INFOhio - More Free Resources - Part 4
 

 

 

 

In our previous look at INFOhio resources, I talked about the “big daddy, EBSCOHost,” - - a huge database with a lot of features. But electronic resources don’t have to be grand in scope to be extremely useful. This installment will highlight a few smaller databases that are worth their weight in gold.

A little treasure-trove is The Art Collection. The concept behind The Art Collection is that students can have access to digital photos of many of the collections of art museums around the world. Not all art museums contribute to the database, but the collection is amazing. It includes paintings, sculptures, drawings, photographs, textiles, costumes, jewelry and more, from the earliest of times to the present.

Students can search by the object type; nationality/culture; creator (artist); owner (museum); name/title of work; or by the ever popular, keyword. The typical information that you find about the object is what you would find in a museum display: measurements, materials, date, etc. But the cool thing is how you can enlarge the digital photo of the object and really get a good look at the detail. There’s a wonderful zoom feature that allows you to zoom in on any section of the photo. Yes, a trip to the museum would be a lot more fun, but the odds are that we aren’t going to be able to visit the National Gallery of Canada or the Louisiana State Museum anytime soon.

The last resource we’ll look at in this installment is Literature Online from Chadwyck-Healey. Full-text, searchable works of literature are available online to supplement our library's print collections. Poetry, drama and fiction are included. We don’t really believe that many people are going to sit and read these works online or print them out, but having a searchable database like this makes finding a poem, a line, or famous phrase pretty easy. For instance, if I want a poem with the word “librarian” in it, I can select one of the works such as the 20th Century American Poetry Collection and enter the search term. It brings up a lot of poems that have the word “librarian” in them, and allows me to link to read the poem. Or, I might have it search multiple collections at the same time.

There are collections of American Poetry, English Poetry, African-American Poetry, as well as American Dramas, Early American Fiction; Editions & Adaptations of Shakespeare, English Prose Dramas and Plays, and The Bible. (This database contains 21 different versions of the English Bible, including 12 full Bibles, five New Testament texts, two versions of the Gospels only, and William Tyndale's translations of the Pentateuch, Jonah, and the New Testament.)

With search results hot-linked into the literature, students can quickly locate books and chapters with the information they are looking for. Did your child leave their copy of The Scarlet Letter in their locker but should be reading chapter 5 tonight? Save the gas and call up chapter 5 through this resource. It really couldn’t be easier.

 

Remember, you can always get to the resources offered through INFOhio and the district online resources by going to Genoa High School Online Resources at http://genoaschools.net/Staff/pscline/HS%20Online%20Resources%20Page.htm. Students are given bookmarks with the address and password on them. Or you can go directly to www.infohio.org and click on the CORE RESOURCES button to access those mentioned above and many more that will be highlighted in the weeks to come. If you want to teach yourself how to effectively use these resources, look for help menus or tutorials within the products. We are not allowed to give passwords out over the web, so please request passwords from your building librarian. For an overview of INFOhio, check out the video at www.infohio.org/Parent/OutreachKit/Video2005.html. It’s short but gives you the big picture. You’ll find other valuable information for parents by clicking on the Parents link at the top.

Please feel free to use me, Paula Cline, as a resource to learn about any of our district or state online resources, also. You can contact me at 855-7735, ext. 13 and if you are by your computer with a question about the resources, I might be able to walk you through the answer. Or, you can e-mail me at pscline@genoaschools.com.