy to move around within a volume after selecting it. I searched Cuban Missile Crisis which produced a number of good sources. It was interesting to listen to the article that I selected. It was all read fairly accurately but it did spell, instead of say, a couple of words that were in all caps like WAR. It also has a citation tool and you can bookmark and save articles a look at them. I emailed myself a citation also. Some good features here that will help any researcher.

ProQuest

I searched "Canadian oil sands". There were 572 full text matches and 31 of those were peer reviewed. The matches are pretty current with one being from Feb. 7. (I started this post a few weeks ago) I selected some the articles and emailed them to myself. With a list this long, you can make a shorter list of the articles you want to look at in more depth by checking them and they'll be added the "selected items" list. You can also create an account and save articles to "My Research". If you click on "Cite", you can open a box with the citation to use for the bibliography. At the top of the list is a list suggested subjects that could better target the search.

I read few posts and was surprised to see that some thought this was difficult to use. I guess, if you're not used to using a database like this, it would take a bit of investigating to become familiar with it but it's well worth pursuing.

I searched for "Library Journal". I able to list the contents a specific issue and then look at one of the articles from that issue. If you wanted specific recurring section, this would be one way to do it; or if you know that a particular article is in a particular issue it would be easy to find this way.

SIRS

I haven't used SIRS at all up until now. In Discoverer I looked up zebras and found a good collection of articles from magazines and books. They are clearly marked as to reading level and whether graphics are present or not. The citations are easily found at the bottom of the article but I did notice that if I clicked on the PDF there wasn't a citation included, at least I didn't see it on my screen.

I looked up Moldova in "Country Facts" and the maps. There was lots of good information included.

I picked the 2012 election from the leading subject list. There is a good variety of sources to choose from and they are easily sorted if you want to look at only one type. They also included good summaries and the citation was easily found. I liked the graphics/media category that even included some political cartoons. The citations included some from this weeks newspapers.

I looked at a few subjects under "Curriculum Pathfinders". History under Social Studies includes primary resources, government documents and web sites. One way to narrow the matches is to click on a subject included with the citation.

Learning Express

It was easy to set up an account and login. I selected a word analogies test. The instructions were clear and I easily moved through the test and viewed the results at the end.

Under "Job Search and Workplace Skills" I looked at a business writing course. It seemed like it would be a good way to improve writing skills.

Under ebooks, I looked a book on Algebra and one on MAT. Both were 2011 copyrights so I take that as a good sign that the ebooks are current. It was easy to download and use them.

This database has something to offer to everyone in the state of South Dakota from elementary to senior citizen. It has tests and books to improve skills or just to challenge your brain.

World Book Thoughts

This is a great resource to have available to South Dakota schools and public libraries. There is just so much to explore and learn. I could spend hours just browsing and I can see my future six year old step-granddaughter doing the same thing.

Lesson 1c -- World Book Foreign Language Edition

I pulled up a horse in both with many labels in French and Spanish. This would be a great way to learn words that aren't used every day in both languages. According to the tutorial you should be able to click to view the English version but I didn't have that option on my screen. Without that option it's pretty hard to know what some of the labels are pointing to.

Part of learning a language is hearing it. Even though this is a computer generated voice it's helpful

Lesson 1b -- World Book Public Library Edition

World Book Online for Kids/World Book Online Info Finder give the same information on zebras as the World Book School Edition's World Book Kids'/World Book Student. The home pages for the public library edition are different and have access to some different information and activities. Something that I didn't take of note of before is that both Student and Info Finder have access to magazine articles from EBSCO Content Solutions.

World Book Online Reference Center - The informaition given is the same as what was found in World Book Advanced. I like the World Book Explores feature.

One of the things that I notieced that was different between school and public library version is that the public library version allows you to play an audio version of the article. This would be great for a person who has trouble comprehending what they read and can better do that if they hear the information.

Lesson 1a -- World Book School Edition

World Book Kids articles are short with just enough informaiton for short attention spans. World Book Student articles are much longer with more discussion about the zebra and their environment. In this case the picutures used were different but I noticed that this isn't always the case. The videos included were the same in each article.


World Book Advanced - Moldova - I think it's great that a audio pronunciation is included. The first page includes lists of other sources on Modova, even Presendential Papers. I like the "facts in brief" and the maps that are available. The link to web sites which includes a link to Dept. of State Background notes is one the best pieces of information and would be great help to the patron.


World Book Discover - The articles can be translated into a different language with the click of a button. Not only does this help ESL learners but it's a great tool for teachers to use to expose the whole class to the language of one of their classmates or to easily share what a language like Chinese looks like.