HOW do you decide if a website is right for your needs?  Here's a chart which might help you figure that out:

Find the Right Site for Your Research Become a Discerning Reader Beverly Meier LIB740; Thomas Nixon
There are numerous aspects to consider when you are selecting sources for your research.Some aspects are simple and obvious; others are complex and require great thought. This chart is thorough and includes both types.  Learn to become The Discerning Reader!
Points & Purposes	Authority	Accuracy	Objectivity	Currency	Coverage
WHO	Does the page include an author’s biography and his/her email address? Is the author a valid authority on the subject covered by the piece? What are the author’s credentials? Has the author conducted or participated in any studies—pertinent to the piece, or not? Does the author have a website? What else has the author written? What kind of fame does the author possess? Who publishes the website? Who does the author quote, and is the cited person an authority? Through which search engine was the piece accessed? Have the author or the piece earned any scholarly awards or reviews?	What known authorities agree/disagree with the information of the piece? Do other works of the author conflict with the piece? Does the information in the piece agree with that shared in the works of other authorities on the same subject?	What can the author gain through the article? Does the author have a determinable prejudice or financial interest in the subject? Does the author represent any known group? Does the website publisher have anything to gain by presenting the article/piece? Who sponsored the piece? Does the piece’s information represent any group? Which? Who does the author cite, and does the cited person have any pertinent bias? Was the author of the piece an active participant in any event or study mentioned in the piece?	Is the author of the piece still living? Are other members who are involved in any events/activities in the piece still living?	Can the piece be discovered through more than one search engine/which? At what position on the search engine’s web page was the piece located (i.e., was the article the first item offered, the fifth, on the second page, etc.)? Is the work cited by others? If yes, by whom is the piece cited and for what purpose? Who/what does the piece cite? Are there advertisements on the webpage?  If yes, what products are advertised, and where are the advertisements located in relation to the piece and other advertisements? Do you need a password/membership to access the piece?
	Authority	Accuracy	Objectivity	Currency	Coverage
WHAT	Are accompanying graphics easy to read and comprehend? Do all graphics have a clear purpose? Does the piece include a bibliography? Is the author effective? Are there clerical errors in the piece?	Is information from cited works presented accurately? Is information from other works presented in the same format as in the cited material (ex., from chart to chart or from chart to paragraph)? Can you locate cited works in order to check for accuracy? Is the piece’s information complete? Is it possible to check any quotes presented to determine if they are utilized out of context? Does the piece include information that you know is incorrect?	Does the pieces title match the work? Have all sides of the subject been presented? Are statistics/data presented in a fair, clear manner? Is the thesis presented in a clear manner? Is more than one side the piece’s issue presented? Does the piece make sense? Is the verbiage of the piece intended to produce an emotional response?  Does the author use over-generalizations or simplifications? Does the piece utilize easy-to-follow logic? Does the piece suit your purpose/answer your questions? Is the piece written to suit the researcher’s abilities? Did the piece lead you to other sources?	What is the date of the development of the article? What is the date of the most recent edition?  What is the date of the piece’s presentation on the webpage? Is the article current? Is the information current? Do any Internet links work?	Is the piece visually well-presented? Is the website well-presented and easy to follow? Is the piece linked to other sites?  If it is, to what other sites is the piece linked?
	Authority	Accuracy	Objectivity	Currency	Coverage
WHERE	Was the piece produced in a country in which the author might have unique and greater access to knowledge of the subject?  At what type of domain is the piece located (i.e., .com, .org, .gov, .edu, .us, from other nations)?	Was the piece produced in a country with specific, known agendas/biases? Is the website publisher located in a country with a specific, known agenda?	Was the piece produced in a country with constraints placed upon publications? Is the website publisher located in a country with constraints placed upon publications?		Was the piece produced in a country with specific, known agendas and constraints? Due to country of origin, is the website publisher presenting information at possible personal risk? Does the piece suit the website? Is the website well-maintained?
	Authority	Accuracy	Objectivity	Currency	Coverage
WHEN	How recent in time to events covered in the work was the piece written?	Does the author have particular knowledge of the subject due to involvement in events covered in the piece? Is presented material time-sensitive?	Was the author involved in events covered in the piece?	Was the piece written during the events of the period discussed?	Is the piece a first edition, or a revised edition?  If the piece has been revised, what changes were made since the original publication?  If the piece has been revised, why did the revision occur?
	Authority	Accuracy	Objectivity	Currency	Coverage
WHY			What is the stated purpose of the piece?   Does the piece remain true to its stated purpose? What might be any other apparent purpose of the piece?	Why was the piece written at the time it was written?	What purpose might the website have for presenting the piece? What purpose might the website have for presenting the piece at the time it was presented?
	Authority	Accuracy	Objectivity	Currency	Coverage
HOW	Are the author’s credentials presented, or must you seek them out? Is the piece peer-reviewed?	What research is acknowledged by the author of the piece?	What type of piece is being presented (ex., opinion, news, etc.)?  On what “page” of the website is the piece presented (ex., on an editorial page, a comic page, etc.)? Where on the webpage is the piece located?		On what kind of website is the piece presented (ex., news, satire, etc.)? Is the piece advertised at other locations on the website—or elsewhere on the Internet? Is reader feedback associated with the piece? What surrounds the piece? What advertisements are located near the piece? Is the piece also published in print? Are any downloads required to access the piece?

