Browsing the Catalogs...and Searching

I've been reading the articles about searching. I liked the 6 strategies suggested in "Web 2.0 Strategies for Searching," by Pam Berger. I tried some of the search engines mentioned in some of the article. Not all of them worked, but I liked clusty.com in particular. I've been trying to do searches on some of the databases that I know schools typically have. I'm kind of concerned that I might not be a good searcher and I'm supposed to be the expert! It is all new to me and I'm determined not to end up being the librarian who doesn't know how to search efficiently! It was a nice relief to find the 21st Century Information Fluency site. I may have to spend quite a bit of time on that.

I checked out Google Squared and was completely amazed. I created a square for constellations. My son has been interested in them lately. I can't wait to show it to him. Too bad we don't have a telescope or live out in the country where we can really see the stars!

I really must say that I enjoyed all of the readings this week. They were all very practical and informative. The copyright reading in Simpson was helpful too. This is a book I plan on keeping.

I liked looking at the different catalogs available. I would have to say ease of use and visual appeal is important. I love catalog systems that show covers of books. I like features that include suggestion lists such as new books, teacher favorites/suggestions, certain genres, black history month books, etc. Kids being able to write reviews, make a wish list, browse a shelf of books or see suggested books that are similar to others they like are a plus. Search features should include suggestions for misspellings, and advanced search capabilities. It is also important to have ease of use behind the scenes for uploading books into the system and being able to add your own keywords or tags to a book's marc records.

I had fun this week. I actually visited 3 school libraries, which I found most informative. I also visited 1 public library for another class. I figured out that in the past week, I have been in 7 different libraries. This coming week is winter break for the schools around here...so no visits to school libraries for a while.