Lesson 5 Oxford Reference Collection

Discovery Exercises

1.  Go to the English Dictionaries and Thesauruses link and click on the Browse this subject link. This interesting search option lets you browse page by page through all of the dictionaries simultaneously. Go to the H's and find the entries for the term habeas corpus. How many dictionaries have entries for this word?

Six.

2.  Return to the English Dictionaries and Thesauruses link and click on Links for this subject. Examine the list of links. What is the purpose for these links?

To provide quick alphabetical access to content of interest across the various English Dictionaries and Thesauruses.

Go to the link for the Guide to Grammar and Writing. What popular song is used to illustrate nouns?

"My Favorite Things" from The Sound of Music.

3.  One last look at English Dictionaries and Thesauruses. Click on the link to the

Visual English Dictionary. Look up the word "boat." Click on the first link for examples of boats and ships. How many examples are given?

14

 4.  From the Oxford Reference home page click the link for English Language Reference. How many titles are offered in this category?

 18

 5.  From the Oxford Reference home page click the link to the Bilingual Dictionaries. Choose one of the dictionary titles. Enter a word in the search box. List the options available to process the information on the results screen. 

Options for managing the results include: reordering the results, help, options to change the number of results per pages, print, email, widen you search results and search tips.
 
6.  From the Oxford Reference home page click the link to Quotations. Enter the word "abolish" in the search box. What is the quote from John Locke?

   

The concise quote is "The end of law is, not to abolish or restrain, but to preserve and enlarge freedom."  

   

Now click on the link to Browse this subject. Browse to the word "abolish."   Follow the links for abolish and describe how these results differ from the general word search results.

The results of the general word browse of quotations returned an alphabetical listing of people associated with a quotation containing abolish in any context along with a link to the dictionary containing the referenced quote as well as a link to the Individual that provides additional information about the source of the quote. Browsing quotations by subject provided links to quotations and the person associated within a specific quotation in context such as abolish/restrain, abolish serfdom, abolish the death penalty, abolish government etc. as well as the original source and date of the quotation. Both methods will eventually get you to information about how to appropriately cite a specific quotation. 


 7.  From the Oxford Reference home page click the link to Maps and Illustrations. Do a search for "Syria." What type of maps are available?

A physical and political map. I was initially unclear on what the political map represented but the next exercise provided further clarification.
 

8.  From the Oxford Reference home page click the link to Encyclopedias. Do a search on Syria. Explore the links to the World Encyclopedia and A Guide to Countries of the World. Consider the difference between the two resources.

The World Encyclopedia provides "concise entries" of a given subject "including world affairs, science and technology, the arts, modern and ancient history, religion, sports, and popular culture. Information for Syria includes climate, a brief history, politics, economy and fast facts regarding size, population, capital, government, ethnic groups, languages, religions, currency and GDP. A Guide to Countries provides much of the same information with the exception of a brief history but includes additional information regarding life expectancy and major exports. 

According to the introduction for A Guide to Countries of the World, what is the purpose of this source?

According to the writer, Peter Stalker, the purpose is to provide students and teachers at all levels a "brief history brief history and outlines contemporary social, economic, political and religious issues. In addition, for each country there is a clear map and a quick-reference fact box containing data and statistics including languages, population, GDP, capital city, life expectancy, and more. Invaluable supplementary material includes detailed indicator tables showing income and poverty, health and population etc, and list of international organizations, such as the EU and the African Union, with essential information about these groupings."
 

 9.  From the Oxford Reference home page click in the Quick Search Box. Search for the term "recycling." How many entries are in the results screen?

  
25 results. 

 
10.  Optional: Setup an Oxford Reference Online button or banner (such as one at top of lesson) on your school/library website. Oxford also has scripts for search boxes (see below) and subject or book homepages. See the Help and FAQ pages for scripts and directions. The main thing to know about setting up javascript widgets is that you need to be in the html view of the web editor you use.  First, you find the javascript code for the widget you want to insert, and copy that code to the clipboard. Then, in your editor go to your edit html view, find the place where you want your widget, paste, save and view. Finding the right spot to paste the code can be tricky. You can always delete and try again till you get in the right spot. Try it on your blog!


