A delicious treat or a rotten site

I have just spent the last 15 minutes testing out Delicious (http://www.delicious.com/).  I created an account and then went to google and began searching information about Joseph Stalin (since I am a Socials teacher and we just finished WWII and the Cold War - it's not that I have a thing for Russian dictators with bushy moustaches).

When I found relevant pages I bookmarked them.  When my search was complete I looked at the list of resources I had collected and I was very impressed.  Surprisingly nothing off topic was included in my list of resources.  In fact, every source was relevant to the topic of "Joseph Stalin."

I found that this process was similar to Google's program where you can have updates sent to you with relevant content (I can't remember the name of the program at the moment).

While I did find Delicious to be deliciously interesting, I don't know if it is a program I would use on a regular basis.  After years of researching and the past year and a half of completing online courses for UBC I have become a bit of an expert on finding relevant resources on my own.  So while Delicious is a cool idea, I don't see it getting much use in my academic life.

Catalogue this? 2 books in 1

I was in the library moments ago on my prep and in discussion with the librarian I found out that there is a new series of books which screws up the cataloguing system.

Each book in the series is actually two books.  The front cover states that it is one book, however if you flip to the back cover and turn it 180 degrees there is another book.  The TL said that this has caused great confusion for the cataloguing of the series as their are two books in each!

I thought this might be a funny little story readers might be interested in!

Me and MARC are Back on Speaking Terms!

Understanding MARC

After reading about MARC I was extremely confused.  To be honest I thought it was stupid and would likely serve no use for me in the future so why lose sleep over it.  I even considered not trying to complete the activity at the end of lesson six.  However, despite my attitudes towards MARC I tried the activity and was surprised at the value in it.

When I went on the Library of Congress site I entered in the title of the first custom course ware selection entitled, The Tale of Despereaux.  I compared the catalogue information to the information on the front and back of the cover.  I found all of the information to be very accurate.  I then moved on to conquer my fear and hatred of MARC.  When I clicked on the MARC Tags description of the book I was surprised to easily recognize several of the fields.  Immediately I remembered that 245 represented the title, 260 represented the publisher and 100 represented the author.  Based on these recognitions I realized that all the 200 fields represented key book information.  However I was still confused by what was represented by the 00_’s, 9__’s and the 0_0’s.  Even though I did not understand all of the MARC fields and tags, I was pleased that I recognized and understood a few.

With my new found confidence I tried searching The X Ray Picture Book of Dinosaurs & Other Prehistoric Creatures.  The MARC Tags for this book once again overwhelmed me.  While I once again recognized the 200’s and 100, there were a lot more other tags in the 600, 700, 800 and 900’s.  Furthermore there were additional letters and codes which were completely lost on me.  I realize now that as somebody who does not work in a library, understanding MARC in its entirety will likely never occur.  However, I am glad that I can at least recognize the key tags for items such as title, author, publisher and key descriptive information.

Creating My Own MARC Record

I decided to create a MARC Record for Animal Farm by George Orwell.  I included all of the information using the tags which I remembered from the readings as well as a few I looked up using the reading on MARC.

020         ISBN 0-14-012670-8

100         Orwell, George

240 $1   English

        $f    1945

245         Animal Farm

260         Martin Secker & Warburg Ltd

300         5 mm.

Once I completed my own MARC record I compared it to the actual one on the Library of Congress website.  I was surprised at how much of it I had correct.  As a result of my success, I feel a little bit better about MARC moving forward in the course.

Module 2: Lesson 5 - Access and Cataloguing Systems

Common ways to Access Materials

Firstly I want to address the reflection topic regarding the most common ways to access an item.  I assumed that the most common and easy way was by searching the title or author of an item.  However, after selecting several items from my library and checking their information on the library catalogue I was shocked at how many other access points there were.  It was interesting to see that in our library catalogue you could search a variety of random subjects and you would be taken to a list of related books, magazines and videos.

