Project 1

My primary interest lies in Internet public resources, which I know little about versus a traditional reference setting and would like to learn more, so I selected the alternate Project 1 to explore. To begin with I was impressed that 200 IPL references could be selected from the website. This added some challenge to narrow down what I wanted to do. I’ve had somewhat of a personal interest in genealogy and since I noticed several sites decided I would choose that topic.

http://www.archives.gov/research/genealogy/index.html is the website of the National Archives of the United States National Archives and Records Administration, a government website that combines tips on how to search, along with online access to a portion of the records offered by the National Archives (which includes a wide variety of historical documents beyond those for genealogy), and information on how to visit the National Archives , any of its branch offices, or any of the Presidential Libraries. The fact the site is a government site helps with its credibility; there is not really an “About Us” section but perhaps since the site is part of the United States Government they do not feel that one is required. The site’s purpose is to share what the government has available on genealogy, which can be of use to academic and non-academic researchers alike; in an academic setting it might be used by a sociology or similar class., and a specific section on teacher’s resources is available. The most directly accessible search portion of the site is the Archival Research Catalog, which allows for a selection of the contents of the National Archives to be viewed digitally. This section does have a “More About ARC” area, where we learn there are 68% complete at the series level classifying information with descriptions, totaling over 2 million cubic feet in holdings. The various holdings are arranged into galleries and you click on a picture to begin a search. One is devoted to ARC Genealogy but it is difficult to figure out where to start a search, as much time is spent telling and showing a user how to search. The information, while freely available, can be quite challenging to navigate and I suspect it might be more so if I were a search engine novice, especially since search seems to only be by keyword and can only be limited by document type. I would rate the site a 7 for lots of great information but needs work on ease of use and accessibility, and also the search limitations. All the information is there but the arrangement is just too busy to find where to go. Since it is the Archives, it’s not as important as it be up to date as its holdings offer a lot – which they do.

FamilyHistory.com: Society Hall (http://www.familyhistory.com/) is a site that allows for searching of census, surname data, and family history sites without a subscription (though they do work in advertising for ancestry.com in several spaces). Essentially when you get down to searching, it is really a thinly veiled portal for the not-for-charge portions of ancestry.com. Instead of “About Us” the site simply labels itself as a “member” of Ancestry.com. So basically it’s a really fancy redirect that has no need to stay up to date. Ancestry.com’s databases allow for first and last name searches, location searches, and keyword searches. Even more interesting, ancestry.com’s cited source for the census is the National Archives! It brings the same value to students that ancestry.com does, or the National Archives; however, I think ancestry.com’s search is a bit more friendly than the National Archives. I’d give this a 7. Bear in mind that I am actually rating ancestry.com with that statement. What I don’t like is that this site tries to give the appearance of being a completely different site even though they state at the bottom they are a “member” with ancestry.com. You might as well save the site money and do a straight redirect. Nothing new was offered that ancestry.com didn’t have already. However, it may also be a case of this site originally had some of the other data and then ancestry.com bought them out and absorbed all of it into the mother site, just keeping this portal page as a link out of past reputation.

http://www.rootsweb.ancestry.com used to be its own different site, but was also acquired by ancestry.com; however, ancestry.com went to greater lengths to preserve this site’s identity. Rootsweb is more focused as a resource for mailing lists and message boards related to genealogy searching, while ancestry.com focuses more on the actual records portion. These more social ways of interacting about genealogy may open students up to additional resources they might not find using simply the search engines. However, not much time has been invested in updating the look and feel of rootsweb other than branding It as an ancestry.com community and for that I give it a 5. That old feel doesn’t give me a sense of how up to date it is.

