Name: Kelsey Smith

SJSU LIBR 210 Reference and Information ServicesFall 2012 Simmons

Practice Questions #1: Ready Reference and Bibliographic Sources

1. I am doing some research for my sociology of education course, and I need to know the percentage of Caucasian, African-American, Latino, and Asian people in the United States who are 25 years old or older who have at least a bachelor’s degree. I need relatively recent data, probably from sometime in the last ten years. I’ve been poking around on Google for more than an hour, and I can’t find anything that just gives me the numbers. Can you help me? (You need to list the percentages for each group in addition to explaining your process and providing a source.) (Please note: This question is asking for the percentages of people of each race who have earned a BA, not the percentage of college-educated people who are of each race.)

a) “It’s sometimes pretty hard to find specific things on Google, and even if you do, it’d not always accurate! Let’s look somewhere we know has credibility for the answer to your question, like The 2012 Statistical Abstract by the United States Census Bureau. Once you’re at the website’s homepage, look to the left where there’s a menu titled ‘Browse Selections’. Based on your ques-tion, I think we should click the ‘Education’ option and then ‘Educational At-tainment’ since you want to know the percentage of each ethnicity has a BA. If you look at Table 229 ‘Educational Attainment by Race and Hispanic Ori-gin’ you’ll find the answer you’re looking for! Note that the description of the table at the top says that this is for persons 25 years of age and older and that the footnote on ‘College Graduate or More’ states that the person has com-pleted 4 years of high school and 4 or more years of college, which is usually indicative of a degree of a BA or higher. Make sure to read the other notes in case they are important to your research.”

Answer: Percentage of each ethnicity 25 years or older with a BA or higher in the United States in 2010:

Caucasian: 30.3% African-American: 19.8% Latino (the table breaks the Hispanic race into 3 different

categories. Note that this is the combined total): 13.9% Asian: 52.4%

b) To answer this patron’s question, I used The 2012 Statistical Abstract which is part of the Census.gov website. I decided to start with this website and then consult Historical Statistics of the United States (HSUS) if I needed more in-formation. I browsed the HSUS website, but found The 2012 Statistical Ab-

stract site to be easier to navigate and seemed to have more information on educational attainment, which may be important to the patron if they decided to further their research on the topic. I had some troubled finding the right ta-ble within the “Education” browse selection that had all the information the patron was looking for. Scanned a few of the tables within “Educational At-tainment” and “Higher Education: Degrees” and found that Table 229 that documents the percentage of each race in the US that was a high school or college graduate.

c) Question: “I just enrolled in school to get my Masters in library science and am curious to how many more people are getting their degrees in this field to-day than back in the day. I can’t seem to find an exact number or exact years--can you help?”

Answer: “Great question! Using The 2012 Statistical Abstract website from the United States Census Bureau, we can find a table that has some answers for you! Going to the ‘Education’ browse option and then to the ‘Higher Education: Degrees’ option, there are a number of statistical tables to choose from. The ‘Master’s and Doctorate’s Degrees Earned by Field’ table shows that in 1980, 5,374 people got their Masters in library science out of the 298,081 people that got master’s degrees (about 1.8% of MA’s were LS). In 2009, just three years ago, 7,091 people out of 656,784 people got their degrees in library science (about 1% of MA’s were in LS).”

d) Searching The 2012 Statistical Abstract and composing the answer to the pa-tron’s question took about an hour to complete.

2. SKIP I am interested in examining the atmospheric concentration of carbon dioxide historically. I’m wondering if there is data from the early 20th century that I can compare to current data? I’m hoping I might be able to compare a year like 1900 to a year like 2000. It wouldn’t have to be exactly these years, but I would like the data to be from around those two years. Can you help me? (In your answer you need to include the actual concentration of CO2 for one year around 1900 and one for around 2000.)

3. I am doing some research on trends in the agriculture industry. How many farms were in the state of Iowa in 2001, 2003, and 2006? I don’t necessarily need those exact years, but I would like data from a range of years in the 2000’s so that I can see the trend. Where should I look? (In your answer you need to include the actual numbers for a span of years to show a trend.)

a) “There is a website that has data perfect for this type of question! It’s called The 2012 Statistical Abstract. The homepage has a variety of different topics to choose from and for your question, we should look in the ‘Agriculture’ browse

option. From there we should head to ‘Farms and Farmland’ and then browse some of the data tables they have available. You may find that you can combine information from a few of these tables. For instance, table 825 has the number of farms in Iowa for 2000 and 2010, but not the years in between; table 838 has the number of farms in Iowa for 2002 and 2007. Using both of these tables together, we can conclude that Iowa had 94,000 farms in 2000, 91,000 farms in 2002, 93,000 farms in 2007, and 92,000 farms in 2010. Make sure you take note of what the graph uses as measurement, as you don’t want to confuse 94 farms with 94,000 farms! Also, read the head notes and footnotes about changes in measure-ments and definitions of farmland in case it is pertinent to your research.”

