challenge 4

ok- I finally did 5 and now 4 and I'm caught up.......I was able to add the RSS feed (with just a little fumbling; it's been a while). I found some very cool astronomy blogs - some a little complex for me as a layperson - love the pics though.

thanks for your guides and patience !

catching up bit by bit.....

well, I absolutely learned some interesting things about Google. I didn't realize there were so many options. I used the Everday essentials to see what the weather in Boston is today (Sam's fiancee is graduating from law school !) (the weather's bad. hopefully the day is joyous though)

I didn't know you could add site:gov or site:edu like that and it helped to clarify some medical searches. I was surprised to see that the NJ govt. site had the underground railway document you mentioned.

I used the reference tool to track down an old college roomate - which led me to join Facebook.

at last.....I'm working a bit backward here. this blog relates to challenge #5, with #4 to follow. the newspaper search was fascinating. the first search (Tuckerton) in Americas Newspapers brought up 28,867 worldwide hits. they included regional papers such as the Central Record in Medford.....a little broader, with the Trenton Times, and so forth. Going into the search by "lead" there were 5,160 hits - but some were from more prominent papers - i.e. Phila. Inquirer.

doing a "headline" search cut the number of hits by over half, and the papers were more regional generally. adding "ocean" brought them down to 502.

a search for Elaine McConnell nationwide brought up 2582 hits (including a GA paper). adding "librarian" trimmed this to 50 -- the OC Observer, AC Press, APP, New Egypt Press etc..

Then I played with a personal search, with "Osborn family NJ". by adjusting the limits (dropped NJ, added MN etc) I found an obit for Judith Kempf of MN...It was in the Duluth News Tribune. at her funeral, the pastor was : Sharon Osborn !

GVRL explorations

now I see why branch managers were so enthused at our last meeting. I have barely scratched the surface of the surface here, and can begin to see what a powerful tool this is. as a former branch manager, I remember how frustrating some searches could be. you might know that a certain source would have what a customer / patron needed ......but your branch didn't have that particular tool. perhaps TR or a neighboring branch did - and they were usually willing to help- but in the after-school rush it was hard to ask them to search, photocopy, fax the material when they were straight-out busy themselves. this is an exciting tool. I'm delighted that all branches, even the smallest, have this access. this is a playing field - leveler for sure.
thank you for dreaming up this exercise !

Thursday, February 12, 2009

please see doggieblogger@blogspot.com for more current posts.......
Posted by doggieblogger at 6:34 AM 0 comments

this is actually a different blog than the one on which my assignments have been posted.......I'm going to try to import those bits. wish me luck ....hikerdog.
Posted by doggieblogger at 6:25 AM 0 comments
Monday, January 19, 2009

Listen NJ Listen everybody !
at last, in my lifetime, I have checked out several titles from Listen NJ and downloaded them to my pc (with Tech's help - Craig Wall is very patient !) in getting Overdrive working there. then the final obstacle - getting Kate Wilhelm's The Best Defense onto the mp3 player from Info Services. yeesh. what a journey . turns out the first player I tried to use (my own- won in a contest) doesn't do what this player does. anyway, I did it ! (with a little help from my friends. thank you Betsy, Craig, Rita, Carol........)Sharon
Posted by doggieblogger at 1:40 PM 0 comments
Tuesday, January 6, 2009

ok- this is getting silly. now, thanks to Tech, I have Overdrive software on my own office pc, so I can work with Listen NJ. I downloaded another book - one of L.J. Braun's was the first MP3 listing to show as available . However ! when I push various buttons (I did read the booklet!) nothing shows up but "record" . so. back to the drawing board. but I'm not giving up.

please see doggieblogger@blogspot.com for more current posts.......

this is actually a different blog than the one on which my assignments have been posted.......I'm going to try to import those bits. wish me luck ....hikerdog.