Comparing Five Items with the ILS

In conducting the summative activity for this week I was surprised at the accuracy and detail of the information in the library catalogue.

In order to get a variety of items, I selected two videos that I show for grade eight Social Studies.  One video was a single VHS tape while the other was a DVD from a four part collection.  I also selected three random fiction novels which were on display throughout the library.

I found that in our library cataloguing system there were the typical areas of bibliographic description described in this weeks reading.  What I was a little surprised by was all the material dependent information that was provided.  For instance with the one novel I am Not Emmanuelle, there were bibliographic comments including siblings, death, trial, upside down books, etc.  There was even a quote in French listed on the ISBD page for this book.  After completing the readings I realized that there would likely be a great deal of data in the library catalogue about each item, I was amazed at the detail included.  As expected, the information includes the main characteristics such as author, title as well as total number of pages.  I did not expect to find things such as the colour of the book covers or the width (measured in centimetres).

The task of finding five items and seeing how they are catalogued opened my eyes to how much detail goes into the process of logging items into an automated system.  Realizing that the Teacher-Librarian is responsible for doing this at my school has given me a much greater respect for the tedious elements of her job that must be done in order for users to find the resources they are looking for.

In case anybody was curious on my fiction selections from the featured displays they were The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind by William Yamkwomba, I am not Emmanuelle by Carine Tardieu, and Just Julie by Nadia Xerri-L.  The latter of the two are part of a six book series (I think).  I included these sources as some of you may be interested by what our Teacher-Librarian is featuring this month!  I’d be curious to know what is featured in your school library this month.

I never knew that when I Google'd or Yahoo'd....

Master of Search Engine Anatomy

How does it help in developing info lit with colleagues and students?

At first glance, search engines seem to be very complex.  After completing the readings about their many parts it supported my belief that these engines are very complicated.  However, the information provided about the search engine’s many parts helped me realize how they work in sorting, organizing and ranking websites.  With this knowledge I am now able to understand why only certain websites show up on internet searches.  Furthermore, based on this information students can be taught how to select resources by carefully defining their own criteria.  This would be a valuable lesson which would benefit students in any future research projects.

How Engines Determine Relevancy Ranking

I chose to investigate how Google and Yahoo search engines rank websites.

Google’s search engine is based on four criteria.  First and foremost is relevance.  The engine determines whether the content is relevant to the topic that was searched.  The second criterion is comprehensiveness of the website.  If the site is vague and does not go into detail it is ranked lower in the list of results.  The third criterion is whether a website is fresh and new.  The engine ranks those websites with new content higher than those which have content that has been available for longer.  The fourth criterion is with regards to how fast the engine can examine the website.  Any site that takes too long to examine for relevancy is ranked lower in the search results.

Yahoo’s search engine has slightly different search criteria.  Yahoo’s criterion is based on the coding of a website.  Higher rankings are given to those sites which are entirely in HTML code.  Another criterion of Yahoo is the originality of the content.  Similar to Google, if a website has new content it will be ranked higher.  The amount and quality of hyperlinks in each website also affect the ranking of websites.  The more relevant hyperlinks an article has the better it is ranked.  Finally, if the metadata of a website is more descriptive of what is in the website it affects the ranking.  The more the metadata can tell the engine about the site, the more accurate the results of the search.

I found the task of investigating how Google and Yahoo search engines operate to be very interesting.  Even after getting an idea of how they work, I am still amazed at how this type of technology works.

Overwhelmed by MARC

For those of you who do not know, I broke my leg just before the holidays and have spent the last 38 days in a full leg cast.  With limited mobility my activities have been cut down giving me more time to read course content.  As a result, I have read up to module six!

Module six introduced me to one of the most confusing systems....MARC!  After reading through the online descriptions I am absolutely overwhelmed by the coding of the MARC system.  I'm sure glad that the CIP or Library of Congress make up these codes and that a computer has to read this information because if it was up to me I would be lost!  Obviously MARC works, but there has to be a system that is easier for the human brain to process as well as a computer!

