Well.
Concocting a list of books that I'd like to read should take me, oh... ten minutes tops. But I think I just lost a couple of hours of my life browsing through WorldCat and Library Thing. And I'd do it again in a heartbeat.
Both WorldCat and Library Thing were easy to use and helpful, and I had a really hard time really deciding between the two which one worked better for me. Since I liked them both about equally and I chose the same 10 books on each site, I'm just going to go through my book list and talk through the experience a bit.
The MockingJay by Suzanne Collins
I thought I'd be really clever and search for this book on both since it's not out yet. Foiled. Of course both systems are hooked up to Amazon so I should have figured. Still, score one for both WC and LT. And I didn't even have to dig for it. Searched by title, and BOOM! There it was.
Before I Fall by Lauren Oliver
I've been meaning to pick up this book for a while, as all my students are saying it's fantastic. Although I trust my students (most of the time), I checked out reviews on this book and they convinced me that I needed to order it. From the reviews I picked through on both sites, it sounds life-altering. About the reviews themselves: prominently displayed on the book's page, with links if they were longer, with a rating system. Very clear, very organized. I loved the reviews because I do rely heavily on them, being that I sort of fell in love with Amazon's system right away, and they sway me almost always.
Will Grayson Will Grayson by John Green and David Levithan & The Bermudez Triangle by Maureen Johnson
I follow all three of these authors on Twitter and I love everything they've ever written, so for these searches I merely used their names, and both resources provided a list of everything they'd penned. The best thing about browsing through the lists was discovering books I hadn't read by them, and finding recommendations from people who had liked these authors. It was so easy to browse other people's lists, that I added a few books to my pile based on them.
Hush Hush by Becca Fitzpatrick and Angel Time by Anne Rice
These two books came from a list that I connected to from a different list, one that was a YA Favorites. It took me to one specifically about angel books, which I've sort of had a fascination with lately, so I added a few to my list. These two choices were cited on a lot of lists as good reads, had good reviews, and good ratings - all of those factors helped me decide that the two of them would be my best choice.
The Battle for God by Karen Armstrong
Religion fascinates me, especially fundamentalism because its views are so different than mine. A keyword search for 'fundamentalism' brought up a huge list of books and, well, here's where I should explain some of the differences between WC and LT.
WorldCat's search results come up in a list complete with book covers, options to view other versions of the book, and lists on the side to narrow down by author, date, format, audience, and more specific topic. To add a book to your list, easy as can be, check the box next to it and select the list you'd like to add it to from a drop down menu and viola! It's on your list. From this menu I found the name Karen Armstrong, who is a trusted writer on this topic, and selected her book.
Library Thing worked a little differently, but also in a good way. I went into the search option and typed in 'fundamentalism' in the keywords box, and this is where I favor Library Thing just a bit. It brought up what looks to be a real bookshelf, with the top books tagged with 'fundamentalism' sitting on it. Armstrong's book was the first result. On the side it gave me awesome other ways to either narrow down my choices or explore further. Related subjects, related tagmashes, authors who had used that tag, and related tags were all listed as well, and one click on any of them could have helped me browse. Really convenient, really user-friendly, and really a time suck for a book lover like me. I could have spent all day going from tag to tag and finding new books.
Finding Your Writer's Voice by Thaisa Frank, Writing Down to the Bones by Natalie Goldberg, Bird by Bird by Anne Lamott
Using the keyword searches again, I typed in "writing", hoping to find some great books on the craft of writing. Neither site really was specific enough for me, so I started playing around with the tag clouds and user lists, but for this particular search, what I found to be most helpful was the Subject Lists on LT and the Recommendations on WC. Both operated sort of the same way, by suggesting books on the same topic. Going into the entry of my favorite book about writing, Stephen King's On Writing, LC showed me a whole lists of recommendations for similar books, as well as a tag cloud that led me to Writing Down to the Bones. WC, on the other hand, had direct links to specific subject lists or user lists at the bottom of the page, where I found the other books listed here. Again, both sites made this painless and really easy, and also had me wanting to browse for a few hours.
The Lists
The lists themselves are easy to access from your account homepage on both sites, and when you're done, they look like this:
LT: The Next 10
WC: The Next 10
LT allows you many different display options for your lists, as well as ways to organize it to your liking right on the list page. A drop down menu lets you easily flit between lists.
WC also allowed for different views of the list and ways to organize it directly on the list page, but it's not quite as attractive a setup as LT. LT just seems tailor-made for browsing because it's actually set up, visually, like a bookstore. So, I guess LT wins by a hair. But a very thin hair.