Keeping it Social

For Teens!

Teenagers, you need your social lives!  It’s part of discovery.  It’s part of being you!  

You’re the lucky generation:  It’s much easier for you to keep up with what your friends are up to because you’re the first teens in the age of online social sites!  You can always know where the next party is, who is dating your ”ex,” and who just mentioned your name.  You can even find out unpleasant things:  You probably didn’t even want to know that there is a test in English today when all you can do is worry.  After all, it’s too late to study, anyway.  Yep, you’re the first generation who can truly find out all of the latest in everything.

Or can you?

Is the site you’re socializing on lately the “right place to be,” or have your friends found a new, better, cooler site that you don’t even know about yet?

Quoting Shakespeare, “Therein lies the rub.”

You teens are fickle about your social sites.  As soon as a new one crops up—and you find out that your friends are there—you’re last site is stale and forgotten. 

Do you remember My Space?  There was a time where everything you ever needed to know about yourself and your friends could be found there.  It never failed you, but how often do you visit that site, now?  In fact, when was the last time you went there—or even thought of going there?  If you want to know about today, you probably don't even consider that moot place.  It’s become passé—obsolete—so yesterday!  Did it all go downhill when your parents started to use it?

You have moved on, and—if you’re like most teens—you and your friends are on Facebook.  It’s a great, comfortable, social place to be!  All of your friends are on your “Friends lists,” so it's where you can share everything!  You might even give some of your decidedly “not friends” access to keep things interesting; but you get to pick and choose who shares your life!  To sooth your curiosity, you can monitor what people are saying and doing--even without them knowing you’re watching--or you can jump in and applaud their successes by clicking on the thumbs up “Like.” In tough times, you can bemoan and commiserate about each others problems by using emoticons and shared words of encouragement.  You can share links to the sites of favorite movie star or share favorite music by bringing in links to YouTube.  You can even break up with someone! 

Did you just think that Facebook WAS the perfect social spot!  Parents (and even grandparents!) are now using Facebook more than you are!  They got in your way, and then they wondered why you don’t want to “friend” them!   All of the filters in the world aren't good enough to make you want to have Mom and Dad in on your social life!  And how can you tell Grandma that you don't want to share some secrets with her?

Are your parents invading your Snapchat or your Instagram?  

If history is any indicator, there will always be another site cropping up to use before your parents catch up:  Is it, again, time for another new, cutting edge social site.  Make sure that you stay connected to keep up, or you'll be out of the social loop.  Losing your place would be a social disaster! 

 Maybe, the next time, you can keep the parents out—but it will be tough.  They’re catching up with you and your techl savvy—and they might just try to make up for their isolated, unconected teen years!