b) I started this question off with a search in the Historical Statistics of the United States website, but soon realized that there was no data for the 2000’s and that this would not be helpful in answering this question. From previous experience, I knew that The 2012 Statistical Abstract typically has more recent statistics and decided to use it to answer the patron’s question. I used the browse options to eas-ily find data on the number of farms in each state, but needed to combine data in two different tables to give a more complete and helpful response to the patron’s inquiry. I also decided to walk to patron step-by-step to navigating the website and finding the answer to be sure that he/she got the answer they were looking for.

c) Question: “I’ve been obsessing over death and dying lately; is there some re-source somewhere that can tell me what my life expectancy is? If it helps, I was born in 1988, female, and African American. Is the life expectancy of my daugh-ter who was born in 2007 any higher than mine?”

Answer: “Using this website called The 2012 Statistical Abstract that has elections of census data from over the years, I’ve found a life expectancy table that could be useful here. This table shows life expectancy projections based on the year you were born, your sex, and whether you are White or Black. From the information you gave me, you’re expected to live until the ripe age of 73.2 and your daughter until she’s 76.8. Note, however, that the life expectancies for 2000-2008 were calculated differently than those prior.”

d) This question’s answer took about 20 minutes to search for and find, while the re-sponse (parts a, b, and c) took about an hour to compose.

4. I’ve just inherited a bunch of old jigsaw puzzles that have been in handed down through our family for several generations. I know I could sell them on eBay, but I think I would rather hold onto them, connect with other people who might have similar collections, and

maybe learn about the collection. I was wondering if you know of any organizations for puzzle collectors? (In your answer you need to include the association’s name, a contact’s name, and a brief explanation of its purpose.)

a) “I love puzzles! I know a great resource that could help you with this, it’s called Associations Unlimited and can be accessed online. When you get to the home-page, you have a variety of options to choose from for conducting a search on puzzle collectors as well as the option to search for associations nationally, inter-nationally, and/or locally. Doing a simple search for the term ‘puzzles’ in the ‘Free Text’ search box gives us 8 hits and refining the search further by selecting ‘Hobby and Avocational Organizations’ from the subject category option gives us 3 hits. The Association of Game and Puzzle Collectors (AGPC) looks like a great one for you! It was founded in 1985 and has 300 members that are interested in the ‘study, preservation, and collection of American games’ like board games, card games, puzzles, and marbles. If you’re interested in getting involved, the pri-mary contact is Mr. Joe Seymour, who is the association’s president, the email is membership@agpc.org, and their website is http://www.agpc.org. The website has a special section just for information about jigsaw puzzles, in addition to in-formation about conventions and membership.”

b) Searching the reference annotation list for the class, I found that Associations Un-limited was the only one that was specifically for finding information on organi-zations and groups and that it’d be very helpful in finding a jigsaw puzzle collec-tors group. I also would recommend this source to the patron because it has con-tact information and brief descriptions of each organization, which the patron was looking for.

Intuitively, I began with typing “jigsaw puzzle” into the free text search and was surprised that it returned no results. I then tried “jigsaw” and, again, received no results. A search for just the term “puzzles” gave me 8 results, but many of these had nothing to do with jigsaw puzzles, so I went back and selected the subject cat-egory for “Hobby and Avocational Organizations” to see if I could rid the results list of the organizations that did not have to do with puzzle games. I also kept all of the boxes for national, international, and regional organizations to broaden the search. I did the search in this way in order to provide the most relevant and help-ful results list for the patron.

c) Question: “I love the show on Animal Planet called Whale Wars and it makes me really want to join a club or organization that focuses on saving whales. Can you help me find a group of people that share the same interests and maybe some con-tact information?”

Answer: “That’s a great cause and of course I can help with that. The Associations Unlimited website is a great place to find all kinds of associations and organizations. Using the subject search option using the keyword ‘whales’ gives five results. The ‘Whale and Dolphin Conservation Society’ is an international organization that looks like you’d be interested in. Their email is info@wdcs.org and the primary contact is Sue Fisher. Please, let me know if you need any more information!”

d) Deciding on a resource and finding the answer to this question did not take very long—about 20 minutes. Writing out the answer took about 30 minutes.

5. I am doing research on the history of AIDS, and I’m trying to get my hands on the first article published in the New York Times about this disease. What was the title of the article, and when was it written? (You need to include the actual headline and date of publication.)

a) “There’s a great online database with New York Times articles from way back in 1851 that could help with this question. From the ProQuest Historical Newspa-pers: The New York Times homepage you’ll see a basic search bar to use. Search for the acronym AIDs or HIV might not give us the results you want, so let’s use the full disease name, which you could find doing a quick and simple Google search—‘human immunodeficiency virus’ and ‘acquired immunodeficiency syn-drome’. To search for both of these diseases in the database, we will use the word ‘OR’ between them to get articles that mention either HIV ‘OR’ AIDS. Okay, af-ter hitting ‘search’ you’ll see that you have quite a few results, so lets put these ar-ticles in order of oldest to newest so the first article written will be at the top of the list. After the articles are sorted, we can see that the first article doesn’t seem to be about HIV or AIDs, but the second article does.”