 

Lesson 3 Reader's Advisory - NoveList and NoveList K-8

Discovery Exercise:

1: Use the Read-Alike features in NoveList or NoveList K-8 to find several new authors or titles that you might like to read based on your favorite books. How accurate do you think these recommendations are? How about the Series recommendations?

The first thing I learned using NoveList is that there are two Elizabeth Chadwicks, both historical romance writers. What are the odds of that?  I chose the Elizabeth Chadwick that writes Historical Romance/Historical Fiction set in the Middle Ages not the other one!  I thought the explanation of the work of Chadwick was on target.  It has been a while since I have curled up with a good historical romance/historical fiction book.  I will check out one of the Read-alikes authors recommended:  Roberta Gellis, Anya Seton, Gillian Bradshaw, Judith Tarr and Madeline Hunter.  Suggested titles were also listed for each author of those most comparable to Chadwick as well as how the authors might differ in style and setting.  If there was a chronological order for specific titles that was indicated as well.  And I do like to read things in the order intended!!  Titles were linked to more detailed information about a specific title. 

2: Save several of those selections to your folder.

You need to click on a title link in order to place the title in a folder.  That is good because the reviews are available by selecting the Reviews tab from the title page. The Lists & Articles tab on the title page with give you additional Author Read-alikes.  The More About This Book tab provides publisher information including date of publication and page count.  Additionally Genre, Tone, Writing Style, Subject headings, Location, ISBNs and credits information are available.  Links to Genre are also provided.  Great information for narrowing your reading selections.

Folder selections can be printed, emailed or saved for you next trip to the library or bookstore if you chose to buy.  Or better yet, request items at your library website.

3: Often librarians are asked about books in series order. Use NoveList or NoveList K-8 to find a series in series order. (hint: search on the author and use the Series tab at the top of the results list)

Without the hint it would have taken a bit to figure out how to get series results as it is not intuitive.  I would expect a series tab on the author page.  I did an author series search for one of the Elizabeth Chadwick Read-alikes, Madeline Hunter.  Ms. Hunter has 5 series according to NoveList.  Series Read-alikes suggestions are also available.  Clicking on the linked series title will get you a list of the titles in a series and their order, publication date, and a brief one sentence description.  Title Read-alikes, Author Read-alikes and Series Read-alikes links are available for each title in a given series. You  can also link to each title page for more specific information.  

4: Check out the Resources section – Readers Advisory Toolbox – on NoveList or the How To Use NoveList support center. What parts of the NoveList website do you thing will be most useful to your patrons?

A wealth of information here!  For the most part NoveList is intuitive but I would probably recommend reviewing How To Use NoveList to get the most use out of the product.  I like the ability to select titles and save those selections for another time.  Creating a My NoveList account appears to  be very straightforward:  First and Last name, email, user name, password,  secret question. 

If you want additional reviews, websites that I came across during my MLIS Collection Development course that I would recommend trying out are:

Library Thing http://www.librarything.com/

Good Reads http://www.goodreads.com/

Lesson 2 Genealogy Resources

I got off to a rocky start with this lesson.  There were multiple reasons.  First, records for South Carolina were sparse.  Second, I didn't have sufficient information about family names.  Christie had already given me a heads up that names were indexed by head of household.  A call to my mom put me on the right track for locating my great grandfather Robert Driggers. I also learned that my grandfather was referred to as Corbett in this census record not Walter Corbett or W. C. as I had always known him.      

Lesson 6 Mango Languages

A helpful feature of Mango Languages is the Translation Tool.  To use this tool, select the Translate tab after logging in to Mango Languages.  Select a Source and Target language from the 38 languages available and copy the text you want translated into the Source language box.  Click the Translate button and the "gist" of the conversation will be translated into the Target language box using Google translation engine.  Mango indicates that this feature "is not a substitute for human translations."

I like the translate feature because it allows the language learner to understand conversations that may be beyond their current abilities or in a language not being studied.

Lesson 1 Business Resources

Overall I find Lesson 1 to be straightforward in that I have not had difficulties locating the information requested.  I am finding the lesson to be far more time consuming than anticipated.

1) Who is the Chief Financial Officer?

