Learning Express:
I had to use this one from home with my public library card, as it doesn't work from an academic library.Too bad, since the practice tests and ebooks were exactly what our students need. I have many times requested test materials through ILL for the ASVAB, TOEFL, NET, NCLEX, HOBET, and also accuplacer. I am going to look into subscribing to this for SMCC.
I tried the Nursing School Practice Entrance test and got a perfect score of 8 out of 8 (took me forever) on the first segment. Maybe that will be my next career? I did the Reading Comprehension segment (avoiding all things math or science) and liked the breakdown in the results as to drawng conclusions, inferences, vocabulary etc. This was under Jobs and Careers. I found many tests here that would be excellent for our trade and medical profession students. Also for incoming high school students, who often take one course here. We have many students who come for one or two courses and then sekn full time entry, so they have to take the Accuplacer. I also looked at the Real Estate Person exams (another potential career for me) but found no Maine specific test. A few ebooks to download though. I think I will read up on this.
Thursday, November 29, 2012
Tuesday, November 20, 2012
Ancestry:
I love Ancestry and have done lots of research in it in the past. I am thrilled that Marvel has this available. It has been while since I used it though, but a few years ago I searched for my great grandmother who died right after my grandmother was born and was immediately erased from the family history. We only knew she was born in Holland and maybe was named Marie, last name Byfield but changed from something Dutch. And we had a photo that we thought might be of her. With Ancestry, I found my grandmother's and great Uncle's birth certificates, naming the mother, then I found a death certificate for Marie. But it was using the message boards that led me to a distant relative who was researching this Dutch family the von Bylevelds. It turned out that Marie was the missing link...she had about 10 brothers and sisters and nobody knew what happened to her! My newly found relative had photos of my great great and great great great ancestors in Holland! Turns out this large family was living in Chicago at the same time as my grandmother, but they didn't know about each other (or had disowned each other)!!!
This time I tried a search for my Jewish -mother in law's father's family, who came over from Hungary in the 1800's. I was very successful and plan to send this research to her (she is 92). There were lots of relatives she has never mentioned also. Aren't families interesting? And she told me her grandfather was smuggled out of the country on a potato cart (highly unlikely) as he came over on a very fancy ship.
Alas, I found nothing on myself! Also no photos and maps tab...
Now ,back to Ancestry. I could waste time all day here at work on this!
I love Ancestry and have done lots of research in it in the past. I am thrilled that Marvel has this available. It has been while since I used it though, but a few years ago I searched for my great grandmother who died right after my grandmother was born and was immediately erased from the family history. We only knew she was born in Holland and maybe was named Marie, last name Byfield but changed from something Dutch. And we had a photo that we thought might be of her. With Ancestry, I found my grandmother's and great Uncle's birth certificates, naming the mother, then I found a death certificate for Marie. But it was using the message boards that led me to a distant relative who was researching this Dutch family the von Bylevelds. It turned out that Marie was the missing link...she had about 10 brothers and sisters and nobody knew what happened to her! My newly found relative had photos of my great great and great great great ancestors in Holland! Turns out this large family was living in Chicago at the same time as my grandmother, but they didn't know about each other (or had disowned each other)!!!
This time I tried a search for my Jewish -mother in law's father's family, who came over from Hungary in the 1800's. I was very successful and plan to send this research to her (she is 92). There were lots of relatives she has never mentioned also. Aren't families interesting? And she told me her grandfather was smuggled out of the country on a potato cart (highly unlikely) as he came over on a very fancy ship.
Alas, I found nothing on myself! Also no photos and maps tab...
Now ,back to Ancestry. I could waste time all day here at work on this!
Thursday, November 15, 2012
Consumer Health Resources:
I began this week with Health Source: Consumer Ed. I searched for "Shingles" and got peridicals ranging from AHFS Consumer Medication Information to Women's Day, and also reports from CRS: Adult Health Advisor. I noticed there were over 80 full text consumer magazines and reports available. The article I read was very easy to understand. I did notice there was a dictionary feature, but I didn't need it.
Next I decided to try Health Source: Nursing/ Academic Edition, which we use here at the college. This included over 550 full text scholarly journals. My search for shingles retrieved all academic journals and also the AHFS. I looked at an article from the Mayo Clinic Proceedings and found that it was most certainly not for the consumer, but our medical students would be able to use it for their research.
Next I compared Medline Plus with PubMed Central, which we also use here at SMCC. Again, Medline was fun to use, very consumer friendly with colorful graphics. I found links for the latest issue of the magazine, announcements for Get Smart About antibiotics Week and COPD Awareness Month. My shingles search led me to links to images and videos. The video I watched was informative and easy to understand. A search for Black Cohosh under herbal medicine led me to a branch site calledd the National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine. I found info about the science behind use of this herb, side effects, a good list of ources and links to clinical trials. All great stuff, I'm sure our students will be able to use this. And me too.
Pubmed is a free full text archive of biomedical and life sciences journal lit at NIH/NLM. This is much more academic-friendly, and my search for shingles led to an article from the Journal of the American Geriatric Society. For this, I needed a dictionary!
I began this week with Health Source: Consumer Ed. I searched for "Shingles" and got peridicals ranging from AHFS Consumer Medication Information to Women's Day, and also reports from CRS: Adult Health Advisor. I noticed there were over 80 full text consumer magazines and reports available. The article I read was very easy to understand. I did notice there was a dictionary feature, but I didn't need it.
Next I decided to try Health Source: Nursing/ Academic Edition, which we use here at the college. This included over 550 full text scholarly journals. My search for shingles retrieved all academic journals and also the AHFS. I looked at an article from the Mayo Clinic Proceedings and found that it was most certainly not for the consumer, but our medical students would be able to use it for their research.