“This seems like the first article ever written about AIDs, but if you browse the first paragraph of the article, it mentions that doctors had known about the disease for about a year, and if you do another Google search for “first article written about AIDS” you’ll see there is actually different article listed. However, the arti-cle we just found using The New York Times database is the first article in the New York Times that officially uses the term “AID”. They also referred to AIDs as gay-related immunodeficiency, or GRID, if that helps in any further research you may have to do.”

Title of Article: “New Homosexual Disorder Worries Health Officials” Author: Lawrence K. AltmanDate Published: May 11, 1982

b) I knew I’d recommend ProQuest Historical Newspapers: The New York Times to the patron in this situation because I did my primary annotation on this resource and knew this is where I’d find the article he/she wanted. I knew this database had articles from the 1850’s, so it’d be a good place search for a first article written on HIV/AIDs. I also used Google since I could not remember the exact words and spellings in HIV and AIDs and the information was not provided by the patron. I gained access to the article by using a basic two-term search using a Boolean OR between them. I showed the patron how to use Google to double check their infor-mation and gained access to another article on the disease written before the pre-vious one, but it did not specifically mention HIV or AIDs.

c) Question: “I’m looking for the obituary for my great uncle of mine named Ed-ward McDuffee to complete a family tree I’m doing. I don’t know the year he was born or the year he died, only his name. Can you help me?”

Answer: “Of course I can help! Using a database of The New York Times articles, I’ve found one obituary for an Edward A McDuffee who was a champion bike rider. He died November 27th, 1957 and was 86 years old, which means he was born sometime in 1871. Please, let me know if I can help you with anything else.”

d) Finding the answer to this patron’s question using both Google and ProQuest His-torical Newspapers: The New York Times took around 45 minutes. Writing the answer for part A took another 45 minutes or so.

6. I am going to a wedding with my boyfriend and I’ll be meeting his family for the first time. His family is very prim and proper. I saw on the menu for the dinner that they will be serving artichokes. I am not sure I’ve even seen an artichoke before, and I surely don’t know how to eat one. How should I eat it without embarrassing myself? I really like him and I don’t want him to break up with me. Maybe I’ll just break up with him to save myself the embarrassment. (You need to include a BRIEF explanation of how to eat an artichoke politely.)

a) “Artichokes are my favorite vegetable! I could tell you how to eat one, but I’m not sure if the way I do it is ‘proper’, so lets look in a reference book we have here called Emily Post’s Etiquette. Let’s take a look at the index. You’ll find the term ‘artichokes, eating’ here along with the page number of 686-87. Here is what the text say about eating artichokes:‘Artichoke leaves are always eaten with the fingers. Pluck off a leaf on the out-side, dip its meaty base into the melted butter or sauce provided, then place it be-tween your front teeth and pull forward. The idea is to use your teeth to scrape the meat off the leaf. Continue leaf-by-leaf, placing discarded leaves on the edge of

your plate (or on a plate provided for the purpose), until you've reached the arti-chokes thistle-like choke or the leaves are too small or meatless. Use your knife at a 45 degree angle to remove the remaining leaves from the choke, exposing the artichoke heart below. The cut the heart into bite-size pieces and eat it with a fork, dipping each forkful into the sauce.’ I hope this helps!”

b) Post, P., Post A., Post, L., & Senning, Daniel Post. (2011). Emily Post’s Etiquette: Manners for a New World (18th Ed.). New York: HarperCollins Publishers.

I decided on this resource because I wanted to give the patron Emily Post’s opin-ion on how to eat an artichoke properly and politely, even though I was sure this was an easy thing to find on Google. I decided against Google since it most likely has many different people’s opinion on the ‘correct’ way to eat an artichoke. I gained access to the information in Emily Post’s Etiquette through the resource’s index. If the patron was still confused after reading the entry in Emily Post’s Eti-quette, I would most likely recommend YouTube as a reference since there are many instructional videos there.

c) Question: “Should I hold doors open for the women I go on dates with? I’ve been trying to find an answer to this question, but everyone says something different. I don’t want to offend my date, what should I do?”

Answer: “According to a reference book we have here called Emily Post’s Eti-quette, you should say, ‘May I get the door for you?’ so she can either accept or decline without offending her either by opening or not opening the door for her.”

d) Finding and writing the answer to this question took about an hour.