Tuesday, August 17, 2010
Monday, August 16, 2010
Google Scholar
For this assignment, we were challenged to look up the same topic we chose for our last assignment in Google Scholar. So, using the same search terms as for assignment #8, I used Google Scholar to find articles about Social Networking. Here is the bibliography that produced:
Title: Social network(ing) sitesrevisiting the story so far: A response to danah boyd &Nicole Ellison
Author(s): Beer, D. D.
Source: JOURNAL OF COMPUTER MEDIATED COMMUNICATION -ELECTRONIC EDITION- 13 (2):516-529 2008
Times Cited: 53
Title: Homophily in Myspace
Author: Mike Thelwall
Source: Journal of the American Society for Information Science and Technology, 60 (2): 219-231 February 2009
Times cited: 17
Title: The Taste for Privacy: An Analysis of College Student Privacy Settings in an Online Social Network
Author: Kevin Lewis, Jason Kaufman, Nicholas Christakis
Source: Journal of Computer Mediated Communication, 14 (1): 79-100 Oct 2008
Times cited: 21
Title: The Faces of Facebookers: Investigating Social Enhancement and Social Compensation Hypotheses; Predicting Facebook™ and Offline Popularity from Sociability and Self-Esteem, and Mapping the Meanings of Popularity with Semantic Networks
Author: Jolene Zywica, James Danowski
Source: Journal of Computer Mediated Communication, 14 (1): 1-34 Oct 2008
Times Cited: 17
Title: Functions of Social Networking Services
Author: A. Richter, M. Koch
Source: Proc. 8TH International
Conference on the Design of Cooperative Systems, Carry-le-rouet, France, Institut d'Etudes Politiques d'Aix-en-Provence, 87-98
Times Cited: 14
Title: Informal Learning and Identity Formation in Online Social Networks
Author: Christine Greenhowa; Beth Robelia
Source: Learning, Media and Technology, 34(2): 119 - 140 June 2009
Times cited: 9
Title: Facebook and Online Privacy: Attitudes, Behaviors, and Unintended Consequences
Author: Bernhard Debatin, Jennette P. Lovejoy
Source: Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication, 15: 83-108 2009
Times Cited: 10
Title: Youth and Their Virtual Networked Words: Research Findings and Their Implications for School Libraries
Author: Dr. Ross J. Todd
Source: School Libraries Worldwide, 14 (2): 19-34 July 2008
Times cited: 8
Title: Too much of a good thing? The relationship between number of friends and interpersonal impressions on Facebook
Author: Stephanie Tom Tong, Brandon Van Der Heide,Lindsey Langwell, Joseph B. Walther
Source: Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication, 13 (3): 531–549 April 2008
Times Cited: 35
Title: Personality and motivations associated with Facebook use
Author: Craig Ross Emily S. Orra, Jaime M. Arseneaulta, Mary G. Simmeringa, R. Robert Orra,
Source: Computers in Human Behavior, 25 (2): 578-586 March 2009
Times cited: 19
My thoughts on Google Scholar vs. the Kent databases:
To be honest, I didn't feel that there was much of a difference between Google and Kent's searches. Although Google Scholar felt a bit more relaxed as far as searching terms went, they both pretty much returned the same kind of results, in both number and quality (accuracy and relevance.)
I will say that since the assignment depending on the number of citations used for the source, Google Scholar was easier to use in that regard. It listed right below the search result how many times that particular article had been cited. I didn't have to go anywhere else to see how many times the article was cited. It also, wonderfully, gave a link that took you directly to related articles, which I used several times in this assignment. Another plus to Google Scholar was that it also linked to multiple versions of the article right from the results page.
All in all:
Title: Social network(ing) sitesrevisiting the story so far: A response to danah boyd &Nicole Ellison
Author(s): Beer, D. D.
