Week 7: Consumer Health Resources

I search for high blood pressure in Health Source-Consumer Edition.  I found a book: High Blood Pressure by Gregson, Susan, Capstone Press, 2001.  It consisted of 9 chapters and I read the full text of chapter 5: Lifestyle Changes: Taming the Blood Pressure Beast.  It was easy to read and created for teens as the audience.

I found Medline Plus to be very interesting and I will probably use this resource for my family and myself.  The news column on the right included the topics: head injury, Pesticides tied to Parkinson’s Disease, along with others.  Some of the top searches on the left side of the page are: Get smart about antibiotics week, asthma, autism, cancer, cholesterol, etc. 

I searched for Prilosec on the “Drugs and Supplements” tab.  The information is very informative detailing uses, special dietary instructions, side effects, storage conditions, brand names, etc. 

The “Health Topics” tab provided very detailed information about high blood pressure using specific numbers and medical terminology.

The “Videos and Cool Tools”tab was great.  I searched for Dust Mite Allergy and found an interactive video with the categories: introduction, allergies, dust mites, recommendations, medication, and summary. 

I really found Medline Plus to be very helpful and a wonderful resource.

Week 6: Business Resources

I found these links overwhelming with the amount of information available but they are wonderful resources for the business sector. 

Business Source Complete:  I used the interface Regional Business News to search for information on FM radio.  I found several articles in the sources; Crain’s New York Business and Inside Tucson Business.  I found no results while using the visual search option.

EconLit:  While searching for “resources for small business owners”  I came across the source: Journal of Family and Economic Issues, December 2010.  The article, The Use of Owned Businesses: Literature Review and Future Research was very informative and offered the business owner many specific directions toward success.

I found searching for sources regarding the EPA and small business successful using Smart Text.  The article, Land Recycling, Community Revitalization… in an academic journal was informative and the citation and permission sources necessary tools.

Searching for information regarding tax policy and small businesses provided many sources such as: Small Business Economics, Osaka Economic Papers, and National Tax Journal just to list a few.

Regional Business News:  I choose Nike Inc. to search and found several interesting articles published in English,  Dutch, German, Italian, and Czech.  The source of all were Business Wire except for the Canadian source: Canada Newswire.  I did try the English translator and did not have success.

I narrowed the search to the United States and found an article in Business Wire of a Nike and USA basketball world festival taking place in Beaverton, Oregon with the date of the article 07/02/2012. 

The Maine company I choose to search is Hancock Gourmet Lobster Company and I found 2 articles in the New York times.  One featured the lobster pies and the other featured the lobster macaroni and cheese dishes the company mail orders.

Value Line Research Center:  I was able to get onto the Value Line for Public Libraries.  This is an amazing site with so much information available, with most of it foreign to me. I picked the company Amazon.com to search.  There is a full research report available and the 2015-17 projections are a gain (+80%).

Wall Street Journal: I used the advance search to look for articles on small business and health care with 1867 results.  The suggested limiters a small business person may be interested in are “health insurance”, “health care policy” and “health care expenditures”.  I did create an alert and will receive weekly alerts for 1 month to my email address regarding newly published documents of health care and small business.

Whew, that was a lot of work!!!!

Week 5 continued:

A common question I use when my students ask for a good book recommendation is, “What was the last book you read that you liked?”  Using the “Read-alikes from NoveList” will open the door to other similar books and give the students a number of options to choose from.  It will make my job easier and more efficient by teaching students how to use this tool to create  independent searching.

Middle schoolers are enthusiastic about current trends and what their friends are reading, which means they will probably pick up the same book.  A few good examples are the Harry Potter and The Hunger Games series which soared in popularity.  Using this tool will provide me with new titles to offer the students while their interest level is high with a particular genre.

Week 5: NoveList Plus

NoveList Plus K-8 is commonly used at my Middle School Library.  I am glad to try links I normally would not.  Middle School students love to read series and we have the Maximum Ride series by James Patterson.  It is very popular but the volumes are not well marked and the students often have confusion selecting the next book in the series.  I discovered by searching in NoveList Plus for the series and sorting by volume and viewed by title only, the result was a Title list of the series in numerical sequence which is easy to read and color coded.  I printed out a copy to post on the library bulletin board for easy student access to this information.  This is a great tool I will use and refer students for series clarification.

Week 4: Hobbies and Crafts Reference Center

What a wonderful resource!!!!  It will take quite a bit of time for me to search this site to discover all it has to offer.

I decided to explore homemade Thanksgiving decorations as I will be hosting soon at my home.  I narrowed my site terms several times to find what I wanted.   I found “natural materials for making Thanksgiving decorations” directed me to information I was interested in.  My Middle School library does not subscribe to any of the periodicals I encountered.  The two projects I am interested in trying are the Thanksgiving Centerpiece and Thanksgiving Table Trimmers.  I created a folder and added them.  Upon looking at the Help link I discovered I would need to create an account with the Hobbies and Crafts Reference Center in order to save my folder.  I did this and now my folder with the links stays on my account.  I can’t wait to try them!

 

Week 3: Newspapers and Maine Newstand

I’m exploring Discovery Exercise, Step 2 and would like advice from others.  I am in Maine Newstand and am searching for information from the past 3 years of virtual school libraries.  I’ve used quotations, advanced search and do not come across any hits.  Any suggestions for other search terms that may work?  I am interested in reading how public schools are creating virtual libraries.  Thanks

Week 2: Britannica

I found the Britannica School Edition to be very useful.  The elementary level used simple language and great visuals.  The middle and high school levels were much more detailed and offered many links and citation, along with spanish translation.  I used the A-Z browse index with the upper levels and the category “mammals” at the elementary level to search polar bears. 

I especially liked the “Workspace” feature offered under “Working with Articles”.  I will need to “play” with it more to fully understand it’s capacity but it allows the storage of material in an orderly manner with easy access for oneself or to share with others.

 

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