7. I’d like to find out which schools in California offer a Ph.D. in Japanese. Can you help me? (You need to include the names of the schools.)

a) “There’s a variety of great resources for finding information on colleges and grad-uate programs created by a company called Peterson’s. They make quite a few different reference books on a many different education topics, but unfortunately this library doesn’t have access to the in-print books. Thankfully, Peterson’s has a website that is just as helpful! At the top right of the homepage, you’ll see ‘ad-vanced search’ next to the search box—click on that. In the step 1 box, select ‘hu-manities’, in step 2 select ‘Japanese’, in step for select ‘California’, and in step 4 select ‘Doctorate’. Three colleges in California offer a Ph.D in Japanese:

•UC Berkeley—Department of East Asian Languages and Cultures

•UC Irvine—Department of East Asian Languages and Literatures•Stanford University—Department of Asian Languages

Clicking on the link for each school, you’ll see information about the student ration, application deadlines, and degrees offered. Please, let me know if you need anymore information.”

b) Using the class annotations, I figured that one of the Peterson’s Guides would be an excellent resource for this patron. Unfortunately, none of the libraries in my area had the Peterson’s Graduate Programs in the Humanities, Arts & Social Sci-ences, so I looked online and found that there was a Peterson’s website that was extremely helpful. I gained access to the information on graduate programs in Ja-panese through the website’s advanced search option, which made finding gradu-ate schools and programs very simple. I was very glad there was a website that supplemented the Peterson’s Guides because I was also considering using Google to find the answer, but knew it would be a long and complicated search if I had to use it. The only complicated thing about the Peterson’s website was that there was no way to actually search for graduate schools when I clicked on the ‘Gradu-ate Search’ link. I thankfully noticed the small advanced search link, but I’m sure this would confuse many users.

c) Question: “I plan on going into medical school and am wondering where I can find some more information on the MCAT, like how it’s scored, what’s on it, and where I go to take it. Where can I find this information?”

Answer: “I’ll show you a great website created by Peterson’s, a company that makes a lot of guides for students. Hovering over ‘Test Prep’ link on the top tool bar lets you see all kinds of MCAT test information and even has sample MCAT questions to get you prepared! I hope this information is helpful to you and let me know if I can help you with anything else.”

d) Finding the answer to this question took about 45 minutes since I could not figure out how to search for graduate school programs for at least 30 minutes.

8. I am on four different prescriptions, and I put all of my pills in my pill box so that I know which ones I am supposed to take each day and at each meal. This morning I was carrying the pill box and I tripped on my cat, so all the pills scattered all over the kitchen floor. I picked them all up before my cat ate them, but now I can’t remember which pills are which ones. I can’t afford to throw them all away, and so I am wondering if there is a source that shows what each pill looks like. Can you help me? (You need to list the title of a source that shows images of a wide range of prescription medicines as well as how to use the source.)

a) “There’s a resource here at the library called the Physicians’ Desk Reference that has information and images of the 200 most commonly prescribed drugs, which should be able to help you identify your pills. In section two, the pink pages of the book, there’s an index that has prescriptions in alphabetical order by either brand-name or generic-name. I’d suggest you write down all four of your medication names then look up each one in this index that gives you the page number for the image of each pill. If you don’t know the name of your prescriptions, you can call your pharmacy and they could give you that information and I’d be glad to help you get their phone number or any other information you need.”

b) Physicians’ Desk Reference (65th ed.). (2011). Montvale, NJ: PDR Network.

For this question, I considered both the PDR and the American Medical Associa-tion Family Medical Guide and noticed from the class annotations that they both had sections with images of the most commonly prescribed drugs and both could answer the patron’s question. I used PDR for this question simply because it was what I grabbed first. Since I did not know the medication names, I did not use the index myself, but instructed the patron on how to gain access to the information they needed by looking up their medications in the resource’s index. This ques-tion was a little difficult since I could not ask the patron if they knew the names of the medications or not, so I suggested also using a pharmacist as a resource in identifying their pills.

c) Question: “I want to know the side effects of this medication I am on, but don’t want you or anyone next to me on a computer to see what medication this is. Can you help me?”

Answer: “I can show you how to use in-print resource we have here in the library so you can look up information on your own. The Physicians’ Desk Reference has a section that has detailed information, like side effects, about all kinds of medica-tions, both prescription and over-the-counter. You’ll want to go to section five and look up the medication, but note that it is in alphabetical order by manufac-turer’s names and then by medication name. I hope this helps you find what you need!”

d) Explaining (writing) how to use the PDR for the patron took about 20 minutes.