Promoting Books 
in the Information Age

It’s always satisfying to have one of your own opinions validated…to find that someone agrees with you. Having created a few (very few!) book trailers, I have come to believe in their value in regards to “selling” a book.  This belief is why I was first drawn to Karen Springen’s article, “The Big Tease:  Trailers are a Great Way to Hook Kids on Books.”  Once I began reading, however, I found much more than what I’d expected.  If a book is to become a hit, professional book trailers are now expected. 

Whereas, not long ago, book markers, book jackets, book-signing events, and an occasional poster were the extent of publishers’ promotion, today’s readers expect much more.  According to Springen, in this age of fast-paced, technological communication, young readers expect book trailers.  Kids spend so much time in the Internet that they expect to be able to access all of their interests via this “life-line.”

According to Jack Paccione Jr., director of Escape Goat Pictures, which produces book trailers (Yes, new industries have been spawned!), since the Harry Potter books and Twilight, authors have come to understand the value of taking the advertising to the readers—to the Internet. 

Experts have discovered, however, that today’s audience is picky about what they will watch:  Creating an exciting trailer is just not enough.  To be effective trailers require work and expertise.

Although this is a new media, much has been learned.  With limited time, a trailer should not simply summarize a book:  It must tease.  Further, it needs to find the right balance of length:  According to several authors, it takes about a minute to draw the potential reader in, but longer trailers run the risk of telling too much and of losing your audience.  In addition, as would be expected, humor is a great aspect, enhancing a trailer and making it more effective.  It is important to remember that a book trailer is not a plot summery.

Accompanying the new book trailer production industry are production awards.  Beyond the professional awards, Newberry brings young readers into the game with their “90-Minute Newberry Festival,” which is a contest for student-created book trailers. 

Teachers are also using this concept as a teaching tool by including student creation as an assignment to replace or enhance book reports.  Further, teachers and librarians (as we know!) are creating their own trailers to entice students to read!

Just as with the rest of the world, technology is making changes in the ways of selling books.  The customer expects more, and the industry delivers.  Karen Springen’s article is insightful regarding various aspects of this change.

………………………………………………

Link to Karen Springen’s article, “The Big Tease:  Trailers are a Great Way to Hook Kids on Books”:  http://www.schoollibraryjournal.com/slj/home/894810-312/the_big_tease_trailers_are.html.csp

School libraries are in the middle of an exciting change!

This 21st Century blast of technology is bringing us more information than ever before even imagined; and navigation of all of this new information is going to take great knowledge and skill.

Just as with any skill, its acquisition and use must be taught and guided.   Quite naturally, this job rests with your traditional Information Guide...Your Librarian.

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If you are interested in taking a peek at how school libraries are changing, watch 

this video.

It looks at an elementary school library; but the message is solid and accurate.

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 School Libraries:  A Solid Mystery

You may have heard the questions—or even asked them, yourself:  What is going to happen to school libraries now that computers abound and books are trending toward becoming electronic creatures?  Why would we even need to keep school libraries open if we don’t need a place to maintain and share collections of books?  Exactly what’s going to happen with libraries may well be a mystery; but they certainly won’t be eliminated!

Consider the logistics and the logic.  Although the current, wonderful avalanche of 21^st Century information seems to come from the clouds (now more figuratively than ever!), there are a number solids behind the vapor; and they must have a home.  There are extensive collections of both hardware and software which build our new information systems, and they require stability for both their maintenance and their operational activities.  Then there are the people:  Both technology’s managers and users need a physical location from which to maintain and to employ these new tools. Technology, simply, needs a “place;” and because libraries have been society’s information centers for centuries, it is natural that they should remain so. 

Further, since librarians have been the information conductors for ages, it makes sense that they should continue to select, organize, manage, and share any new forms of informational material—as well as become information experts who are adept at guiding and educating all patrons on the dangers, methods, and possibilities of our jumbled new wealth of information.  There are great changes in the information system, but with adaptations which are already being implemented, the school library system and school librarian are far from obsolete.  In fact, more than ever, they are proving to be the essential school hub of past, current, and future information systems.

