SIRS Discoverer-
1) I again looked up Manatee to be able to compare information. The articles were identified quite easily with the different colored books indicating the reading level and the short descriptive sentence told you what the article was about. Most of the articles had pictures or graphics and that also was indicated in the article listings with a camera icon. The activities at the end were very interesting and could easily be used in a classroom. I also found these articles a little more interesting than the world book ones, but they both had a lot of the same information. Again--quite easy to navigate.

2) I picked the United States and was amazed at all the information available before you even looked at the articles. The facts are listed in a very orderly way with the basic information first, a little more indepth information next and then the timeline history of the United States was very impressive.

I then picked Russia and there was a list of 25 maps and photos dealing with this country. I picked one in the timeframe of my relatives that came from there and it was a map of the invasion of Russia by Germany---could be very useful in a history class.

I then picked "Kennedy" in the Biography section and a list came up containing four choices---Edward Kennedy, Jacqueline Kennedy, John (Jack) Fitzgerald Kennedy, and John F. Kennedy Jr. I then choose Jacqueline and only one article came up--"Unforgettable First Ladies" The article contained information on several of our first ladies and stated how some were very public and others were not. This would be great information if someone was writing an essay on 'First Ladies'.

Sirs Researcher-
1) I searched the topic of 'library funding' and it came up with "No exact subject match found, keyword search results below" which was 173 news articles, 330 magazine articles, 22 reference articles, and 1 graphic/media article. The list of newspaper articles were listed and glancing at them, they mostly had to do with library issues, but some were more on library policy. I then clicked on the one media site and it was a photo on the U. S. Women's Soccer team wins 1999 World Cup. Not sure what that had to do with my topic. I then clicked back on the newspaper articles and the first two articles listed refered to 'Stopping Smut on the Web' and 'Porn at the Library'. I'm not sure how to take that. Not the way I would want my young child to be presented with information. Maybe the articles were better than I thought, but I didn't go into them to see. Moving on----

2) The curriculum pathfinder page list several course subjects across the top including Math, Science, Social Studies, Language Arts, Fine Arts, and Health. As you glide over each of these the my courses box items change according to the subject. As I clicked on Social Studies the list included a topic of letters, which sounded interesting to me, so I clicked on it. A whole list of letters that are found on line or reference to tablets, papyrus papers, and other media was found. A wealth of information available to our children that we as students in South Dakota in the 1960s only read stories about in the encyclopedia. I'm really impressed our children and students have this kind of information at their fingertips. I delved a little more into the letter category and there were letter from George Washington, Abraham Lincoln and others. Unbelievable. I also clicked on Manauscripts and there again is a multitude of documents written by our presidents and others of significant prestige. Amazing stuff.

The only thing other than the articles that came up that I personally didn't feel appropriate, was the fact that the loading time seemed a little slow. It seemed I waited longer for the information to load than I have on any of the other databases. Still, alot of good education information there. I would recommend usage with parents guidance.