9. For my history class, I need to find biographical information about a notable African American woman. I am sort of interested in applying to law school, so I was kind of thinking that I should learn about important lawyers in history. I am looking for three names of African American women who EITHER graduated from law school (whether they practiced or not) OR passed the bar exam (without attending law school). And if they could be born in the 1800’s that would be really great. I’d like to read over informa-tion for all three and then choose one that I find most interesting. (Include the names of the three African American women lawyers and their birth/death years.)

a) “Using a resource called, American National Biography Online, I was able to find you three women who either got their law degree or passed the bar exam. If you wanted to use this resource yourself, search in the “Black History” special collec-tion, restricting the birth date to 1800-1899, and using full text searching to get women who either passed the Bar exam or graduated from law school. I found that restricting the occupation to “law and criminology” did not give the results for the women that did not practice as lawyers after graduating or passing the Bar. Here are the three women I found for you”:

•Sadie Tanner Mossell Alexander (Jan 3, 1981-Nov 1989)—was the first black woman admitted to the Pennsylvania bar.•Charlotte E. Ray (Jan 13 1950-Jan 1911)—was the first black female to gradate from any law school in the US and first black female lawyer in the US.•Mary Anne Camberton Shadd Cary (Oct 9 1823-June 1893)—An aboli-tionist during the Civil War that got her law degree from Harvard Univer-sity in 1883.

“If you need more information or want more African American women lawyers, there is another database called Gale Biography In Context that has a few more biographies that could help you.”

b) For this question, I considered both the Gale Biography in Context database and the American National Biography Online database. I decided to recommend the American National Biography Online database to the patron because I liked the way the search was set up better because it seemed more intuitive and easy to use, although I found more results using a similar search in the Gale Biography in Context database. I mentioned both resources to the patron because I felt that they both were equally great resources for this patron’s information need.

c) Question: “I’m doing a paper on the life of Martin Luther King Jr. for a class and am wondering if you could help me find a biography on him to get me started on my paper?”

Answer: “I sure can! Using a resource called ‘American National Biography On-line’ I found a biography on MLK Jr. that has a lot of information on his life. There’s links to biographies for his family members and other important people in his life too. I hope this helps you get started and let me know if I can be of any-more help.”

d) Finding and writing the answer to this question took about 45 minutes.

10. I stumbled upon this fabulous novel called Cat in Gloves by someone named Denis Delaney. I haven’t been able to find anything else that he has written, and I am dying to learn more about this author. Can you find some information about him? I’d like to see a list of the things he has written and find out about his personal life. (You don’t need to recap his life, but you should find a source that provides all of the info that the patron needs.)

a) “The Literature Resource Center is a great resource for this type of question be-cause it’s a database of biographies, authors, literary criticism, and literary works. Let’s do a ‘Person Search’, an option you’ll find at the top toolbar, to search for Denis Delaney. Since we don’t know any other information about the author, just the name in the person search box will do. You can search first name, last name or last name, first name and you will get one results back. Since there is a ‘See’ ref-erence under the author’s name, we can tell that he is known under a different name and that ‘Denis Delaney’ is a pseudonym. Click on the see reference ‘Peter M. Green’ and you can get all kinds of information on Peter/Denis, like personal information, career information, awards, and his works. There’s a lot of informa-tion here about him and his works!”

b) If I were personally curious about the works and personal life of an author, I would most likely head over to Wikipedia, but since I wanted up-to-date and ac-curate information, I used the Literature Resource Center. After browsing this re-source I knew it would be perfect for answering all aspects of this patron’s ques-tion. I was able to find the author the patron was looking for using the advanced search and either searching for “Cat in Gloves” in the “Name of Work” search op-tion or searching for “Denis Delaney” in the “Person-By or About” option. This was a great resource to use when an author’s pseudonym(s) are unknown because it lists all of the names the author is also known as. I really enjoyed how the infor-mation is set up on each author (e.g. works, awards, personal information, etc) and thought this was the perfect resource for this reference question.

c) Question: “I loved The Hunger Games trilogy! Could you help me find some more books by Suzanne Collins?”

Answer: “It was a great trilogy! Using the Literature Resource Center, I found that Suzanne Collins also wrote the Underland Chronicles and there are five books in that series—Gregor the Overlander, Gregor and the Prophecy of Bane, Gregor and the Curse of the Warmbloods, Gregor and the Marks of Secret, and Gregor and the Code of Claw.”

d) The answer took me about 15 minutes to find and about 20 minutes to write.

11. I am thinking of writing a children’s book about in baseball, and I believe that there was a teenage girl who played for a minor league team in the early 1930’s who struck out Babe Ruth and Lou Gehrig of the New York Yankees. I’d like to find the original newspaper articles about this young woman. Can you help me find out her name and some specifics of this situation? I’d really like the actual newspaper articles and dates of publication about this particular game. (You need to list her name, a headline, and a date of publication.)

a) “This sounds like a very interesting story and I’m sure we can find a few articles on this girl using ProQuest Historical Newspapers: The New York Times because it’s a database with New York Times articles dating way back to the 1850’s! Using the ‘advanced’ search, which you can get to from the homepage, let’s search for ‘babe ruth AND lou gehrig AND yankees’ in the first line, ‘girl’ in the second line, and ‘struck out’ in the third line. Also, select a specific date range, like 1/1/1929 to 12/31/1935 to get articles written in the early 1930’s...then click ‘search’! You’ll see that the very specific search only yields two results and only one of these is relevant, however, we can gather from this result that the teenaged girl’s name was Jackie Mitchell, so we can do another, better search using her name in place of ‘girl’. This article also has a play-by-play description of her striking out both players and the score of the game.”

