Blog Reflection # 4

If I was managing a Library with $ 20,000.00 budget, I would spend 65% on electronic references and 35% on print references.  I feel that print resources have become obsolete due to electronic resource.  In my opinion 5 years from now, I don’t see a lot of print resource will be use by patrons. I personally rather use electronic resource because it is quick. Traditionally reference materials have been print dominated.  However, since the introduction of computer technologies and the internet, there has been a growing shift towards electronic based reference materials. I have noticed the change in types of reference materials from my high school education up to this point. I was introduced to electronic reference materials such as Encarta (the computer disk encyclopedia).  Only a few years later and I had access to the internet and could find a wealth of reference materials online.  Now I predominantly use electronic references materials.  For university courses and lesson planning I rely primarily on electronic sources.  However, I still use print based resources on occasion and ensure that I maintain the ability recognize when to use the different types of reference materials.

We must work with students to ensure that they get the most out of the web and electronic references.  I do not believe that supporting print references is a losing battle.  While electronic reference materials do offer advantages with regards to accessibility, speed and currency, they are not the be all and end all of references. Furthermore, the amount of content can be overwhelming.  So overwhelming in fact, those students may not have the skills to pick out the information which is relevant to them.  Due to their problems and shortcomings, it is important to promote print based references.  Students will always need to know how to read and print based materials will ensure that reading happens.  Also, print based materials provide a better focus as well as ensuring authenticity.  While print references need to be supported and promoted, our library needs to balance instruction with both print and electronic references.  As students become more technologically savvy and dependent they will want to rely more on electronic references. We must also teach them the skills patrons need to use both electronic and print resources effectively and efficiently. If the necessary information skills (referencing) are taught, students will be able to find information in reference materials regardless of content.

Project 1

Searching on the Reference source from the Internet Public Library website I found four reference websites are: Grammars, Association and Organizations, Encyclopedias, and Dictionaries.
Grammars:  The Tongue United URL is http://www.grammarunited.com/ . This site is sponsored by Dreaming toward Home Webmaster in 2008.  This site provides instruction in basic grammar, sentence structure, word choice, and punctuation.  This site is educational and educating students for writing assignments.  This website is gaining profit from the site by selling a 10 week curriculum for $15 and also you can get the entire Tongue United 10-week curriculum in an easy –to read PDF.  The purpose of the reference website is to help students with homework in English and writing English paper.  The value to this reference websites is to bring students to a writing workshop and learning tools for writing a good paper and it can be used in an academic environment.  You can search the reference sources by selecting the following items, Topic, Quizzes, Blog, Writing Workshops, and 10 week curriculum.  Under Topics you can search Adverbs, Adjectives, Agreement, Case, Conjunctions, Clause Verbs, Punctuations, and etc.  You can test your knowledge skills on this site by clicking using the Quizzes and Writing Workshops section of this website. You can get some freely available information, but if you want full access you going to have to pay a charge of $15.  These sites give you good reference tool on how to write an English paper. From a scale of 1-10, I would give it a 6 and half because the sites charge for information and I think it should be free.  The Dreaming toward Home site was last updated in 2008 according to the site. The site seems to be credible even though the information was last update a few years ago. I would suggest the sites be updating it and if they want to charge for the information. Since the sites has not been updated for a few years. I feel it should be free for the public to use it.

Association and Organizations:  Idealist; URL are http://www.idealist.org . This website is sponsored by a nonprofit organization. A searchable directory of nearly 50,000 nonprofit organizations in over 160 countries. Individuals can find jobs, volunteer opportunities, internships, programs, campaigns, and events. Nonprofit and community-based organizations can find consultants, freelancers, and other resources. Available in English, Spanish, and French. The Idealist site brings value to anyone who is looking for information regarding jobs and different types of opportunities. .  The website is gaining profit by posting your own organization or information to their site. They also funded by Donations, Earned Income, and Grants.   The Idealist site is a commercial because it allowed you to post your own organization information to their websites. The site does not really educate students but they share information to the public through a non-government portal.  The purpose of this website is to provide information for people seeking opportunities such as jobs and internships.  It also help the organizations post those opportunities to their sites as well.  In the what area: You can also used the keywords such as, name, interests, or skills and for the Where area: you can type location such as city, state, country, or postal code. You can research the reference source by using the subject search method.   The information is organized by the subjects broken up into categories such as, jobs, organizations, volunteer opportunities, internship, events, programs, resources, and people. And you can also click on the Areas of focus as well. You can search by All, Education, Volunteering, Environment, Arts, and Rural.  The information is available to the public for free. From the scale of 1 to 10, I would give it a 9 because sites help people post their organizations and finding jobs.  The sites are up to date because on the bottom of the page it says 2012.  I would not change anything to this site, because it provides all the details that the public need.