The Chief Financial Officer for Microsoft Corporation is Peter Klein. 

What did he do before coming to Microsoft?

Peter was in corporate finance with several companies mainly in the communications and technology sectors including McCaw Celluar Communications, Orca Bay Capital and Homegrocer.com in the Seattle area for 13 years before making the move to Microsoft. 

2) Where could a person sell their work online?
A search for handicrafts or crafts yields many pages of results in the Small Business Reference Center. 

The second result, an article "State of the Market" by Meribah Knight in the October/Nov issue of American Craft identifies several options for selling online including:

• online shop
• website
• Twitter account
• Facebook page

In Person?

• Craft Fairs 
• Brick and Mortar Shop.

Are there any books or book chapters on starting a crafts business?
Yes, the eighth result, Chapter 17: Crafts by Sharon Cohen is from the book 199 Internet-Based Businesses You Can Start with Less Than One Thousand Dollars: Secrets, Techniques & Strategies Ordinary People Use Every Day to Make Millions, 2009. 

Search using words from a small business owner you've worked with recently. 
Anything of value in the results?
Sticking with the craft theme, I searched for quilts or quilting.  Again, my search yielded 5 plus pages of results running the gamut from quilt patterns to art quilting to quilt shops to articles on those that started a quilting business.  I would narrow the search in the future to further refine the results.  Perhaps quilt shops?

3) Staying with the Small Business Reference Center, find at least one item using the browse by category.  What did you find?

Use the browse by popular resource to look at one or two books.
What did you find and did they look helpful to you and your patrons?

4) What are TWO responsibilities that a landlord has toward a tenant?
From the Alaska Department of Law Consumer Protection Unit site at http://www.law.state.ak.us/department/civil/consumer/cpindex.html I did a search for "landlord tenant act."  The first result links to a 46 page PDF of The Alaska Landlord & Tenant Act: what it means to you.  The complete document can be found at http://www.law.state.ak.us/pdf/consumer/LandlordTenant09_web.pdf.  On page 8 (page 12 of the PDF) this document is a list containing "The landlord's responsibilities" including:

• give the tenant a copy of any written rental agreement
• abide by the lawful terms of the agreement

What are two examples of frauds and scams?
A list of frauds & scams can be located at http://www.law.state.ak.us/department/civil/consumer/fraud.html including:

• Advance fee fraud
• Phishing

Where can you file a consumer report?
Interpreting the question to mean "complaint," the process for filing a consumer complaint can be found at http://www.law.state.ak.us/department/civil/consumer/cp_complaint.html along with information about how to handle your complaint and an online complaint form which is submitted to the State of Alaska Office of the Attorney General at the address indicated on the form available at http://www.law.state.ak.us/pdf/consumer/FORM_complaint.pdf.

5) How many female workers are there in your community?
The were 81,742 female workers in the Anchorage/MatSu area in 2010. 

Who is your top employer? 
The top Anchorage employer in 2010 was the Anchorage School District. 

6) What are the stages of the small business cycle?
Available at http://aksbdc.org/small-business-life-cycle/, the small business life cycle is:

• Think
• Launch
• Grow
• Reinvent
• Exit

Where can you find a checklist for starting a small business?

 http://aksbdc.org/tools/checklist-for-starting-a-business/

7) What are two publications done about broadband in Alaska in 2011?

• ID: 1341 Broadband for Rural Development in Southwest Alaska
  Heather E. Hudson, March 2011
• ID: 1350 Digital Diversity: Broadband and Indigenous Populations in Alaska

  Heather E. Hudson, May 2011

Has Small Scale Modular Nuclear Power been considered as an option for Alaska?
Yes, in ISER publication ID: 1336 Small Scale Modular Nuclear Power: An Option for Alaska? written by Ginny Fay and Tobias Schworer in March 2011

Do any of the Institute's research areas seem relevant to you?

All of ISER's research is of interest and relevant to me as a life-long Alaskan.  As ISER's mission statement indicates,  "ISER enhances the well-being of Alaskans and others, through non-partisan research that helps people understand social and economic systems and supports informed public and private decision-making."  

8) The business resources available trough SLED and Digital Pipeline will meet some of the needs of my community.