When most of today’s teachers were children, we visited our school libraries to check out books for pleasure or to gather information from what we now call “hard copy.”  We might sit at a table with open reference material, taking notes which we would probably take home to organize into a published piece. Our works were usually hand-written, with an occasional typed term paper.  We might also sit in the library to quietly discuss our findings with other students, but we seldom collaborated—not with the teachers’ blessings, anyway!  Libraries certainly had their place then; but, boy, do they have a place now!

Students who now visit school libraries are required to discover, evaluate, digest, discuss, and publish copious amounts of information.  They must navigate a technological world without precedent and produce printed work which looks professional—no more handwritten essays!  Students now expect—and are expected—to be computer savvy.  Our students must be adept with computers for innumerable and disparate purposes:  Researching, collaborating, communicating, embracing areas of personal interest, publishing for pleasure and “for business,” registering for colleges, taking on-line courses, entertaining themselves with silly cat pictures or jokes about N00B’s, and even reading an online book or short story.  Although more and more students are blessed with iPhones and personal computer systems at home, while at school, these activities all occur in the library: Libraries have moved from being essential for a good education to being imperatives. 

Staff and others the in community also find more frequent—and extended—need for the school library than previously.  Today’s teacher might need to “borrow a computer,” to “print something out,” or to send a student in search of emergency copies of something.  Mostly, however—and more than ever before—they need a place to collaborate with other teachers, with parents, with administrators, with clubs and other groups, or with the librarian.  In addition, parents, administrators, school boards, and combinations of all shareholders utilize the benefits of a 21^st Century school library.  They choose the library because it is welcoming, comfortable, and convenient; and it is, the most high-tech forum in the school—if not in the community!

Happily, not everything about a school library has changed. It still maintains hard-copy research material—although, perhaps to a lesser degree; it still offers wonderful and current fiction and non-fiction selections for enjoyment, research, and self-enlightenment; it still shares magazines and comfortable couches on which to relax; but now each Internet-connected library houses more information than anyone could have imagined available in one spot, even ten years ago.  While today's library hosts more information, today’s librarian provides more in depth guidance for patrons in their searches for information and literary enjoyment.

Libraries have changed—and they are changing, still!   We don’t know in what exact ways change will happen or what new educational/informational treasures await us; but we do know where and with whom the excitement will occur:  In the comfort of the library with the knowledgeable librarian as leader and guide for each new, mysterious step as we go further into this exciting 21^st Century’s Age of Information.

A Most Interesting 

YouTube Video 

About Our Brains!

"God is in the Neurons"

We're living in most interesting times!

Dr Seuss!  Mental Floss Magazine gives some background about where some of Dr. Seuss's stories came from:

"The Quick 10: Stories Behind 10 Dr. Seuss Stories" 
by Stacy Conradt - September 24, 2008 - 2:05 PM

On this day in 1991, the world lost a classic writer and artist – Dr. Seuss (AKA Theodor Geisel). I know the _floss has done stories on Dr. Seuss before, so I thought we’d go a little bit different route today – the stories behind his stories.

1. The Lorax. In case you haven’t read The Lorax, it’s widely recognized as Dr. Seuss’ take on environmentalism and how humans are destroying nature. The logging industry was so upset about the book that some groups within the industry sponsored The Truax, a similar book but from the logging point of view. Another interesting fact: the book used to contain the line, “I hear things are just as bad up in Lake Erie,” but 14 years after the book was published, the Ohio Sea Grant Program wrote to Seuss and told him how much the conditions had improved and implored him to take the line out. Dr. Seuss agreed and said that it wouldn’t be in future editions.

2. Horton Hears a Who! Somehow, Geisel’s books find themselves in the middle of controversy. The line from the book, “A person’s a person, no matter how small,” has been used as a slogan for pro-life organizations for years. It’s often questioned whether that was Seuss’ intent in the first place, but I would say not: when he was still alive, he threatened to sue a pro-life group unless they removed his words from their letterhead. Karl ZoBell, the attorney for Dr. Seuss’ interests and for his widow, Audrey Geisel, says that she doesn’t like people to “hijack Dr. Seuss characters or material to front their own points of view.”

There is much more!

--brought to you by mental_floss! 

Reference Desk
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McFarland High School 

Library 

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