Encyclopedia: http://www.encyclopedia.com/. This website is sponsored by HighBeam Research, Inc. Free access to reference works such as The Columbia Encyclopedia, Oxford's World Encyclopedia, and the Encyclopedia of World Biography and many others. Contains free citations and excerpts to periodical articles. Encyclopedia.com has more than 100 trusted sources, including encyclopedias, dictionaries, and thesauruses with facts, definitions, biographies, synonyms, pronunciation keys, word origins, and abbreviations.  The website gaining profits by you have to pay money to read full text of articles. The Highbeam site sharing information to the public through a governmental portal. The sites brings value to students by helping students get a better ideas of how to use Encyclopedias online and it can be used in an academic environment .Encyclopedia.com is an ideal online reference source for researchers, students, educators, and professionals alike. The information is organized by the subjects broken up into categories such as, Socialized medicine, Afghanistan, global warming, immigration, French Revolution, United Nations, Federal Reserve System, Food Adulteration, and Tiananmen Square. The sites organized by articles, pictures, facts, and biographies along with information about topics like the arts, science, sports, medicine, accounting, and management. The information is freely available to the public, but you have to purchase to view additional content. From the scale of 1 to 10, I would give it a 10 because the site provides current and archived articles from more than 6,500 credible reference works and publications, including newspapers, journals, and magazines. This article archive search is perfect for students looking for homework help, educators wanting to keep up with current information, and businesspeople looking to gain an edge. The site is credible and provides accurate information. I wouldn't do anything to change what is on this site

Dictionaries. Its URL is http://dictionary.reference.com/.   The website sponsored by Dictionary .com, LLC. Dictionary.com is the best general English-language dictionary online. Its simple search form hides a sophisticated multi-source search of Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary, Word Net, The Free Online Dictionary of Computing, Jargon File, The Elements, Easton's 1897 Bible Dictionary, Hitchcock's Bible Names Dictionary, and U.S. Gazetteer. This site provides reliable, free online access to millions of English definitions, synonyms, spelling, and audio pronunciations. This site is a good resource for anyone to use. This site is an educational site. On the homepage it has advertisements and maybe that is how the site gains profits. Dictionary.com provides a good educational tool for students. You can get help on these sites with looking up words and meaning. It can be used in an academic environment.  On the home page you may search items such as, Dictionary, Thesaurus, Word Dynamo, Quotes, Reference, Translator, and Spanish.  If you want to search for famous people click on Quotes and it bring up Top Author and Topic subjects. Word Dynamo provides you free study guides, quizzes and games as well. Also, under Word Dynamo it gives you Grade levels, Standardized Tests, Academic Subjects, and Languages. The information is freely available to the public to use. On a scale from 1-10, I would say a 10 because it provides useful information for Adults and school age. The site is credible and provides accurate information. I wouldn't do anything to change what is on this site.

Reflection Blog # 3

For this week I have learn a lot. Our professor gives us options to do a search topic of your choice using variety websites.  I feel it is very interesting utilizing other sites beside our favorite search engines for example like Google, Yahoo, and Bing. I feel after doing a search on our topic using different sites, I prefer to use Worldcat.org because it is fast and simple. You don’t have to go to different pages to look for anything. With Worldcat.org site , it takes you straight to the main page and you just typed in the keyword that you are searching for and it give you all this results and you can narrow it down from format to years. I usually go to Yahoo and Google to get a quick search for my answered.  Most of us would just go straight to the computer and go to our favorite sites such as Bing, Yahoo, Wekepida, and Google for our results. We should not believe what the internet gives us because sometime the answered is not correct.   

I feel that today society made it easy for us just to have access to the computer. Since we have access to the technology now and day. We don’t take our time to do our research; we just go straight to our favorite sites and start typing our finger away. That is our main problem today.  Some of the information that we are getting from the internet is not fully accurate but we still using it any way. It is quick and easy.  How can we break our habit? I don’t think we can ever break our habit using search engine.  Teacher should recommend student to go to a workshop to get a better understanding about using different sources of search.