Thing 9: Databases & Search Tools

Working in a High School library, I use databases every day. Our district purchases some through our local BOCES such as Facts On File and Gale and Culture Grams. We also utilize the Novel NY databases appropriate for grades 9-12. I have quick links to all of them on my library web page, as well as links to e-book collections. I am investigating some ABC-CLIO databases for next year. Our district uses Follett Destiny for our IPAC. Besides searching library holdings, it also searches for valid websites and searches whatever databases I have catalogued for individual projects. I compared the websites Destiny finds to Sweet Search results. Some of the results were the same, but I noticed Sweet Search suggests more .com sites. I signed up for InstaGrok after playing around with some topic searches. I love the "web" result. It looks alot like the web produced by some public library IPAC searches. I had set up a Scoopit account in a previous module, but I "followed" a few library-teacher resources this time. I printed out the "10 Google Search Tips all Students Can Use Poster" to post in my library. I bookmarked the "20 Useful Google Search Tips You Probably Don't Know" for future use with teachers and students. A few years ago our district had Alan November speak at a Conference Day. He showed us a few of these Google tips like the site: and define: and domain limiters. I am going to explore some more about building my own Custom Google Search. I can see how this would be very helpful for teachers to direct their student's research without limiting it too much. As a side note: I thoroughly enjoyed this course and would like to see BOCES offer more like this, especially for librarians. It is difficult for us to find courses that are applicable to us.