Gale Virtual Reference Library

1. Getting to know the titles in GVRL is similar to getting to know the titles of your library's reference collection. Click "Title List" on the upper right to view all the titles available in the collection. Click a book title of interest to you and access an article via the table of contents. Notice with the multi-volume titles, you can select which volume you look at. Discuss the title you selected and how you may use it.

I selected the book "Alternative Energy." This book could benefit both the student doing a research paper on alternative energy sources as well as, a customer who wants to find an alternative to his/her current energy source.

2. At the top of the page, type a search term in the search box. Search for answers to the two questions posed at the beginning of the post: zinc or The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn if you can't think of something else. Review the results, selecting an article to see what kind of information you can find. Test the "Listen" feature. Discuss your results.

I searched the topic geothermal heat pump. It returned three books that had references to geothermal heat pumps. Each book had a brief summary making it easy for me to tell what type of information I would get if I clicked on the link. When you clicked on the PDF link you were taken directly to the page in the book that you need to be at. This type of referencing makes it very easy for both students and library patrons to find what they need without having to search through every index or table of contents!

I was impressed with the quality of the voice that read the article. The article does also highlight the text as it is read making following along a very easy.

3. Look at 2 or 3 other participants' blogs to see what they discovered. Comment if you like.

I completely agree with LuckyMom's comments about how easy databases have made it for students to cite. This is something that we all must do and I'm glad it is becoming easier than ever!

Faith Library brings up a good point that if you don't have your search terms specific enough you could really be overwhelmed with the number of results you get. I guess I would rather have too much and then work my way down like she did then have to get create of use a database that was limiting in it results.

Common Core Connection

CCSS.ELA-Literacy.RL.9-10.1 Cite strong and thorough textual evidence to support analysis of what the text says explicitly as well as inferences drawn from the text.

I will assign a topic to students asking them to use different only resources. I will ask that they use the GVRL as their source for at least one of the "print" resources. They will also need to use material that has been published within that last five years.