Lesson 6

For the first part of this assignment I searched for "Astronomy".  I limited my search by clicking the Full Text tab, and I set the publication dates to 2000-2013.  I received 34 results back.  Near the top, I found two very good books.  The first was "Astronomy Demystified" by Stan Gibilisco, published in 2003.  This was a very good choice as it was a very readable text that covers a wide range of astronomy topics.  I really like the way the books are presented with the clickable Table of Contents, so that a user can easily and quickly move to another section of the book.  The icons for Search and Bookmarks were also very handy and easy to use.  Another great feature was the Cite icon, which is wonderful for students to use when creating their Works Cited or Bibliography pages.  Another great book, which really pulled me in was "Bad Astronomy: Misconceptions & Misuses" by Philip C. Wiley Plait, published in 2002.  This book did not have a clickable quick links to the chapters the way the first book did, but it did have a table of contents with the pages listed.  You could then type the page number in the field at the bottom of the book to jump to that page.  Great resource!

For the second part, searching for resources for Constitution Day, I have to admit that I was not familiar with that particular event, so I had to first do a little research to learn what it was.  Then, I first searched "Constitution" and found "Companion to the United States Constitution and Its Amendments" by John R. Vile.  This looks like a good resource for understanding the Constitution.  Then I searched "United States Citizen" and found the book "Living in the U.S.A." by Alison Raymod Lanier and Jef C. Davis.  It is a book written for people who are not actually from the United States as a guide to our culture, values, and society.  I thought it was quite interesting to read about things that we who have lived here our whole lives take for granted that 'everyone' knows, but really they don't.

For the last part of the assignment, I searched Nebraska in the Publisher field and found 88 books published by the University of Nebraska Press.  These included a wide variety of topics, as well as some actually about the west.  A search of Oklahoma resulted in 82 results from mainly the University of Oklahoma Press, with the same variety of topics, and also many directly about the west.  One book that I thought was interesting was a book about Lewis & Clark's journey.  In the synopsis, it listed the states that were mentioned in the book.  Interestingly enough, neither South Dakota or North Dakota were included.  I did not take the time to read the book however, so I do not know if they were actually excluded or not.

Interesting assignment.  I have used the Mega EBSCO before to find magazine articles, but I have not used the e-books before.  I learned a lot about another great resource.