Source: JOURNAL OF COMPUTER MEDIATED COMMUNICATION -ELECTRONIC EDITION- 13 (2):516-529 2008
Times Cited: 53
Title: Homophily in Myspace
Author: Mike Thelwall
Source: Journal of the American Society for Information Science and Technology, 60 (2): 219-231 February 2009
Times cited: 17
Title: The Taste for Privacy: An Analysis of College Student Privacy Settings in an Online Social Network
Author: Kevin Lewis, Jason Kaufman, Nicholas Christakis
Source: Journal of Computer Mediated Communication, 14 (1): 79-100 Oct 2008
Times cited: 21
Title: The Faces of Facebookers: Investigating Social Enhancement and Social Compensation Hypotheses; Predicting Facebook™ and Offline Popularity from Sociability and Self-Esteem, and Mapping the Meanings of Popularity with Semantic Networks
Author: Jolene Zywica, James Danowski
Source: Journal of Computer Mediated Communication, 14 (1): 1-34 Oct 2008
Times Cited: 17
Title: Functions of Social Networking Services
Author: A. Richter, M. Koch
Source: Proc. 8TH International
Conference on the Design of Cooperative Systems, Carry-le-rouet, France, Institut d'Etudes Politiques d'Aix-en-Provence, 87-98
Times Cited: 14
Title: Informal Learning and Identity Formation in Online Social Networks
Author: Christine Greenhowa; Beth Robelia
Source: Learning, Media and Technology, 34(2): 119 - 140 June 2009
Times cited: 9
Title: Facebook and Online Privacy: Attitudes, Behaviors, and Unintended Consequences
Author: Bernhard Debatin, Jennette P. Lovejoy
Source: Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication, 15: 83-108 2009
Times Cited: 10
Title: Youth and Their Virtual Networked Words: Research Findings and Their Implications for School Libraries
Author: Dr. Ross J. Todd
Source: School Libraries Worldwide, 14 (2): 19-34 July 2008
Times cited: 8
Title: Too much of a good thing? The relationship between number of friends and interpersonal impressions on Facebook
Author: Stephanie Tom Tong, Brandon Van Der Heide,Lindsey Langwell, Joseph B. Walther
Source: Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication, 13 (3): 531–549 April 2008
Times Cited: 35
Title: Personality and motivations associated with Facebook use
Author: Craig Ross Emily S. Orra, Jaime M. Arseneaulta, Mary G. Simmeringa, R. Robert Orra,
Source: Computers in Human Behavior, 25 (2): 578-586 March 2009
Times cited: 19
My thoughts on Google Scholar vs. the Kent databases:
To be honest, I didn't feel that there was much of a difference between Google and Kent's searches. Although Google Scholar felt a bit more relaxed as far as searching terms went, they both pretty much returned the same kind of results, in both number and quality (accuracy and relevance.)
I will say that since the assignment depending on the number of citations used for the source, Google Scholar was easier to use in that regard. It listed right below the search result how many times that particular article had been cited. I didn't have to go anywhere else to see how many times the article was cited. It also, wonderfully, gave a link that took you directly to related articles, which I used several times in this assignment. Another plus to Google Scholar was that it also linked to multiple versions of the article right from the results page.
All in all:
- I felt Google was just as trustworthy with its results as the Kent databases
- both systems provided accurate results and I will use them both again
- Google Scholar had a more convenient layout overall, which made linking to other sources easier
- For this particular assignment, which asked for citation numbers, Google wins on convenience, but only for that reason
- I felt only slightly more comfortable with my search terms in Google Scholar, mostly because I knew that, like a regular Google search, it would most likely find something relevant even if it wasn't the best search term. In other words, I was more okay with making mistakes on Scholar and this is probably sort of a learned response to Google in general. I'm just prepared to search again or to have to filter through dud results. Which... really isn't a positive thing for Google, now that I think about it.
Thursday, August 12, 2010
Assignment 8 - The Bibliography
I searched the Library Literature and Information Science Full Text Database and the Social Sciences Citation Index for articles about Social Networking. The bibliography I came up with is a combination of resources pulled from search terms like:
- social networking
- internet communication
- Myspace
Bibliography
Title: The role of friends' appearance and behavior on evaluations of individuals on facebook: Are we known by the company we keep?
Author(s): Walther, JB; Van der Heide, B; Kim, SY, et al.
Source: HUMAN COMMUNICATION RESEARCH, 34 (1): 28-U60 2008
Times Cited: 23
Title: The benefits of Facebook "friends": Social capital and college students' use of online social network sites
Author(s):
Source: JOURNAL OF COMPUTER-MEDIATED COMMUNICATION, 12 (1): 2007
Times Cited: 20
Title: MySpace and facebook: Applying the uses and gratifications theory to exploring friend-networking sites
Author(s): Raacke, J; Bonds-Raacke, J
Source: CYBERPSYCHOLOGY & BEHAVIOR, 11 (2): 169-174 2008
Times Cited: 16
Title: Too much of a good thing? The relationship between number of friends and interpersonal impressions on facebook
Author(s): Tong, ST; Van Der Heide, B; Langwell, L, et al.
Source: JOURNAL OF COMPUTER-MEDIATED COMMUNICATION, 13 (3): 531-549 2008
Times Cited: 13
Title: Personality and motivations associated with Facebook use
Author(s): Ross, C; Orr, ES; Sisic, M, et al.
