Grey Literature

This was an interesting lesson, talking about all the information that you are not able to find using general internet search engines or subject directories.  Prior to this lesson, I had never heard of grey literature.  Some of this information is retrievable using academic and other databases. It is great to have access to the government publications online – I do remember all the pamphlets in the vertical files from when I was a student – I haven't seen one for quite a while as I suppose most of the pamphlets can be found as PDF files online now. This lesson also mentions blogs and list-serves which are great sources of information and ideas – I know that I rely heavily on blogs in my practice as TL and follow many with my Google Reader. I also follow LM-Net as a good source of information for TLs.

Newspapers

I do not see that much of a call for a newspaper at the elementary school level, at least at the school I work at. If I was to subscribe to a newspaper, it would be the Victoria Times Colonist, given that I am on Vancouver Island.

In a high school, I can see that being up to date on current events would be more important and could see a subscription to the TC being valuable. Having said that, I would also want to touch base with teachers and present them with ways of using the newspaper with their classes.

I must also say that, right now, I do not personally subscribe to any print newspapers and get all of my news online. I find that I do not have the time to sit down with a newspaper each day and give it a good reading. I also find the amount of paper recycling generated when receiving a newspaper each day to be huge. Therefore, I rely on CBC online and the TC online to monitor headlines and read further anything that I find interesting or relevant.

Electronic Databases

I have used the journal databases at UBC for the courses I have taken for my TL diploma, but I must admit that I generally use the same ones – either Academic Search Complete or ERIC, which both use the EBSCOHost platform for searching. They are fairly straightforward to use, giving a selection of articles that match your search terms. Using the subject words given, I can decide to click on the article to see the abstract or view the full text of the article. I have also used RefWorks to automatically generate reference lists using the database information. To further streamline a search there are many parameters you can use to limit the search. I am very comfortable using these databases and find them well organized and easy to use.

I thought I would try another database, though most of the ones I tried also seemed to be from EBSCOHost as well. The Ed/ITLib (Education & Information Technology Digital Library) was very different. It was basically like searching a website, but the search came up with papers matching the search terms. I could click the link to see the abstract and then had many options such as printing or emailing the abstract, getting a full text PDF, saving the article or exporting the citation. At this site, there is also the option of sharing the article on Twitter. There is information about the Journal the article is from, including the Table of Contents for that specific journal. There is a section titled “Also Read” which appears to be similar articles.

CBCA Education was from the ProQuest Database, which has a very similar interface to the EBSCOHost. The results list gives basic bibliographic information about the articles and options to see the abstract, text + graphics or full text PDF. An interesting tool here was the ability to translate the article to another language (also in EBSCO).

Education Index Full Text uses WilsonWeb which is also similar to the EBSCO and ProQuest format. I have used WilsonWeb in the past and found it also very straightforward to use.

In general, I think that the periodical indexes available at UBC are all similar. Once you are familiar with how to use one, the skill transfers to using the other indexes as well. Although I am most familiar with EBSCOHost, I would have no qualms about using any of the other indexes. The index chosen would be determined by the subject area I was looking for information on.

Geographical Resources

Since I am currently at home, I do not have the luxury of looking at the geographical resources that are present in my library, though I do know that all of them are current as I have purchased them over the past three years. Additionally, I weeded out all of the older atlases in June. There is a variety of different atlases; they are all shelved within the non-fiction section of the library (either French or English) and are circulating books. I find that no one ever comes to the library to refer to an atlas, yet many students like looking at them. Since they request to take them out of the library, I have seen no reason to restrict their circulation. In purchasing these atlases, I haven't used any specific type of evaluation, but will definitely refer to Reidling's criteria in the future, in addition to communicating with teachers in regards to their needs. Perhaps working more closely with teachers will require the atlases to become real “reference” materials and become used more frequently in the library. Also, given the cost of atlases and the need to keep current copies in the library, using appropriate criteria to purchase quality resources is essential.

While I can see the appeal of “hard copy” atlases and maps, I am interested to investigate some of the material available online and see how it can be used in the elementary school setting.