Next I compared Medline Plus with PubMed Central, which we also use here at SMCC. Again, Medline was fun to use, very consumer friendly with colorful graphics. I found links for the latest issue of the magazine, announcements for Get Smart About antibiotics Week and COPD Awareness Month. My shingles search led me to links to images and videos. The video I watched was informative and easy to understand. A search for Black Cohosh under herbal medicine led me to a branch site calledd the National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine. I found info about the science behind use of this herb, side effects, a good list of ources and links to clinical trials. All great stuff, I'm sure our students will be able to use this. And me too.
Pubmed is a free full text archive of biomedical and life sciences journal lit at NIH/NLM. This is much more academic-friendly, and my search for shingles led to an article from the Journal of the American Geriatric Society. For this, I needed a dictionary!
Thursday, November 8, 2012
Wall Street Journal: this I am familiar with and read regularly. My search for small business (su) and health care (all text) FT, and only the last year turned up 58 nice results all sorted by relevance. The suggested limiters were also good: I expect a small business owner would want to know about insurance, policies, and expenditures. This is easy to use, but of course, is slanted toward the editors of the WSJ.
Value Line public: ai have decided to lok at the public version since I sub in a public library and this
often comes up. There sure is alot here...I found it hard to navigate through..in current issue I looked at the various sections. Selection and Opinion is a newletter format, including model portfolios and overviews of the market. Good for someone like me, a novice. Ratings & Reports is a list of companies in the current issue, with one page summary for each with historical value, projected value and a written summary of the company. I suppose anyone investing in an individual stock would want to read this. Summary & Index is what I have seen in paper form, a huge listing that includes the ticker symbol, recent price, ranking, P/E, and estimate for next 12 months. The meat of Value Line. Cover page was just that and Suppl Reports was more narratives about companies. I searched for Linkedin LNKD and found ratings and reports. I couldn"t find a Full Research Report. I noticed alerts: I suppose anyone investing would find that useful. All of this shows me how much I don't know! I will also look at the academic version to see if college students could use it.
often comes up. There sure is alot here...I found it hard to navigate through..in current issue I looked at the various sections. Selection and Opinion is a newletter format, including model portfolios and overviews of the market. Good for someone like me, a novice. Ratings & Reports is a list of companies in the current issue, with one page summary for each with historical value, projected value and a written summary of the company. I suppose anyone investing in an individual stock would want to read this. Summary & Index is what I have seen in paper form, a huge listing that includes the ticker symbol, recent price, ranking, P/E, and estimate for next 12 months. The meat of Value Line. Cover page was just that and Suppl Reports was more narratives about companies. I searched for Linkedin LNKD and found ratings and reports. I couldn"t find a Full Research Report. I noticed alerts: I suppose anyone investing would find that useful. All of this shows me how much I don't know! I will also look at the academic version to see if college students could use it.
Tuesday, November 6, 2012
Regional Business News: I searched for Wright Express, a local company with national reputation and found 166 items, mostly from Business Wire. For a Maine company I tried LL Bean again, but got only 3 results under subject, from, oddly, Crain's Chicago Business, and Business North CArolina. An all-text search was more interesting, with 57 results of a general nature. Pretty useful if you want to read about a company without alot of facts and figures, just more newsy stuff. I couldn't find anything about Bullmoose Music however. I would recommend this to students researching businesses.
Business Source: I did a su search for FM radio, FT, but did not get much. Searching all fields brought up 1536 sources, ranging from Billborad and PC Magazine to the Federal Register. But Visual Search turned out to be very useful here. It began with a tutoral which threw me off, but after I got started, I found the ever branching list of search terms to be very helpful. Such as: instead of FM radio, I got radio stations and FM broadcasting. I was able to sort by date and filter results as well.
EconLit: I had trouble searching for small business items but again, the visual search was good in that it gave me search term ideas such as new firms: startups: small business etc. I did find a article" Can state tax policies be used to promote environmental activity" in Small Business Economics, a 202 journal.
EconLit: I had trouble searching for small business items but again, the visual search was good in that it gave me search term ideas such as new firms: startups: small business etc. I did find a article" Can state tax policies be used to promote environmental activity" in Small Business Economics, a 202 journal.
Monday, November 5, 2012
Week 6: Business Resources
I am expecting to find this useful in the academic library. Our business students often ask for company information. I began with Gale's Business Insights: Essentials, which is also Business-Company Resource Center. I chose a company I used to work for, LL Bean. I found the list of Maine companies useful in finding them. Potential competors would like the related companies info, although I was surprised at the list, as it did not include Land's End or Eddie Bauer, who I thought were major competitors. Suppliers would like to see what products are produced and related spending, esp. finding market share repots useful. Related topics turned out to be articles, although kind of dated? LLB is privately held, so perhaps some info is not available. I also decded to compare revenue from LLB with Land's End and Eddie Bauer and created a revenue history chart. I was amazed to see that while from 2000 to 2004 they were all reatively the same ($2 billion!) Land's End shot ahead to almost $7 billion in 2012! Wow!
I am expecting to find this useful in the academic library. Our business students often ask for company information. I began with Gale's Business Insights: Essentials, which is also Business-Company Resource Center. I chose a company I used to work for, LL Bean. I found the list of Maine companies useful in finding them. Potential competors would like the related companies info, although I was surprised at the list, as it did not include Land's End or Eddie Bauer, who I thought were major competitors. Suppliers would like to see what products are produced and related spending, esp. finding market share repots useful. Related topics turned out to be articles, although kind of dated? LLB is privately held, so perhaps some info is not available. I also decded to compare revenue from LLB with Land's End and Eddie Bauer and created a revenue history chart. I was amazed to see that while from 2000 to 2004 they were all reatively the same ($2 billion!) Land's End shot ahead to almost $7 billion in 2012! Wow!
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