Source: COMPUTERS IN HUMAN BEHAVIOR, 25 (2): 578-586 2009
Times Cited: 6
Title: The Faces of Facebookers: Investigating Social Enhancement and Social Compensation Hypotheses; Predicting Facebook(TM) and Offline Popularity from Sociability and Self-Esteem, and Mapping the Meanings of Popularity with Semantic Networks
Author(s): Zywica, J; Danowski, J
Source: JOURNAL OF COMPUTER-MEDIATED COMMUNICATION, 14 (1): 1-3 2008
Times Cited: 5
Title: Friend networking sites and their relationship to adolescents' well-being and social self-esteem
Author(s): Valkenburg, PM; Peter, J; Schouten, AP
Source: CYBERPSYCHOLOGY & BEHAVIOR, 9 (5): 584-590 OCT 2006
Times Cited: 23
Title: Personal information of adolescents on the Internet: A quantitative content analysis of MySpace
Author(s): Hinduja, S; Patchin, JW
Source: JOURNAL OF ADOLESCENCE, 31 (1): 125-146 2008
Times Cited: 19
Title: Taking risky opportunities in youthful content creation: teenagers' use of social networking sites for intimacy, privacy and self-expression
Author(s): Livingstone, S
Source: NEW MEDIA & SOCIETY, 10 (3): 393-411 2008
Times Cited: 20
Title: New ties, old ties and lost ties: The use of the internet in Diaspora
Author(s): Hiller, HH; Franz, TM
Source: NEW MEDIA & SOCIETY, 6 (6): 731-752 DEC 2004
Times Cited: 13
Title: Postmodern society and social networks: Open and anticipation dialogues in network meetings
Author(s): Seikkula, J; Arnkil, TE; Eriksson, E
Source: FAMILY PROCESS, 42 (2): 185-203 SUM 2003
Times Cited: 13
Title: Social networking profiles: An examination of student attitudes regarding use and appropriateness of content
Author(s): Peluchette, J; Karl, K
Source: CYBERPSYCHOLOGY & BEHAVIOR, 11 (1): 95-97 2008
Times Cited: 8
Title: Social networks, gender, and friending: An analysis of MySpace member profiles
Author(s): Thelwall, M
Source: JOURNAL OF THE AMERICAN SOCIETY FOR INFORMATION SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY, 59 (8): 1321-1330 2008
Times Cited: 15
Thursday, August 5, 2010
Library of Congress vs. Flickr - A Bitter Battle
I always love the opportunity to pore through historical photographs. My hometown is very rich in history (Chillicothe, Ohio) and so I was excited to browse through the LoC's photos and see what they had.
Here are the search terms I used:
Because of the way the LoC catalogs, I was certain I would have to use more specific language to get the results I wanted, and that was true. In short, I felt as if I had to think like a cataloger, instead of using terms that popped into my head normally. Which is fine, if you know how to think like a cataloger.
To be honest, though, the biggest issue with the LoC in comparison to Flickr was the lack of variation in the results, and a lack of actual sources. All the photographs returned to me appeared to be mostly by the same photographer and mostly on the same subject (a snowstorm in the 40's). The results seemed shallow. Even photos that were not of the 40's snowstorm were the easy to find photos that every historical place or restaurant in town has up on their wall. I had hoped to find something new and fascinating. (Confession: I'd hoped to find one on Camp Sherman that is the back side view to the panorama shot I tagged in Delicious. I've been searching for that forever because I truly believe one has to exist. If that photographer had turned around, he would have snapped a shot of my mother-in-law's house because there's no doubt about it, that panorama had to have been taken from her front porch.)
Lastly, I found LoC to be frustrating because it appears as if they have more on file than is available on their searches. Quite a few results came back as "not digitized" or as "group records" and it would be fascinating to see the photographs they have records for.
All in all, not a bad collection of photos I ended up with, though. I definitely would rather use Flickr, simply because the features like Sets and Galleries are so easy to use, and it allows for a certain amount of networking as well, like groups that focus on historical photos of the area. The ease of the tags is also hard to deny, as is the scope of their collection.
.
That said, Flickr doesn't allow for much record keeping, and it was great to see the details behind the photos of LoC
Here are the search terms I used:
- Chillicothe
- Chillicothe Ohio
- Adena Mansion
- Camp Sherman
- Majestic Theater
- Ross County
- First Capital Ohio
Because of the way the LoC catalogs, I was certain I would have to use more specific language to get the results I wanted, and that was true. In short, I felt as if I had to think like a cataloger, instead of using terms that popped into my head normally. Which is fine, if you know how to think like a cataloger.
To be honest, though, the biggest issue with the LoC in comparison to Flickr was the lack of variation in the results, and a lack of actual sources. All the photographs returned to me appeared to be mostly by the same photographer and mostly on the same subject (a snowstorm in the 40's). The results seemed shallow. Even photos that were not of the 40's snowstorm were the easy to find photos that every historical place or restaurant in town has up on their wall. I had hoped to find something new and fascinating. (Confession: I'd hoped to find one on Camp Sherman that is the back side view to the panorama shot I tagged in Delicious. I've been searching for that forever because I truly believe one has to exist. If that photographer had turned around, he would have snapped a shot of my mother-in-law's house because there's no doubt about it, that panorama had to have been taken from her front porch.)
