Sunday, May 13, 2012

Proquest--

1) I searched for 'genealogy' first and then picked the subject listed as suggestions of 'tree and genealogy and genealogy' and found 8615 articles listed for this topic. I glanced through the first list of 20, and clicked on one for genealogy for kids which was very intriguing for me. As i moved down the list there were references to DNA in genealogy, software in genealogy, several guides to researching genealogy in different countries, and then I clicked on the link for "Providing Genealogy Research Services in Public Libraries: Guidelines and Ethics" and read several pages of this article. I then went back and used the advanced search feature to narrow down the long list, so I entered in genealogy and then kids and came up with a list of 2080 articles which is alot less, but still overwhelming. I did look through the initial list and clicked on one article "Fun with genealogy" and was very impressed with the first few paragraghs. They read:

"How to teach your child the joys of exploring family history.

Timeworn and slightly yellowed, the hauntingly beautiful photo was in itself a sight to behold. But it was the story behind the image-a proud Black woman in a lace dress-that 14-year-old Sara Saunders of Milwaukee will always remember. Her grandmother, Julia Saunders, a genealogy buff, explained that the woman was a slave and Sara's great-great-great-great-grand mother.

"She had a hard life," says Sara. "When I think about her and my other ancestors, and what they went through to make it, I'm even more determined to become a surgeon or an inventor, something positive."

Experts say Sara's pride and resolve are not uncommon among children who know their ancestry. "A family tree is a way of saying 'This is who I am.' For a child, that's powerful," says Richard Newman, Ph.D., director of the W.E.B. DuBois Institute for Afro-- American Research. "

It seemed to sum up the constant search for our forefathers.

1a) I looked at three different blogs and was first amazed that I was not the only one that is behind! Then I was intrigued with the different ways other people are blogging and I'm thinking it has to do with the persons background. The one blog seemed to be looking totally at the way the search system worked and the other one seemed to be more like me, looking at the ease of use as a general person with no library searching ability, and the third was a combination of both. This was very interesting and shows that there are all kinds using these databases.

2) I first searched for Librarian and only two items came up, 'The Distant Librarian' and 'Teacher Librarian'. I then switched the search to Library and had twenty items come up ranging from library issues with technilogy and computing, to library research journals, to different types of libraries such as Medical and/or Music. Quite an aray of topics. The options box on the right could help you narrow down the choices through several ways, such as the publisher or source type.

I was very impressed with the number of articles that came up in the initial search, which just shows us how much information is out there and how much there is to wade through to get to the facts or the right information for your topic or essay.

1 comment:

  1. You did a great job in ProQuest, Family Searcher. We like it because it contains popular, trade, and scholarly materials--something for everyone with an adult reading level.

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