http://www.genealogytoday.com/ seems to be specifically dedicated to researching Australian, Canadian, and British ancestry (though it originates from the United States) and is not part of the ancestry.com network of sites; it is owned by Genealogy Today LLC. It has a very detailed Company Information section, where it shows the website has been active for 12 years and 1 day as of February 12^th; however I do not get a sense of when it was last updated.. The site bills itself as “a specialized portal providing unique databases, search tools, and original articles, along with links to the newest sites and online resources” (see http://www.genealogytoday.com/info/overview.html). Many articles and awards for the site are also mentioned. The site includes a wiki, article, data (some of which requires subscription and some not), and blogs as its main features. Their free items while not too diverse are pretty interesting; for example one item is the 1892 roster for the Elks Lodge in the area where I went to junior high, high school, and undergraduate school. There’s a collection of criminal mug shots and wanted posters as well. Most searches are simple keyword only. It’s great information but really simple down to earth design, so I have to give it a 6… and go explore when I have more time. An improvement for this site would be if they could allow for more refined searching using Boolean or at least allow for multiple criteria. If it had more flexibility, the simple and in places dated design might bother me less. Appearance counts for a lot.

Blog Reflection 3

I'm not at all sure, to be honest, how to get younger people to look to libraries as just as a (perceived?) valid a source of information as Wikipedia. The youth are all about viral and community - and not just the youth either to be real honest. One thing to look at is the number of older people not only joining sites like Facebook, but becoming addicted to games like Farmville and Cityville. Community shared knowledge develops the feel of "real" knowledge, and often it can be, whereas library catalogs with their MARC21 standards and Library of Congress records and Dewey Decimal numbers and the like are structured and moderated. This may seem cold and inaccessible to current times.

The reality is that all this information must be cataloged and standardized to make it easily located. What many of these users don't know is similar categorizing standards with keywords and metatags exist on all this information that seems so loose and free flowing on the surface. That's how a search engine or wiki can be optimized to quickly find the information wanted. I wonder if part of the issue is that with a library it's more transparent and thereby more threatening.

None of that solves the idea of how to make it more accessible, it's more trying to analyze "root cause" I suppose. However that's where my brain's at this moment.

Blog Reflection #2

Blogs definitely can be a useful tool for information, provided it is properly cited. This doesn't necessarily mean MLA or APA (though that definitely helps). However, when information is provided, especially if it deals with the author bringing together several sources, readers should be told where to look at the original sources for information; links are especially useful with other internet sources.

Truthfully I read little blogs these days because I'm too busy writing mine. I would like to point out that's not necessarily a good thing, as understanding one's audience is important and to do that you need to get out and read as well as write. As a writer, I think this is true for any type of writing.

The specific types of blogs I do follow when time permits revolve around animation and entertainment. For example, the site Cartoon Brew with its blog by well-known animation historian Jerry Beck and Amid Amidi out of New York carries a high amount of credibility for its news and insights on animation. As a member of ASIFA-Hollywood that votes on the prestigious Annie Awards and actively supports their efforts at animation preservation, I stay tuned to the animation archive's blog for all the latest. This latter is also a great example of how a library (which is the animation archive is a specialized library) can use a blog. Through this, they can showcase samples of what their library houses to interested people to encourage them to utilize them or perhaps even volunteer their time (the latter being very important when you need to try and save monetary resources for acquisition and preservation). In this way, a blog can also give a library a "human face" when interacting with the public about upcoming events or perhaps even "did you know..." kind of bits to make people aware of all the services a library can offer, while leaving a channel open through comments for people to get even more information.

BLOG REFLECTION #1 TOPIC

I am asked to write if this is my first time blogging. In fact, no it is not. Right now I maintain, to various degrees, six different blogs. They feature everything about information about the animation industry, to my professional writing.

I don't read any regularly, but I do read them as I research things. As they are becoming the "fast and easy cheap website" for anyone to get information out there, they are more and more commonplace. However, that also means being far more discriminatory of what you read as it is easier for inaccurate information to disseminate quickly.

These are not my first classes at LBCC so I have prior familiarity with the online learning environment. e-Zone is functional enough but I must confess finding both Blackboard and ANGEL more organized which I have familiarity with from other institutions. Occasionally I find navigation in particular to be of difficulty.