Lastly, I found LoC to be frustrating because it appears as if they have more on file than is available on their searches. Quite a few results came back as "not digitized" or as "group records" and it would be fascinating to see the photographs they have records for.
All in all, not a bad collection of photos I ended up with, though. I definitely would rather use Flickr, simply because the features like Sets and Galleries are so easy to use, and it allows for a certain amount of networking as well, like groups that focus on historical photos of the area. The ease of the tags is also hard to deny, as is the scope of their collection.
.
That said, Flickr doesn't allow for much record keeping, and it was great to see the details behind the photos of LoC
Sunday, August 1, 2010
The Joys of Flickr
I don't know about anyone else, but I am a terrible photographer. Even when people are holding still, I have a hard time capturing a pose. It's really a crime because I live in the heart of Hocking Hills, which is gorgeous in the spring time, and summer time, and fall and winter too.
So my aim with the Flickr project was to find some great pictures of the Hocking Hills area, especially the caves and trails - pictures I am not talented enough to take myself.
I began with a simple search of "Hocking Hills" and got pages upon pages of results. Some of the results weren't exactly what I was after, but were things from the Hocking Hills region (like a shot of an owl). I collected quite a few pictures from that search regardless, and then went for specific cave regions, or variants on the terms. Here were some of my search terms:
Once I figure out how to create a gallery (I'm stubborn and pig-headed and therefor did not read the tutorial after I signed up, okay?) it was smooth sailing. No matter what terms I put in, I seemed to get relevant results. Of course this led to me searching for other places I love, like Sienna, Italy or Edinburgh, Scotland, and the searches all returned great results as well. I even got specific with a few (looking up the bell tower in Sienna, for example), and it was quite easy to manage.
The Bad:
To be honest, I felt like Flickr in general was twice the work it had to be, and let me preface the rest of this by saying that I could feel that way because I don't know better ways to do things on Flickr. (As I said, I'm stubborn. I'm also a child of the first internet generation. If these aren't easy right away, it's the internet's fault, not mine.) The site itself was a bit cluttered. There wasn't a way to move from one picture to the next, and you couldn't add pictures to your gallery from the thumbnails. You had to expand all the pictures. Also, the task of editing picture tags or descriptions or even the gallery name seemed to have more steps than necessary. Really, the whole thing could be fixed with a few more buttons and a whole lot less clutter.
Overall, Flickr is a convenient way of keeping track of your pictures, and letting you network and find pictures you'd like outside of your own. With a few more careful touches, it could be extremely user friendly and intuitive.
Here's my gallery of the Hocking Hills. Enjoy!
So my aim with the Flickr project was to find some great pictures of the Hocking Hills area, especially the caves and trails - pictures I am not talented enough to take myself.
I began with a simple search of "Hocking Hills" and got pages upon pages of results. Some of the results weren't exactly what I was after, but were things from the Hocking Hills region (like a shot of an owl). I collected quite a few pictures from that search regardless, and then went for specific cave regions, or variants on the terms. Here were some of my search terms:
- Hocking Hills State Park
- Ash Cave
- Old Man's Cave
- Conkle's Hollow
- Rock House
- Rock House stone stairs
- Hocking Hills waterfalls
- Hocking Hills trails
- Ash Cave Waterfalls
Once I figure out how to create a gallery (I'm stubborn and pig-headed and therefor did not read the tutorial after I signed up, okay?) it was smooth sailing. No matter what terms I put in, I seemed to get relevant results. Of course this led to me searching for other places I love, like Sienna, Italy or Edinburgh, Scotland, and the searches all returned great results as well. I even got specific with a few (looking up the bell tower in Sienna, for example), and it was quite easy to manage.
The Bad:
To be honest, I felt like Flickr in general was twice the work it had to be, and let me preface the rest of this by saying that I could feel that way because I don't know better ways to do things on Flickr. (As I said, I'm stubborn. I'm also a child of the first internet generation. If these aren't easy right away, it's the internet's fault, not mine.) The site itself was a bit cluttered. There wasn't a way to move from one picture to the next, and you couldn't add pictures to your gallery from the thumbnails. You had to expand all the pictures. Also, the task of editing picture tags or descriptions or even the gallery name seemed to have more steps than necessary. Really, the whole thing could be fixed with a few more buttons and a whole lot less clutter.
Overall, Flickr is a convenient way of keeping track of your pictures, and letting you network and find pictures you'd like outside of your own. With a few more careful touches, it could be extremely user friendly and intuitive.
Here's my gallery of the Hocking Hills. Enjoy!
