Lesson 9: History and Genealogy Resources-Ancestry Library, Heritage Quest, and Sanborn Maps

1. Contrary to popular belief, you don't have to be dead to be listed in AncestryLibrary and can frequently find useful information in the U.S. Phone and Address Directories, 1993-2002. You may even find your marriage license. Search for your own name in AncestryLibrary and report the results.

I found that when I searched for myself with my married name, there where many results that contained "Baker", but then I changed my search to my maiden name, and set the results to exact, and found a record of my marriage license.  

2.  In AncestryLibrary, search for a grandparent or great-grandparent and see if you can locate them in the census.  Report your findings.

I found my grandfather in a census record from 1938. He was 2 years old. The record listed his parents and five of his siblings. It also listed 2 other men, aged 18, and 21 whom I am unfamiliar with. I am assuming that these men were hired hands on the farm. After looking at the original document I found that they are indeed hired hands, one of whom is a relative of a neighboring farm. I also found that my great grandfather owned his home and it was worth $1000 dollars. I found that my great grandfather completed school through the 2nd grade, and my great grandmother through the 8th grade. My great grandfather was born in Russia and great grandmother in North Dakota. 

3.  In AncestryLibrary, type "South Dakota" in the location box and click Search. On the left side of the next screen is a link for Pictures.  Click Pictures, see what's there, and look at one or more. Report your findings. 

I found pictures of professional baseball players that either were born or died in South Dakota. There were also yearbook pictures and many more that could be filtered through. 

4. In HeritageQuest, there are over 28,000 family and local histories in their online historical books.  Search for a place or browse the publications.  Report back on something that interested you.

I looked at "A Brief History of South Dakota", a publication. This book had the table of contents listed on the right hand side, and covered everything from the first white explorers to statehood. 

5. In Sanborn Maps, select South Dakota. Then select your town or a town with which you are familiar. Choose a date. Look at the first page containing the Index. Then navigate around the pages and see what you discover. Try to find a building on the map that is still in use today. Report your findings.

I looked up Sturgis, SD in July of 1923. I found that the Erskine Building is still in use today as county offices. In 1923 it was the high school. 

Lesson 8: WorldCat, CAMIO, and more

Basic Discovery Exercise part 1
WorldCat.

1. We recommend using the Advanced Search screen for best search results. Click the “Advanced” tab on the toolbar 2nd to the top. In WorldCat, the right set of search boxes say “Keyword.” Click on the drop down menu to see other ways you can search.

2. Choose Title Phrase search, and click on the limiter (below the search boxes) “Books.” In the search box, type a book title. Note the number of results. How many libraries worldwide have item #1? Click the link. What is the top library?

I used "The Invention of Wings" by Sue Monk Kidd. There were 27 records (23 in English). 2554 Libraries have the first item. Alexander Mitchell Library is the top library listed.

3. Click into result #1 and look at the full record. What is the call number (class descriptor)? To see what else the author of your chosen book has written, click on the author's name. To see what else is available on that subject, click on a subject. What other information do you see?

The call number for this book is PS3611.I44. Other information that I can see is a description of the book, names of characters in the book, ISBN numbers, and the year it was published.

Discovery Exercise part 2
OAIster

The OAIster (pronounced “oyster”) database is one of the few mostly full text databases in WorldCat. Choose OAIster from the dropdown menu next to “Search in database.” In the “Keyword” search box, type South Dakota. Select one of your results. Click on the link next to “Access.” Add to your Lesson 8 blog posting by writing about your findings and your impressions of this tool.

I selected "Cruel and Degrading: The Use of Dogs for Cell Extractions in U.S. Prisons." After clicking on the link I found a pamphlet published in 2006. I found that South Dakota is one of seven states that uses dogs in cell extractions. I think this database would be very useful doing college papers.

Discovery Exercise part 3
CAMIO

You will need to complete this exercise at your school or  library. CAMIO is not accessible from home. You can access CAMIO via this alphabetical list.

1. In the search box, type “Sioux.” Click on an image and notice what information is given and how you can manipulate the image. Blog about your results.

The information given is a description, the creator, publisher of photo, date created, type, medium, format, identifier, and rights. You can manipulate the image by zooming in and out, rotating it, and going full screen.

2. How would you and your community use this resource? What other observations can you make?

You could use this resource if you needed images for presentations. You could use this for researching art history. I observed that the images are also sorted by the institute that has them, or you can search by type of art.

3. CAMIO has a lot of potential for personalizing and presenting research. Do a search on a subject of your choice. Choose 3 or 4 favorites by checking the box to the left of the image number. Click "Save to Favorites"on the toolbar at the top of the results next to "Relevance" and "Display Options." Then click "Favorites" in the gray bar in the upper right of the screen. On the left sidebar, click to export to PowerPoint or Zip Archive File. This allows you to manipulate and use the images in a variety of ways. Try out these features and report your findings.

I exported a picture into powerpoint. I found that it was not only very simple to do, but the format was also very nice. This is by far my favorite finding of this challenge so far. I will recommend it for patrons needing art images.

Lesson 7: EBooks on EbscoHost

1. Do a search for a topic that interests you. Note the default search is "Find all my search terms." You may want to change the search to one of the other options. Review your findings and observations.

I searched for Criminal Justice. This brought up a list of all books that dealt with this subject or may be helpful. I selected the Criminal Law Handbook. I found that they had one copy of this book. There was a table of contents and a selection of the most helpful pages. I could then get the full copy in PDF form in wanted. There were also options to save, cite, print, email, export, etc.

 2. Constitution Day is looming and several students need more material. Search EBooks on EbscoHost and recommend some appropriate titles.

I found The Reader's Companion to American History, and The Complete Idiot's Guide to the American Presidents.

 3. A class is doing projects on Western history. They have exhausted the library's print collection. In EBooks on EbscoHost, click "Advanced Search." In the "Select a Field" box, choose "PB Publisher." In the search box, type "Nebraska" or "Oklahoma." Report your findings.

I found many helpful books about Native Americans and Buffalo Soldiers, fur trading, and western ranges. This also listed many books that were published by the University of Oklahoma.

Lesson 6: Gale Virtual Reference Library

1. Getting to know the titles in GVRL is similar to getting to know the titles of your library's reference collection. Click "Title List" on the upper right to view all the titles available in the collection. Click a book title of interest to you and access an article via the table of contents. Notice with the multi-volume titles, you can select which volume you look at. Discuss the title you selected and how you may use it. 

I chose the Junior Worldmark Encyclopedia of Foods and Recipes of the World. I then chose to look up Germany. I found that this not only lists several traditional German recipes, but also listed information about the country. This could be very helpful to a student researching Germany, or to anyone that is interested in traditional recipes from their families home country.

2. At the top of the home page, type a search term in the search box. Search for answers to the two questions posed at the beginning of the post: zinc or The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn if you can't think of something else. Review the results, selecting an article to see what kind of information you can find. Test the "Listen" feature. Discuss your results. 

I looked up The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn and found 94 results. These results listed every article in every reference book that GVRL has. I then chose the Literary Themes for Students: Race and Prejudice and clicked on The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. This gave me an overview of the book and the author. When listening you can either download the audio to listen to later, or you can listen while reading. There is an option of having your words or sentences highlighted in different colors as they are read. 

3. Look at 2 or 3 other participants' blogs to see what they discovered. Comment if you like.