Just my thoughts on MARC.  When the time comes I look forward to discussing it in detail.

Thoughts on Module 1 Lesson 2

Digital Media & My Experiences

Digital media is changing the way we teach and learn.  Many of the new digital mediums offer teachers and students more engaging and creative ways to study course material.

I am a strong proponent of digital media.  Whenever I can incorporate technology and new mediums I take full advantage.  Since starting out five years ago I have converted all of my overhead notes to PowerPoint.  I find that students are far more receptive to the content when it is presented in a more visually aesthetic way.  More recently I have been changing class projects so that they take advantage of technology and the new mediums.  Rarely do I have students complete poster projects.  Instead I have them create Glogs or Prezi’s.  These new mediums are more engaging for students and allow them to use their technological abilities.

Aside from using digital media, I support students by providing them with opportunities to practice using these mediums.  Often extra time in the computer lab or library is needed to work with these new mediums.  I also try to have “experts” assist in instruction when I am using mediums which may be new to me.  Furthermore, I try to use mediums which I know will draw on students’ prior knowledge of technology.

Commitment to Access

After completing the week’s readings it is obvious that access deals with a variety of things including intellectual, physical and digital access.

As a teacher I am committed to providing students with access to resources of all different formats and mediums.  The resources should be easily accessible to students within the class, library school or online.  This means that clear rules and guidelines need to be implemented to ensure that students know who, what where, why and how a resource can be accessed.

By providing students with access to a variety of different resources which can be easily located and used, students’ learning benefits greatly.

My Experiences, Our Library and My Expectations of LIBE 465

My name is Chris Ellett.  I have been teaching for the past five years at Elgin Park Secondary in South Surrey/White Rock.  I was very lucky to get hired for a full time position immediately after completing the Bachelor of Education program at UBC.  I never experienced life as a TOC.  However, in order to keep my job over the past five years I have had to teach a variety of subjects.  My teaching experience includes my specialization area of Socials and History as well as English, Law, Math and Computers.  By teaching such a variety of courses I think I have more than made up for any TOC experience I missed out on.

Last year I returned to UBC to complete a diploma program in Language and Literacy Education which will go towards by PB+15.  At this point I have completed 7 of the 10 courses.  This is the first library related course I have taken at UBC.  However, I am taking another this semester (LLED 461).

My primary interests lie in how technology can be used to engage students in using the library.  At our school students do not get along well with the librarian and as a result have a negative attitude towards it.  I think that technology could be a great way to get students back into the library and taking advantage of all it has to offer them.

My school has a technology specialist who deals with any tech issues in the school.  However, the teacher-librarian is responsible for most of the technology that is being used in the library.  We are very lucky to have such a technologically gifted teacher-librarian as she is able to introduce new technologies for traditional projects.

The teacher-librarian’s ability to catalogue new resources has been absorbed by Learning Resources.  Our librarian only processes books that are purchased directly from the vendor and this is limited to a maximum of 1/4 of the total budget.  However, the librarian is still dependent on LRS for the cataloguing.  The remainder of the materials that are purchased must be done through Learning Resources and they do all of the processing there.  Our librarian can add things like sublocations and genre labels, but the major stuff is done by LRS.

Our school uses Destiny as its automation system.  It is a Follett product and was introduced district wide approximately 4 years ago.

With regards to district resources and personnel, our teacher-librarian has a staff member one day a week to help with clerical and shelving work.  The librarian is also able to borrow inventory kits from LRS, but have to do the inventory ourselves.  The librarian also noted that district personnel do not visit the schools.

I expect this course to teach me a great deal about the workings of the school library and what exactly is expected of teacher-librarians.  I hope that with the information I acquire I can find more opportunities to use the library in my day-to-day teaching.  Furthermore, one day I may want to become a teacher-librarian and this course may help me in that transition.