Lesson 10--Wrap Up

 

 

     1.  Deciding on my biggest discovery may be the biggest challenge of all for me as I started as a true novice (Humility had nothing to do with the blog name!).  There were so many discoveries and each one useful in its own way.  Personally, I know that I'll use the Ancestry Library and the Heritage Quest information for my own family projects and have already passed along some of my finds to  my family members.  My mom didn't even know that her mom had a half-sibling!  Professionally, I've been using most of  my new-found skills on my students as we went along.  There's no better way to learn something than to teach it to someone else, right?  If I  had to choose one piece that I think I will use most, I guess it would be the World Book Student resource.  I teach social studies and math in the middle school, and this offers so, so much usable material for me without much effort on my part.  My students can easily navigate and figure things out as they go.  So, thanks for making my life easier!

 

     2.  By exposing my students to these resources, I hope that they will think of the South Dakota Library when they have a project in school or outside of school.  I've been raving about this class to my colleagues as well as passing along resources to my fellow teachers.  If the class comes along again, I'm going to try to talk some of them into taking it because it has been one of the most worthwhile classes I've been involved in, and I've been in the business a LONG time!

 

 

Lesson 9--History and Genealogy Resources

 

 

     1.  Well, I've been looking forward to this lesson since I first signed up for the course.  I had no idea that the SD State Library offered this service before signing up.  I figured that since I have been a faithful registered voter all my adult life that there would be lots of data about me on Ancestry Library.  However, I found very little information about myself, even after refining my searches over and over!  Not that I'm complaining, but my ego took did take a bit of a blow. :)  There were many, many people across the country (and Canada) with the same name, but my own data showed up only once.  I did have fun looking at pictures of these potential relatives in their yearbooks just to see if they may resemble my own family! This just goes to show that a librarian can be a real help. I'm sure that I'm out there in plenty of places, but I was running into dead end after dead end!  Finally, I searched the database suggested in the lesson, "U.S. Phone and Address Directories."  I do exist, apparently, as I did find my information here.

      2.   Moving on and hoping for better results in Ancestry Library, I searched for my maternal grandmother.  Right away, at the top of the first list was an image of her marriage license, where I could see her signature alongside that of my grandfather, who passed away only ten years later.  I was pumped and excited to dig for more!  I found her again in the Iowa, State Census Collection, 1836-1925, along with all of the rest of her family.  The family tree was informative as I didn't have information on the half-sibling listed there before this.  I'm going to do some further exploration on that soon! 

     3.  I had no idea what to expect with this directive to look at pictures under the search for "South Dakota" in Ancestry Library.  What a surprise!  I first came to a list of professional baseball players with ties to South Dakota.  Upon clicking on the image, I could see that person's picture in a primary source baseball publication.  Going on, I decided to look under Family Trees in this same section and typed in my paternal grandfather's name.  I came upon images of headstones belonging to my grandparents and those associated with my grandfather, including the images of my great grandparents' headstones in Iowa (which neither I nor my father has ever seen).  I can see that the time is flying by and I've barely scratched the surface of what I'd like to see here! I went a little further, viewing the image bearing his name from the 1900 United States Federal Census, listing his immigration from Canada and his birth in Ireland.  Good stuff!

   4.  I figured my fun had peaked after all the goodies in Ancestry Library, but I moved on to Heritage Quest with a positive attitude anyway.  All teachers love learning, right?  I started out doing a basic search for my paternal grandfather again and found information on him as a 24-year-old single man.  I wondered if I could break through the barrier that I came to in my last search in which the trail ended at his parents' birth in Ireland.  I clicked on the "Learning Center" portion of Heritage Quest and found that there were all kinds of mini courses that I could take to learn about how to do the very thing I was wondering about--even specific to Ireland!  Perfect for a St. Patrick's Day project!  I also did a search for my town in South Dakota, but  had no luck, so I settled on my county.  That brought up three books, one being a history of German Americans in World War I.  I could view images of each page and read the information there, detailing the difficulties experienced due to hatred and persecution of German Americans during the war.  I was wishing there was a way to  jump to the specific page in which my county was mentioned, but I didn't find that tool if it is there.  I'll just have to read the book, I guess!