Tuesday, July 27, 2010
Ask A Librarian
Assignment #5
Summer's winding down and time is beginning to slip away from me, so in the spirit of killing two birds with one stone, for this assignment I chose a few topics that pertain to my next work of fiction. The assignment was to use KnowItNow.org and Kent's Ask a Librarian feature for help with research.
In my last assignment, The Information Awareness Report, I'd found that asking professionals or librarians was my best bet for getting accurate and relevant information, so I think I had high expectations going into this.
Know It Now
I started my quest for information on knowitnow.org early this morning. I tried a few times, maybe three, before getting a response. Christine, the librarian I chatted with, was helpful and perky. After simply entering in my question, she returned several web sites to me that looked as though they were specific to my request and jam-packed with information. She asked me if I needed anything else and honestly, I couldn't think of anything else to ask for. I was rather surprised to find that the information was there by request, and I wasn't going to have to filter through a thousand messy websites to find what I needed.
All in all, the conversation lasted for five minutes, was polite and helpful, and a transcript of the conversation was emailed to me, complete with links Christine had provided, right after I closed the chat box.
Ask A Librarian at Kent
The next thing I did was pull up the Kent library site. There was a chat box already open and ready, saying the librarian was online. I quickly typed in my informational request. The page warned that it may take a few minutes because the librarian might be busy, so I waited, but after probably ten minutes I gave up. I tried again later and got the same thing. My third attempt in the afternoon was a charm. I got a message back in about two seconds. He asked me for specifics, if there were narrower branches of the topic and what kind of resources I'd like. Settling on journal articles, websites, and a few key points from my topic, he promptly sent me his search results from Kent's own library, and then told me he would email me with other articles soon.
Only five minutes passed before my inbox had an email from the librarian containing full articles he'd found on the topic. FULL ARTICLES. Not just the links or the record for it, the entire article.
Let me repeat that just so you can get the full effect of how convenient and easy this is: I was emailed full articles relating to my specific text. Articles that I did not look up myself, I merely asked for them.
Conclusion
Will I use these online librarian sites again? Absolutely. It was easy and fast. The only problems I encountered were technical ones, not with the service itself. The librarians themselves seemed ready to spend all day researching with me if I'd asked it of them, and seemed to genuinely enjoy research.
The best thing about using librarians? Just as I'd hoped, they were knowledgeable and cut out the "middle man" work of finding trustworthy sources. Even when I research in libraries myself, or databases like what was required in the last assignment, I often don't know enough about using them or about the sources they cite to tell if the information will be useful to me. And I could have spent an hour on Google narrowing my search to the articles and sites the librarians easily found and sent me in five minutes. Added to that, I have emails sitting in my account, ready to be pulled up and viewed at any time. And in the fast-paced and ever-changing world of the internet, that is a very good thing indeed.
Summer's winding down and time is beginning to slip away from me, so in the spirit of killing two birds with one stone, for this assignment I chose a few topics that pertain to my next work of fiction. The assignment was to use KnowItNow.org and Kent's Ask a Librarian feature for help with research.
In my last assignment, The Information Awareness Report, I'd found that asking professionals or librarians was my best bet for getting accurate and relevant information, so I think I had high expectations going into this.
Know It Now
I started my quest for information on knowitnow.org early this morning. I tried a few times, maybe three, before getting a response. Christine, the librarian I chatted with, was helpful and perky. After simply entering in my question, she returned several web sites to me that looked as though they were specific to my request and jam-packed with information. She asked me if I needed anything else and honestly, I couldn't think of anything else to ask for. I was rather surprised to find that the information was there by request, and I wasn't going to have to filter through a thousand messy websites to find what I needed.
All in all, the conversation lasted for five minutes, was polite and helpful, and a transcript of the conversation was emailed to me, complete with links Christine had provided, right after I closed the chat box.
Ask A Librarian at Kent
The next thing I did was pull up the Kent library site. There was a chat box already open and ready, saying the librarian was online. I quickly typed in my informational request. The page warned that it may take a few minutes because the librarian might be busy, so I waited, but after probably ten minutes I gave up. I tried again later and got the same thing. My third attempt in the afternoon was a charm. I got a message back in about two seconds. He asked me for specifics, if there were narrower branches of the topic and what kind of resources I'd like. Settling on journal articles, websites, and a few key points from my topic, he promptly sent me his search results from Kent's own library, and then told me he would email me with other articles soon.
Only five minutes passed before my inbox had an email from the librarian containing full articles he'd found on the topic. FULL ARTICLES. Not just the links or the record for it, the entire article.
Let me repeat that just so you can get the full effect of how convenient and easy this is: I was emailed full articles relating to my specific text. Articles that I did not look up myself, I merely asked for them.
Conclusion
Will I use these online librarian sites again? Absolutely. It was easy and fast. The only problems I encountered were technical ones, not with the service itself. The librarians themselves seemed ready to spend all day researching with me if I'd asked it of them, and seemed to genuinely enjoy research.