I first chose to use Reidling's criteria to examine The Atlas of Canada. Being a government publication the authority would be good, given that, as Chris has mentioned over 90% of maps are published by the government or based on government sources. Some of the maps here are interactive online maps, while others are printable PDF files. There is a huge number of maps available! The scale of the interactive maps changes as you zoom into the part of the map you wish to see. The maps also each have an abstract as well as links to further information. The maps are current (in addition to the historical maps available) and the indexing of the maps is comprehensive. I can see the interactive maps available on this site being very useful to project on a SmartBoard in front of an entire class; the ability to zoom in and out is great to illustrate areas to students. Additionally, the availability of printable PDF maps would be useful for students.  This is also a good site to find wall maps to order for classrooms. One of the great things about the Atlas of Canada for my French immersion school is that it is available in French!  Overall, this is a great site and I can see recommending it to teachers and encouraging them to use it with their classes.


I also examined Altapedia and like Lori, was uncertain of its authority of the Latimer Clarke Corporation that runs it. I did like the country information that is available at the same place as the map, however. The maps are not interactive, so scale is fixed and may be adequate or not, depending on the need of the researcher. I was disappointed to note that all of the maps I looked at had a copyright date of 1998, which, according to Reidling, would be considered historical. Full world maps are downloadable but not viewable online. The site appeared to have “class resources” with additional school or homework resources for teachers & students, but this area only contained the PDF world maps. Overall, I was not that impressed with Altapedia, and would like to search for a better source of world and country maps.

Secret costs

According to student Jennifer Parker and the instructor Anne Letain, costs of the databases are generally kept confidential.  Vendors negotiate individual deals with each school district, gov't agency, etc. and don't want cost comparisons.  Salespeople may also get bonuses for their sales amounts.
Hmmm......

Indexes, Abstract and Full Text Databases

Right now, neither my school or district subscribe to any databases. When I checked the public library, I was pleasantly surprised with what the Vancouver Island Regional Library had to offer. They have the databased divided by subject – once you click on the subject, you can see the databases as well as recommended websites on that particular subject. Some more digging found the databases listed in alphabetical order, with some available only in branch. Some of the databases that I found interesting included: Academic Search Elite, CBCA Current Events, CBCA Reference, Encyclopedia of British Columbia, Encyclopédie Universalis, Gale Virtual Reference Library, Learning Centre, Mango Languages, MasterFILE Premier, NoveList, TumbleBooks, TumbleReadables and World Book (in all its forms). I really liked the subject index because it linked to the databases in addition to websites. I did find that there is not that much geared towards elementary aged children – the Homework Help category has World Book Online (which we have at school) and TumbleBooks and TumbleReadables (which we don't) and that is it for kids. I was excited to see they had French Resources, but nothing there was suitable for the students at my school, except L'Encyclopédie Découverte (World Book) which we already have.

When I did some exploration of the EBSCO site, I was pleased to see it has a Canadian specific product. The Nonfiction Book Collection, specifically designed for elementary school is interesting, as I find nonfiction books to be a good source of information for students this age – having access online to this type of information would be useful. The Searchasauras interface is very kid-friendly. I like that “Searchasaurus offers Lexile limiters (reading level), making it easy for students to read and research only appropriately challenging materials (from EBSCO site).” The Kids Search interface is more comprehensive, “automatically searching across all applicable databases simultaneously.” EBSCO has an interesting article about Free vs. Fee-Based Resources, of course written by themselves, so it is rather biased, though some good points are presented.

Gale Group also has a huge number of titles available in their databases, but I had a more difficult time navigating their site. I was unable to find information about database packages they have available.

Hmm . . . I am supposed to find out the cost and licencing fees for libraries for these databases but am unable to find anything. Will look again when I have some more energy!

Dictionaries, Thesauri, Handbooks, Almanacs & Yearbooks

This was an interesting lesson in an area I do not know that much about. 

The dictionary area of my Reference collection is an area that I need to weed out.  Being a French Immersion school, I have French, English and French-English dictionaries.  I have quite a few French picture dictionaries that I have shelved in the non-fiction section and children are allowed to check out.  This may be the section that I evaluate for Assignment #2.  I have English thesauri but none in French - perhaps I should seek out one!

Any handbooks, almanacs and yearbooks that I have are housed in the non-fiction section.  Students love the Guiness World Record books and the few almanacs that I have.  Should I be keeping these for reference only?

The CultureGrams Online Database looks very interesting, especially given they have the Canadian provinces.  However, given that the database is in English, it is of no use to me at a French Immersion school.