Tag: research

New Resource: Special Collections Indexes

- Stephanie Leave a comment

Welcome to the Special Collections Indexes

The Richardson-Sloane Special Collections Center is pleased to announce a new index search website, Special Collections Indexes, which will replace our “Local Database Search”. It features over 35 indexes to historical and genealogical resources held in Special Collections. Users will be able to search across the indexes using Search All Indexes page or search individual indexes depending on the information need.

We encourage you all to explore this new resource for accessing historical and genealogical materials.

Special Collections Indexes was created by the Davenport Public Library’s Richardson-Sloane Special Collections Center and Information Technology Department to provide greater access to local historical and genealogical resources by publishing indexes to these materials. Indexes were compiled by the Scott County Iowa Genealogical Society volunteers, library volunteers, and the Special Collections staff. Through this dedicated work, over 35 indexes are available for research use. Resource categories include cemetery records, religious institutions’ records, military records, Scott County records, local newspaper articles, local history publications, additional resources, and Iowa patents and inventors.

Search Tips

General Search Techniques

While searching this site, use spelling variations for names, places, and subjects. List these out before the search and cross them off as each one is searched.

If a specific search is not returning results, try expanding the search by removing search conditions. Search with as little data as possible to return all possible results, including misspelled words, abbreviations, etc.

When searching for a person omit entering a first name to see all possible first name variations in records results.

Search All Indexes

Enter a last name, a first name, a single keyword, and/or year in the appropriate search box. Click on the blue “Search” button at the bottom of the form. The results will displayed in a separate sections organized by its resource categories. Each index is listed separately. If an index has returned results, it will display “Search has __ matches” on the left side of the column. Click on the “Click to view results” button on the right side to view the index’s results. Scroll the entire page to see all resource categories.

Results may be printed using the browsers’ print options.

Search All Indexes does not include the Iowa Patents & Inventors index.

Search Individual Indexes

Use the Search Builder to create your search. Select the “Add Condition” button under Search Builder. Select the “Data” drop down-menu to choose an options to search (“Data” options vary by index). Then select the “Condition” drop-down menu and always select “Contains.” Enter a “Value” term corresponding to the “Data” selected, such as last name, first name, corporate name, year, or keyword. Press Enter on the keyboard to return results.

Example search: “Last Name” was selected for “Data”; “Contains” was selected for “Condition”; “Donahue” was entered for the “Value.”

Search results will be listed in a table of entries pointing to a resource to find more information.

Results may be downloaded as a PDF document or printed by using these icons.

Advanced searches are created by clicking on “Add Condition” button to add additional rows of “Data,” “Condition,” and “Value.”

Childfree by Choice by Dr. Amy Blackstone

- Callen Leave a comment

A deeply evidence-based look at the real experiences of those who choose not to have children, 2019’s Childfree by Choice is an honest and empowering look at the many ways of creating lives of meaning and fulfillment.

A childfree woman herself, Dr. Blackstone has always been interested in the way childfree people live in a world that doesn’t really support them. In this book, she pulls together years of research – her own and that of others – to dive deep into what it really means to be childfree. She addresses the numerous myths and threats childfree people face (“You’ll regret it!” “You’re selfish!” “You hate kids!”, etc.) and debunks them all with her own experience alongside verifiable facts drawn from numerous research studies.

What I really liked about this book – aside from her hardcore commitment to evidence and citations supporting her every claim – was the way she carefully explained the difference between what our culture might say, where those assumptions come from, and what is actually true. It’s easy to accept common wisdom at face value, but it’s far more interesting to understand the issue in a nuanced way. Perhaps more importantly, Blackstone maintains an honest, calm and reasonable tone throughout and never comes across condescending or defensive. She never claims that either choice is better or worse, but only states the facts: some people have kids, some people don’t, and either way is a good way to live, as long as it works for you.