     5.  Sanborn Maps proved to be a challenge as my town was not incorporated until 1968, and always has been very small, so no luck.  I, instead, chose to search for maps of the town in which I teach, and struck gold there!  I went to the 1893 map and looked at Main Street for anything familiar.  I did find a bank in the spot in which a former bank still stands.  I'm going to have to check for a dated cornerstone on the building to see if it's the same one that existed in 1893.  Many of the stores on the 1893 were "general stores" and there was a tin shop just off of Main Street as well as an artesian well close to the railroad tracks.  What fun to be able to step back in time!

 

 

Lesson 8 Part 3--CAMIO

 

 

     I was anxious to check out CAMIO, but being not only a lucky mom, but also a lucky grandma, my extra time at school is limited, so here I am on a Saturday morning back at school to delve into CAMIO.   When I did a search for "Sioux", I found so many great artifacts of the Sioux Indians, from clothing to jewelry to pipes to artwork to costumes.  The information on these pieces was interesting and saddening at the same time.  Most of it was located nowhere near where it originated.  I realize that more of the population will be able to view it in a more populated area, but it would be nice if we held it here where the Sioux lived and still do live and where people who are seeing it could also view the environment in which it was created.  Nevertheless, CAMIO enables me to know where to go to see the real thing and to know what rights I  have as an educator to use these images of such very valuable primary sources.  It's the next best thing to being there (to steal a quote and to date myself)!  I don't teach South Dakota history, but I'll surely pass along this find to my colleague next door who does teach it.  Students (like myself) are often such visual learners, and these images can make a lasting impression.  To see the intricacies of these works will instill an appreciation for the talents and the culture of the Sioux.  I thought I that I might find some of the Oscar Howe paintings among these, but there weren't any (that I found, at least).  I guess they must all be held by non-participating institutions.  As the introduction said, it's a growing collection, so, hopefully, we'll be able to see those in the future.

 

     I did a search for Albert Bierstadt, as I have an old, old print of one of his Yosemite Valley paintings bought at an estate sale back in the 1970s.  I know of a couple other works of his just from teaching history all these years.  I was amazed when CAMIO brought up so many diverse paintings from Bierstadt.  I saved them to my favorites and used the compare tool to look at them side-by-side.  I thought how great this would be for an art teacher to show early and later works from the same artist to see how his or her work evolved over a lifetime.  It was nice to be able to zoom in and the option to save it as a webpage would allow a class to do this work outside of the classroom (like I am today!).  As a history teacher, I could use this tool to show changes in attitudes towards a group of  people over time or how and when clothing styles changed in history, for a couple of examples.  Regular use of CAMIO would bring to mind many, many uses in the history classroom, I've no doubt!

 

 

 

Lesson8--WorldCat, CAMIO and More

 

 

     I was excited to dig into this week's lesson. I envisioned the challenge to search worldwide for something when I'm sitting here in smalltown South Dakota to be a herculean task.  Much to my surprise, WorldCat seemed familiar after previous lessons in this Library Challenge.  The book I chose to search for was One Minute to Midnight.  Apparently, worldwide, there are 2142 libraries with this book.  Conveniently, the list of those libraries started with one close to me, Augustana College Library.  After I clicked on the book title, I was able to see a great deal of information about the book, including the call numbers, which were LC: E841 and Dewey: 973.922.  Clicking on the name of the author, Michael Dobbs, I found 184 results, 120 of them being books and many of those being different versions of the same book.  There were large print versions and audiobook versions as well as foreign language versions.  I then changed my search to a subject phrase and looked for other books on the Cuban missile crisis. Twenty-three books came up.  I was kind of surprised that there weren't more, to be honest!  Then again, as my blog name confesses, I am a novice at this stuff!

 

     My look into databases had my head swimming!  I had no idea there was so much available in a one-stop search area!  Kudos to Jane and Julie for their guide to searching the thirteen databases.  It looks like a helpful tool to those in need.  Under OAIster, in the South Dakota subject search, I chose to look further into one called "Retirement Planning Information."  Since it was available online, I was able to read some tips and a timeline for retirement in the South Dakota Retirement System right there.  There were options there for sharing the information on Facebook, etc.  Instead, I used the option to e-mail the information to myself.  I'll keep that handy for future reference!