The best thing about using librarians? Just as I'd hoped, they were knowledgeable and cut out the "middle man" work of finding trustworthy sources. Even when I research in libraries myself, or databases like what was required in the last assignment, I often don't know enough about using them or about the sources they cite to tell if the information will be useful to me. And I could have spent an hour on Google narrowing my search to the articles and sites the librarians easily found and sent me in five minutes. Added to that, I have emails sitting in my account, ready to be pulled up and viewed at any time. And in the fast-paced and ever-changing world of the internet, that is a very good thing indeed.
Friday, July 23, 2010
Information Awareness Report
In my Access to Information class for my MLIS degree I was asked to create an Information Awareness Report. The gist? Research a subject you don't know enough about and explain your methods.
Having recently finished writing a novel about a gay teen, and after reading this amazing post to librarians about LGBT literature for young adults, I started to wonder, "What's the publishing world like for gay fiction for teens? Is the outlook as bad as this young man believes? Are all the stories getting published for LBGT teens the same?"
Of course I had read the standard "classics" for the genre, Boy Meets Boy by David Levithan, Annie on My Mind by Nancy Garden, The God Box by Alex Sanchez, and there were lots of things I loved about all of them, along with some criticisms. But perhaps there were other stories out there, better stories, that I was missing. The only way to find out if there's truly remarkable fiction out there was to read it, but I realized that, other than these classics, I didn't know where to start. Thus began my search for books with an LGBT theme that come highly recommended by critics, librarians, and teens themselves.
Google
It's hard to deny that Google has some advantages. It's quick, it's easy, and it's convenient. It's made for someone like me, who spends most of the day with her hands glued to a laptop. It can also be just about the least effective method for finding information the world has to offer. As I typed "books for gay teens" into the search engine and waited for the results, I hoped luck would be in my favor.
It was. Google returned nearly 25,000 results to me in under a second, and the first page of results at least looked extremely relevant to my question. The very first result was like hitting the jackpot: Alex Sanchez's own list of Great Books for Gay Teens. This was a great start, and since I've liked Sanchez's books, his recommendations would probably suit my tastes as well.
Another article Google returned was one from the Huffington Post, called 13 Great Books for Gay Teens. Although it was informative for the concept of my search, I found myself realizing that I should have been more specific. This article, Sanchez's list, and the majority of the first page of results were all repeating themselves, and although they were mentioning the classics, I wanted more uncommon answers, and I wanted books that were uncommon as well.
My next Google search then, was "LGBT young adult fiction awards." This returned exactly the kind of results I was looking for. Here are just a few of the worthwhile results I found:
What I learned:
Overall, I thought that using Google was effective. As always, it was fast and easy and readily available. The results that I found were right there on the web to see, nicely displayed, and I didn't have to order anything or make a trip to the library to find the actual article.
There were problems I had with Google search that left me, ultimately, a bit perplexed and frustrated with my search results. The first was that it became quickly evident that the keyword search was ineffective. Even though the results matched words, the content was often not what I was looking for. It appeared to be more advertisements, business websites, personal blogs, or various other mediums where the information was questionable at best. It was evident that I would have to check the information thoroughly to make sure it was correct, which is certainly not ideal and will not save a user any time.
American Library Association
The next step was logical. Who would know about the best LGBT fiction out there available to teens? Librarians, of course. A quick search in the search box of the ALA website brought up this extremely pertinent article from the Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual and Transgendered Rountable at the 2000 ALA Conference. Not only did it give an insightful list of fiction and nonfiction for gay teens, it also linked directly to the Roundtable page on ala.org, which led to me discovering quite a bit about the group, their project, and advocacy.
What I Learned:
Always trust a librarian. Really, next time I have a question about this topic, this will be the first place I check. The roundtable is a wonderful professional resource maintained by experts who have already pulled together news and information and resources. In fact, everything I found in Google was already cited on this page and it could have saved me a lot of time.
Library Thing
Like the ALA, I assumed that Library Thing would be a great resource for finding lists of fiction for gay teens, and I was right. A simple search for "gay teens" in the tags section of their search page brought up lists of books that other users had tagged with that phrase. From there it was so easy to narrow it down to what I wanted using their feature called "tagmashes" that lets you integrate more than one tag in a search, in other words, you could seriously narrow down a book by topics or genre in one easy click. In addition to that, narrowing down the search was made easier by their "related subjects" section, which allowed me to browse, discover, and pinpoint exactly what I was looking for. I "walked away" from this resource with a bigger list of books to read than any of the other resources I'd tried.
