Wednesday, February 24, 2010

World Book

World Book has definitely evolved from the book version I knew as a kid. I've always enjoyed encyclopedias, but the online versions nowadays are so much more interactive with activities, games, videos, etc. There is actually quite a bit of difference between WB Kids and WB School edition. I searched for 'bear'. WB Kids gave me about four paragraphs of text, a few pics, some additional website referrals, and citiation info. WB Student, on the other hand, provided a lot more information, broken down into topic areas of a bear's life, bear's bodies, and the different kinds of bears.

WB Advanced Exercise: I think the type of info that is most valuable to a patron depends on what their purpose is for using the info. I picked England as my country to learn more about. If I were planning on vacationing there, I would be looking at information such as climate during certain times of the year, maps, facts in brief, food and drink, history, the Tower Bridge, Cliffs at Dover, etc. If I were planning on a job relocation to England, then I would be more interested in history, the people, the way of life, economy, education, religion and government structure. Anything in WB Advanced would be perfect for reports, no matter what age!

New Challenge

I'm signing up for the latest learning opportunity offered by the SD State Library, the Electronic Resources Edition Challenge http://sdlibrarychallenge.blogspot.com. I am planning to learn a lot more about the electronic resources so that I can use the information in my job as well as my own training sessions.