KASL

Online Encyclopedia

Encyclopedia Britannica is freely available to KS residents. The high school edition features some helpful study guides under the Learning Materials tab as well as news from The New York Times, a dictionary, biographical information, and a This Day in History feature. Students can also expand their search beyond the encyclopedia. For example, I searched Julius Caesar and found a solid article. To the right were links to Journals and Magazines, the Web's Best Sites, and Additional Reading specifically on Caesar. The web sites were particularly helpful. If you are in a hurry and want good information without a lot of fuss, this encyclopedia is a good place to start. One note: the audio tool feature is not as good as the text to speech feature built right into the Mac.

Auto Repair Reference Center

One of the freely available online databases available to any Kansas resident is the Auto Repair Reference Center. The database includes information about repair, video about how auto components function, guides to vehicle ownership and maintenance, and in-depth troubleshooting resources.

Student Research Central for Kansas Students: Start

When you want to search magazines, newspapers, or other material on the State Library of Kansas site, begin with Student Research Center. This is an EBSCO database, and it is easy to navigate and very, very useful.

As you can see from the screenshot below, you can easily control your search. You can search by topic, conduct a visual or advanced search, limit your results to magazines, newspapers, books, biography, media transcripts, maps, primary source documents, country reports, state reports, or film. I recommend that you click on the full text check box so you only get results that have the entire article. You can also just search certain dates. If you want something that is simple to read, you can control the reading level.

Student Research Central for Kansas Students

The following post will be going up on the CGHS Library blog on Thursday. My posts on the online databases will be very high school-centric so if any of you have developed material introducing the databases to younger students, please share.

The State Library of Kansas provides terrific resources for high school students, and they are free for you to use any time. During the next six weeks or so, I will be sporadically highlighting different databases included here because, as you know, nothing warms a librarian's heart like a good database.

Kansas State Library Resources for Librarians

LearningExpress Library

School librarians have an exceptional partner in LearningExpress Library.  It’s a resource that can be utilized by nearly every student for help with classroom basics or advanced studies; studying for AP tests and sample tests; sample tests for GED; and U.S. Citizenship tests. In addition, LearningExpress recently added 18, new, self-paced, easy-to-follow multimedia tutorials focused on Computer and Internet Basics.  These are engaging, on-line tutorials that teach PC essentials in a straightforward, non-technical manner.  The Job and Career Accelerator offers many resources for the student seeking a first job.  LearningExpress is a great resource! It’s as easy as establishing a username and password to get started. All work within the program such as practice tests, resumes, and job searches are saved in a way that the user can easily recapture.   Janie Rutherford Communications Coordinator State Library of Kansas 300 SW 10th, 169W Topeka, KS  66612

 

Kansas History, Territorial through Civil War Years, 1854–1865

To commemorate Kansas’ 150^th anniversary, GaleCengage Learning created a unique historical database for the State Library. SLK introduced the database in January 2011. 

The digital archive holds more than 200 documents featuring the people, the places, the ideas, and the events of Kansas history in those years prior to and during the Civil War.  

Have you used the database?  Have you recommended it to any of your patrons?  Take a look at the short tutorial we’ve developed!  It’s only 4 minutes of Kansas History.  

Janie Rutherford

Communications Coordinator

State Library of Kansas

785-291-3230

300 SW 10th, 169W

Topeka, KS  66612

EasyBib

You are all familiar with the Citation Generators on the web. Personally, I think they are one of the very best things about the web! EasyBib is one of the best and I thought some of you might be interested in the information they have posted at their Teacher and Librarian Center. 

Remembering the Vertical File

I woke up at 3 am the other morning thinking about the vertical file, something that has not crossed my mind in years. The unpleasant jolt of memory and subsequent relief of knowing that I never again would have to worry about the vertical file reminded me of how radically my job has changed in the last twenty-five years. 

Council Grove High School Library used to have a small but mighty (and frequently consulted, I might add) collection of file folders on current topics that just were not covered adequately by the material we had on hand. My library aides and I used to skim the newspapers, picking out feature articles on social issues and unique, local interest pieces, clip them, and file them neatly away in a file cabinet. Even then, there was some debate in the professional literature about whether a vertical file was necessary and worth all the effort and time it took to keep a current and relevant collection of articles. I cannot speak for larger libraries, but for CGHS library, the vertical file was absolutely essential.

Those were the days before we had access to Inter-library loan and before speedy and commonly available internet access. Both neatly filled in the blanks we were trying to fill with the vertical file, and though both create problems of their own, I do not question that the quantity and quality of material I am able to offer my students is better than it was.

Search 'em All At Once

Hello all....

ATLAS, the Associated Topeka Libraries Automated System online catalog, has added the Encore interface on its main page giving seekers an intuitive tool in finding resources held at/through Washburn University, the Kansas State Historical Society, the Kansas Supreme Court Law Library and the State Library of Kansas.  Take a look and try out a search at:

http://topekalibraries.info/

The original advanced search page is still available at:

http://topekalibraries.info/search/X 

Bill Sowers

Bill Sowers
Kansas Publications & Cataloging
State Library of Kansas
300 SW 10th, Room 343-N
Topeka, KS  66612
[email protected]
785-296-3296