If you want to learn about an invisible population, feel empowered to create your own future, or have your eyes opened to the many wonderful ways to make a family, you might be interested in Childfree by Choice.

Hidden Database Gems: MasterFILE Premier

- Callen Leave a comment

Our available library databases have recently changed! Unfortunately, this means we no longer have Credo Reference, Chilton’s, or some Gale databases. However, we have gained a great new resource! With your library card, you now have access to MasterFILE Premier, a database of full-text articles, primary source documents, and more! Including publications like Consumer Reports, Kiplinger’s, and Newsweek, it’s perfect for research, and the interface will be familiar to anyone who’s used an EBSCOhost database before. If you haven’t, here’s how it works:

If you click on MasterFILE Premier on our list of Online Resources, you may be asked to sign in with your library card number, and then you’ll be taken to the basic search page.

To get the most and broadest results, put a general search term in here and hit search.

If the results aren’t what you’re looking for, try a similar search term or related words in the search box on the top of the results page.

If you’re looking to narrow your results down to what’s most relevant, you’ll want to click on Advanced Search underneath the search box. Here, you can search only in one particular publication, you can choose what kind of resources you want to find, you can limit to full-text results, you can specify a range of publication dates, and more! This is also where you can use Boolean searching, where you search multiple terms at once connected by words like AND, OR, and NOT – these limit, broaden, or define your search, respectively. The strategies and tools on this page will give you the most relevant items and cut down on the time you’ll spend sifting through the results.

When you have a list of results, you can narrow down your results list using filters along the left side of the page. Here, you can pick what kinds of publications to draw from, pick specific publications, narrow it down by language, publication date, category, and more.

Once you find something interesting, you have a few options: You can click on the title or on the Full Text version from the result list, as shown.

Clicking on the title will give you a detailed record of what the resource is, as well as some tools to save or access it AND the option to find similar results.

Choosing the full-text version, meanwhile, lets you read the resource directly, access more from the publication, and access the same tools to save or share it.

And as always, if you need any help using this or our other resources, don’t hesitate to contact us for some assistance! Our Book-A-Librarian service is available again, allowing you to reserve a dedicated session for help with any number of topics, including databases and digital resources.

New Pokemon Snap for Nintendo Switch

- Callen Leave a comment

If you’re an action / military / sports gamer, I’m very sorry, I still don’t have any recommendations for you. If you like gentle, low pressure games, though, I’ve got another highly-anticipated gem to recommend: New Pokemon Snap.

I’ve heard lots of hype surrounding this release and I believe it’s warranted: this game from the Pokemon universe lets you live out your wilderness photographer dreams seeking and documenting various Pokemon in their natural habitats. The game play is relaxing and easy to learn, and you get a thrill of exploration and discovery along with bonus points for capturing particularly good photos.

Here’s the basics: you’ve joined the research team of Professor Mirror, who’s studying Pokemon behavior with the help of his assistant Rita (and some others). He gives you a pod to travel in and a camera to take photos with, and he sends you to various nature preserves. Your pod travels slowly along a preprogrammed course, and it’s your job to keep your eyes peeled for Pokemon along the way. Your camera can scan your surroundings, identify Pokemon, and zoom in to take good photos, and you also have a supply of fruit to toss to attract hungry ones. You must go back to the same course a few times to level up and unlock a new area, but there’s always something new to discover. You can also go to the courses at night to see a whole new set of Pokemon and behavior, including the mystical Illumina effect.

With beautiful scenery, cute creatures, and a variety of courses to unlock, this is a great game to get lost in, and another good entry point into the Pokemon universe. I myself got quickly addicted and was very sad to have to turn the game back into the library. Don’t miss it!