“Going back to your original search, swap ‘girl’ for ‘Jackie Mitchell’ and the ‘AND’ between ‘Babe Ruth’ and ‘Lour Gehrig’ with an ‘OR’ so that we include more articles on either player. Doing this picks up one more article for you on the game and this gives you the Jackie’s full name, which is Virne Beatrice Mitchell. It looks like they had planned to have her pitch to Ruth and Gehrig every time they came to bat during the New York v. Chattanooga game on April 3rd, 1931.”

Articles:

•Brandt, William E. (April 2, 1931). Ruth will face girl pitcher today; home run king alarmed by prospect. New York Times. pp. 37. Retrieved from http://search.proquest.com/docview/99365794?accountid=10361

• Brandt, William E. (April 3, 1931). Girl Pitcher Fans Ruther and Gehrig. New York Times (1923-Current File), pp. 32. Retrieved from http://search.proquest.-com/docview/99362273?accountid=10361

b) I considered using ProQuest Historical Newspapers: The New York Times for this question since I was sure The New York Times would have this article since it was about the New York Yankees and the database dates pretty far back. I also thought the World Almanac and Book of Facts might have information on Jackie Mitchell, too, but ended up finding what the patron was looking for in The New York Times. I gained access to the information in the database through the ad-vanced search option. I was surprised at how completely just two short articles could answer the patron’s questions about this girl and the game.

c) Question: “I love old advertisements for technology, like the old IBM and Macintosh computers. Is there a resource I could use to browse the advertisements in newspapers, like The New York Times?”

Answer: “There sure is! Proquest Historical Newspapers: The New York Times is a database of newspaper articles from 1851 to the 2000’s and there’s a way you can just search within the advertisements. What you do is go to the advanced search option, then type in the technology you are interested in the search bar, like IMB or Apple Computers, and then select ‘advertisement’ from the document type option. After you press ‘search’ you can sort these according to relevance or date. Display ads usually contain text and an image of some sort and Classified ads are usually just text, if that helps.”

d) Find the answer and writing part a took about an hour and a half.

12. I heard Terry Gross interview the historian Garry Wills on NPR’s Fresh Air recently. They talked about his book Bomb Power: The Modern Presidency and the National Security State, and it got me really interested in the history of the atomic bomb. I’d like to read the first public statement of any sort delivered by a US president that includes any mention of the atomic bomb. Can you help me find the president, the date, and the actual text of the statement? (You need to list the president’s name and the date as well as a source that will give the full text of the statement.) American Presidency Project or Encyclopedia of the American Presidency

a) “Using an online database called The American Presidency Project, I was able to find you the first presidential statement mentioning atomic bombs. This was a statement by President Truman on August 6th, 1946 regarding the bombing of Hi-roshima. Here is the citation where you can find the full-text of this article, but I am also happy to print out the article for you or email you a copy. I hope this helps! If you wish to replicate this search, simply type “atomic bomb” without the quotation marks into the search box at the bottom of the homepage.Harry S. Truman: "Statement by the President Announcing the Use of the A-Bomb at Hiroshima," August 6, 1945. Online by Gerhard Peters and John T. Woolley, The American Presidency Projecthttp://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/index.php?pid=12169&st=a-bomb&st1=

b) The American Presidency Project was my secondary annotation assignment, so I knew I wanted to use the resource when this question came up. I do not personally know of any other resource with such a large collection of presidential papers, speeches, and data. I was able to answer the patron’s question only using this re-source and only searching for the term “atomic bomb”. I was expecting to have to use synonyms for “atomic bomb” but did not have to. I did not use the data index in this search since I was not sure what type of statement (i.e. new conference, proclamations, public statement) this would fall under.

c) Question: “I’m doing a school project on Hurricane Katrina and was looking for some of the speeches or statements by President Bush during that time. I’m kind of interested in what he said after the hurricane during the aftermath. Could you help me locate some?”

Answer: “The American Presidency Project has big collection presidential speeches and documents and I was able to find you quite a few things said by President Bush in regards to Katrina. I’ll note the citations for a few of the presidential remarks about the aftermath and recovery of the disaster:”

•George W. Bush: "Remarks on the Aftermath of Hurricane Katrina in Mobile, Alabama," September 2, 2005. Online by Gerhard Peters and John T. Woolley, The American Presidency Project•George W. Bush: "Proclamation 7923 - Honoring the Memory of the Victims of Hurricane Katrina," September 4, 2005. Online by Gerhard Peters and John T. Woolley, The American Presidency Project•George W. Bush: "Remarks on Hurricane Katrina Recovery Efforts in Kenner, Louisiana," September 2, 2005. Online by Gerhard Peters and John T. Woolley, The American Presidency Project•George W. Bush: "Address to the Nation on Hurricane Katrina Recovery From New Orleans, Louisiana," September 15, 2005. Online by Gerhard Peters and John T. Woolley, The American Presidency Project

d) Finding the answer to this question took about 5 minutes and writing up the an-swer took about 10 minutes.