What I Learned in This Assignment:
Having recently finished writing a novel about a gay teen, and after reading this amazing post to librarians about LGBT literature for young adults, I started to wonder, "What's the publishing world like for gay fiction for teens? Is the outlook as bad as this young man believes? Are all the stories getting published for LBGT teens the same?"
Of course I had read the standard "classics" for the genre, Boy Meets Boy by David Levithan, Annie on My Mind by Nancy Garden, The God Box by Alex Sanchez, and there were lots of things I loved about all of them, along with some criticisms. But perhaps there were other stories out there, better stories, that I was missing. The only way to find out if there's truly remarkable fiction out there was to read it, but I realized that, other than these classics, I didn't know where to start. Thus began my search for books with an LGBT theme that come highly recommended by critics, librarians, and teens themselves.
It's hard to deny that Google has some advantages. It's quick, it's easy, and it's convenient. It's made for someone like me, who spends most of the day with her hands glued to a laptop. It can also be just about the least effective method for finding information the world has to offer. As I typed "books for gay teens" into the search engine and waited for the results, I hoped luck would be in my favor.
It was. Google returned nearly 25,000 results to me in under a second, and the first page of results at least looked extremely relevant to my question. The very first result was like hitting the jackpot: Alex Sanchez's own list of Great Books for Gay Teens. This was a great start, and since I've liked Sanchez's books, his recommendations would probably suit my tastes as well.
Another article Google returned was one from the Huffington Post, called 13 Great Books for Gay Teens. Although it was informative for the concept of my search, I found myself realizing that I should have been more specific. This article, Sanchez's list, and the majority of the first page of results were all repeating themselves, and although they were mentioning the classics, I wanted more uncommon answers, and I wanted books that were uncommon as well.
My next Google search then, was "LGBT young adult fiction awards." This returned exactly the kind of results I was looking for. Here are just a few of the worthwhile results I found:
What I learned:
Overall, I thought that using Google was effective. As always, it was fast and easy and readily available. The results that I found were right there on the web to see, nicely displayed, and I didn't have to order anything or make a trip to the library to find the actual article.
There were problems I had with Google search that left me, ultimately, a bit perplexed and frustrated with my search results. The first was that it became quickly evident that the keyword search was ineffective. Even though the results matched words, the content was often not what I was looking for. It appeared to be more advertisements, business websites, personal blogs, or various other mediums where the information was questionable at best. It was evident that I would have to check the information thoroughly to make sure it was correct, which is certainly not ideal and will not save a user any time.
American Library Association
The next step was logical. Who would know about the best LGBT fiction out there available to teens? Librarians, of course. A quick search in the search box of the ALA website brought up this extremely pertinent article from the Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual and Transgendered Rountable at the 2000 ALA Conference. Not only did it give an insightful list of fiction and nonfiction for gay teens, it also linked directly to the Roundtable page on ala.org, which led to me discovering quite a bit about the group, their project, and advocacy.
What I Learned:
Always trust a librarian. Really, next time I have a question about this topic, this will be the first place I check. The roundtable is a wonderful professional resource maintained by experts who have already pulled together news and information and resources. In fact, everything I found in Google was already cited on this page and it could have saved me a lot of time.
Library Thing
Like the ALA, I assumed that Library Thing would be a great resource for finding lists of fiction for gay teens, and I was right. A simple search for "gay teens" in the tags section of their search page brought up lists of books that other users had tagged with that phrase. From there it was so easy to narrow it down to what I wanted using their feature called "tagmashes" that lets you integrate more than one tag in a search, in other words, you could seriously narrow down a book by topics or genre in one easy click. In addition to that, narrowing down the search was made easier by their "related subjects" section, which allowed me to browse, discover, and pinpoint exactly what I was looking for. I "walked away" from this resource with a bigger list of books to read than any of the other resources I'd tried.
What I Learned in This Assignment:
- Google may be the most convenient, but it's also the biggest time suck. The results returned were often not relevant, which led to a lot of tweaking in the searches and a lot of filtering. Added to that, I still had to determine if the contents of the websites were trustworthy.
- The more specific you can get, the better when searching. Although I did not consult a human being for this project, I imagine it works much the same way as searching tools on any website. The more information you can provide, the more detail, the more relevant your found resources will be.
- That said, there are times when it's easiest to be very general and narrow it down yourself. One reason I didn't use the VPN was that, even though their thorough searches through databases are great, there is such a thing as TOO specific. I knew if I'd tried this search in a database, such as the LGBT life one, I would either get one or two results that perfectly matched my keywords, or a thousand matches if I was vague. Sometimes the search just calls for vagueness.
- Finding groups dedicated to your subject may be the best way to go about finding information. Usually these groups have already compiled resources and it makes research as easy as breathing.
- User created tags are the best thing since sliced bread. And the best thing since user created tags? The ability to combine tags in a search. Genius.
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