Hidden Database Gems: Credo Reference

- Callen Leave a comment

Today I’d like to tell you about another database that, like Chilton Auto Repair, used to be represented in the library by shelves of big heavy books: encyclopedias. For the record, we do still have some encyclopedias in our library branches, but they’ve also gone digital. There are a number of encyclopedias online, of course, from the controversial Wikipedia, to the generic Encyclopedia.com, to Britannica.com (the online version of the Encyclopedia Britannica), and all have their good points. But with your library card, you have access to Credo Reference, a database with a unique functionality and power beyond the others I’ve mentioned. It’s a great place to start if you’re working on an assignment and need some background information, or if you’re just curious and want to learn more about something!

In Credo Reference, you can search a word or name and see full-text results from a huge variety of books, encyclopedias, and websites. You can find definitions and historical accounts and contextual details from a variety of sources, as well as concept maps which link your search term to related ideas and topics. Specific articles also come with a ready-made citation of that source in APA, Chicago, Harvard, or MLA formats. Here are some screenshots to show you how it works.

First, get to Credo Reference from the library website’s Online Resources page, under Research Tools.

Then scroll down the list to the C’s to find “Credo Reference“. Click on it, and you may be asked to enter your library card number.

Enter your search term in the search box (or scroll down through popular topics and research tips).

Your search will result in a page like this one: various sources are listed on one side, and a concept map appears on the other. You can use the options at the top to view articles or images, and to filter results by type, collection, subjects, and media. Beneath the concept map, you can use links to other library resources to find even more information.

Once you select an entry to read, you can save, print, or cite that resource, or do a new search for related topics.

Invisible by James Patterson

- Stephanie Leave a comment

 

James Patterson has slowly wormed his way in as one of my favorite authors. Every time I pick up one of his books, I know I’m going to enjoy it. If he’s not writing a book by himself, Patterson teams up with other writers, thus making his books change slightly from person to person. I have yet to find one that hasn’t piqued my interest and as such I plan to keep reading books by James Patterson until I grow tired of him.

Invisible by James Patterson and David Ellis was my latest listen. I had listened to another Patterson/Ellis book previously, so I pretty much knew I was going to enjoy it. Bonus part: the male narrator of this book(there are multiple narrators) is someone that has narrated other books that I have really enjoyed. His delivery really captures each character’s personality.

In Invisible, Emmy Dockery is on leave from the FBI. After her sister’s grisly death, Emmy finds that she can’t do her job as a research analyst for the FBI as effectively as she used to. On leave, her sister’s death consumes her. Emmy is obsessed with finding a link between hundreds of unsolved cases that she believes are connected. Having set up Google alerts for crimes similar to how her sister died, Emmy is inundated with newspaper clippings of events that all seem to be related. Waking up gasping in the middle of the night, Emmy’s recurring nightmares mimic how her sister died and leave her even more desirous to connect these unsolved cases. Calling in a favor from her ex-boyfriend, field agent Harrison “Books” Bookman, Emmy hopes that he will be able to help her finding the missing piece in this string of brutal kidnappings, rapes, and murders that all have a fire element. No one believes her that these unsolved cases could be connected, even when she lines up all the facts that she has gathered. It isn’t until Emmy finds a certain piece of evidence that Books perks up and begins to believe that what she is saying could possible be true. This story alternated between Emmy’s story and a mystery man’s story. Reading those alternate chapters back to back really ups the creepy, thrilling, suspenseful nature of this book.

This book is also available in the following formats:

EBSCO Mobile App – Info on the Go!

- Michelle 1 Comment

With the new EBSCO mobile app for iPhone, iPad, and iPod Touch and for Blackberry, you can access the Davenport Public Library’s EBSCO electronic resources straight from your smart phone 24 hours a day!

Begin by visiting any EBSCO database through the Davenport Public Library’s website and follow the link at the bottom of the screen to get started.  Then, after downloading the free app from the app store, you are all ready!

Listed below are a few of the cool things you will be able to do with the app:

*Choose which databases to search

*Email results to yourself of others

*Retrieve the full text of articles

EBSCO just announced that an Android app is coming soon – stay tuned!