13. I am studying poverty in my sociology class, and I am trying to find out what the poverty line or poverty threshold was in 1960 and then again in 1990 for a family of four. What should I do to find this information? (You need to include the actual figures for both 1960 and 1990.)

a) “To find this information, you can use the Historical Statistics of the United States online database. This online reference has statistics about a range of topics, like population, work, and economics. From the homepage, click on the ‘search’ option in the upper left hand corer and type ‘poverty line’ in the search box. After you press search, you’ll see a new option to enter a date range for the results; en-ter ‘1960’ and ‘1990’ in the appropriate boxes and press enter. Now, you’ll see only three results—click on the top one and it will show you a table where you can find the information you are interested in. According to the table, the poverty threshold for a family of four in 1960 was $3,022 and in 1990 was $13,359. What a difference!”

b) I knew that either Historical Statistics of the United States or The 2012 Statistical Abstract would hold the answer to this patron’s question since I have had previ-ous experience using both references. I tried to find information on poverty lines in The 2012 Statistical Abstract, but couldn’t find information as far back as the 1960’s, so I decided to use HSUS instead. HSUS, to me, is more difficult to use, but I was able to find the perfect table to answer this patron’s question, which I accessed through a subject search. I did attempt to access this through the index, but found it took too long and was too complicated, especially when trying to show a patron how to use the resource.

c) Question: “I’m doing some research for my sex ed class and was wondering if you could help me with a question that my teacher couldn’t answer. I was curious to how many more abortions women are having today compared to, like, the 70’s? I don’t need exact dates or exact figures or anything, but I was wondering if there was any sort of upward or downward trend in number of abortions over the years.”

Answer: “This is a really interesting question! I found a great table on the Historical Statistics of the United States online database that shows the number of induced abortions per 1,000 pregnancies. The table’s dates range from 1976 to 1996 and it looks like the number of abortions stayed about the same—24.2 in

1976 and 22.9 in 1996. It looks like there was slightly more abortions in the early 80’s than the other years, though, if that’s of interest to you.”

d) Finding the answer to this question took about 15 minutes.

14. I have a friend who emailed me and told me she is moving to Belgium, and she wants me to visit. I am so excited to go visit her in Europe! I love Belgian waffles and chocolate! I already have my passport, some comfortable white athletic shoes for walking, a big fanny pack, and lots of batteries and 35mm film for my camera. But I’m confused, be-cause she told me I should fly into Milwaukee and then take a bus to Belgium. What is she talking about? Where is she moving? (You need to state where Belgium actually is.)

a) “It sounds like your friend may be moving somewhere near Milwaukee, WI; let’s use Google Maps to see what she is talking about. When you start typing in ‘Bel-gium’ in the search bar, you’ll see that it gives you options to choose from, one of which is Belgium, WI! It looks like Belgium is about 38 miles north of Milwau-kee. I can also help you get directions and bus information if you need it.”

b) I really wanted to use the Time Atlas of the World or the Omni Gazetteer of the US to look up the answer to this reference question, but unfortunately, I did not have access to either reference book. Although I did not feel very creative using Google Maps for this question, I feel as if it was the resource that could give me the answer the patron wanted in the shortest amount of time. If the patron wanted more information on Belgium, WI, I would then refer them to Time Atlas of the World or the Omni Gazetteer of the US for more details. I also consulted www.-worldatlas.com, but found that it only listed major cities and did not give much in-formation other than that.

c) Question: “I’m taking my kids on a vacation to Disneyland in a couple of days and was wondering if you could help me get directions to the parking area and show me any alternate routes or road work being done? I’ll be needing directions from Modesto, CA to Disneyland.”

Answer: “Google Maps is a fantastic resource for this! I’ve found a designated parking area for both theme parks and have gotten directions from Modesto, CA to this parking area. Let me print out or email you these directions as well as show you on the map the high traffic areas and road construction. You may want to look at this map again right before you leave to be aware of any traffic accidents or roadwork being done on the day you will be driving. Google Maps also tells you the weather for Disneyland in case you need to know what to pack!”

d) Figuring out what resource to use and fiddling with www.worldatlas.com and Google Maps took about an hour.

15. a) ProQuest: Los Angeles Times URL:http://search.proquest.com.libaccess.sjlibrary.org/latimes/

b) Similar to ProQuest Historical Newspapers: The New York Times this is a collection of LA Times articles about local and regional news that date from 1985 to 2012. Although it does not have newspaper articles from that far back, there is the option to search obitu-aries, look up citation, and perform advanced searches that include limiting document types to such things as reports, poems, and comics.

c) Q: “I’m looking for a Los Angeles Times article that talked about Disneyland’s plans to add the California Adventure theme park. I know they added the park a few years back, but I wanted to read an article about the planning of the park.”A: “Using a database of LA Times newspaper articles, I was able to find you quite a few articles on the topic of the planning and addition of California Adventures to Disneyland. If you want to replicated this search, simply use the homepage’s ‘basic search’ option to search, in quotations, “California Adventure”, then sort the results from oldest to newest. Here are the citations for some articles I found that you may be interested in:

•New Disney theme park to pay homage to Hollywood Dickerson, Marla. Los Angeles Times [Los Angeles, Calif] 12 June 1996: D1. •Disney Making Reality of California Dreamin'; Entertainment: New theme park will reflect seaside pleasures and old-time Hollywood glam-our, sources say.: [Orange County Edition] Dickerson, Marla. Los Angeles Times (pre-1997 Fulltext) [Los Angeles, Calif] 12 June 1996: 1.

Primary Annotation: “ProQuest Historical Newspapers: New York Times”

Full citationProQuest Information and Learning Company. (1851). ProQuest historical

newspapers: The New York Times. Retrieved from http://search.proquest.com/hnpnewyorktimes?accountid=10361

Explanation of the purpose and content

This is ProQuest’s database of The New York Times newspapers dating back to 1851. The purpose of this collection is to provide users with access to all the historical newspaper articles from The New York Times and to gain valuable information ranging from political news to information on ancestors. This is a valuable resource for genealogists, researchers, scholars, historians, and everyday users who want to know more about the past events and history of the United States and the world.

Explanation of unique featuresSome unique features of The New York Times database are the variety of ways

the information user can go about searching the collection of articles. Along with a basic search, there is an advanced search option that allows for various options to either broaden or restrict a search; these include Boolean operators, date ranges, document type restrictions, and the inclusion or exclusion of duplicate articles. Users can also browse articles within a specific topic or search for citations. Another important and unique feature is the My Research Account (specific to ProQuest’s databases), which allows users to save documents and searches, export documents to RefWorks, and tag their research documents are share with other ProQuest users.

Explanation of the organization of the text (Alphabetical? Thematic? Dependent on the in-dex? Dependent on a table of contents? Etc.)

This database has indexed articles from 1851-1993, which allow users to use search terms (e.g. subject, person, and/or company terms) for a more specific search process. In addition to the articles that are indexed, articles from 1851-2008 are full-text searchable, meaning that users’ searches will not only retrieve indexed terms, but text within the article as well. For example, a search for the person term “Bill Clinton” will retrieve articles that are indexed with vocabulary term “Bill Clinton” as well as articles that contain “Bill Clinton” in the actual text of the article.

All 3,202,262 topics are arranged alphabetically, with numbers and symbols being first in the list and “Z” being last. When performing a basic or advanced search, users can opt to sort the results by relevance or publication date.

One question (and answer) that could be answered by using this book (please don’t borrow one of my questions from the practice questions assignment)

Question: I’m a Disney movie lover and would like to know when the movie “Aladdin” came out and how much the box office brought in. How much do Disney Pixar movies bring in now?

Answer: Using a database of The New York Times articles, I was able to find a few articles about the movie and found out that “Aladdin” hit the theaters in 1992 and made $141 million dollars, which was way more than the average at the time of $35 million. Disney Pixar movies today typically make more than that, like “Finding Nemo” that was released in 2003, which made about $330 million.

Secondary Annotation: “American Presidency Project”

The description of the American presidency Project above is very good, but I’d like to add more about the additional features, like data, links, media, and elections. In addition to documents, this database has a collection of statistical charts and tables relating to topics like popularity, public appearances, and even the word count of State of the Union messages! Who knew the longest State of the Union speech was in 1981, which was given by President Reagan. In addition to statistical data, the “elections” section of the database shows the political party makeup of the United States for every election year and the percentage of votes for each candidate. The “media” section has a list of videos and recordings of various presidential addresses arranged chronologically. Lastly, the “links” area contains links to presidential libraries and museums.

Question: “I’ve been so busy with school lately that I haven’t been able to watch of the political stuff on TV. I know that things between Obama and Romney are heating up, but I haven’t been able to watch or read any of their speeches. I’d like to know the opinions of each candidate before election day, so could you help me find presidential election speeches for this coming election in 2012?”

Answer: “There is a great database online called the “American Presidency Project” that can answer any question you have about politics! Some of the documents even date back to the days of powdered wigs! If you look on the left-hand side of the homepage under “document archive” there is a link for “2012 election Documents.” Here you’ll find each candidate for the 2012 election listed along with links for their speeches, statements, and press releases. These documents are transcripts and there are in order chronologically, with the most recent speeches first. These election documents are very up-to-date, but the links under “media” aren’t as fresh and don’t have any video or recordings from Romney. I hope this helps you make you’re decision easier come November!”