Information Resource Notes

 Reference Material

I think the idea of reference material is still relevant. There are many print documents which contain information that does not become out of date quickly, such as atlases and dictionaries and the historical pages of encyclopaedias. These can still be referred to in libraries and not necessarily be borrowed to be useful and relevant.

There are online resources which can also be referred to as reference materials – online dictionaries, encyclopaedias and atlases – because students refer to them for information. They can be listed and accessed via the electronic library catalogue (in DEC school though the My Library application).

Therefore I think the idea of reference materials is still relevant but is not now restricted to cover only print materials that cannot be borrowed from the library.

Wikipedia

I think the fact that Wikipedia can be added to or edited by anyone makes it a waste of time hitting the search button. If time has to be spent looking at other sites to verify the information included then it’s not worth it. I have found it to include the incorrect  birth and death dates of historical figures and I advise my students that even though it usually comes up first if they search with Google to look for an alternative site with better credentials. Although much of the information may be correct, I don’t use it any more when searching for general information for personal use, ie not for an assignment etc. What’s the point when you can’t rely on its authenticity?

Dictionaries

When I searched for online specialized dictionaries about half of the initial 10 results were not suitable mainly because the breadth of their content was not large enough. The following is  a sample of what I found.

http://www.musicoutfitters.com/music-dictionary-c.htm  This had most musical terms but some had spelling mistakes!

http://www.wordreference.com - good Italian language dictionary includes pronunciation

http://www.tuition.com.hk/geography/ - good range of words. Other sites did not contain many of the basic terms for physical geography

As a matter of practicality I think the school library should still provide students with print dictionaries. Access to the Internet is not always possible due to high demand and/or equipment failure. Students taught how to use the print dictionary using the guidewords can find the spelling and/or meaning quickly.

Online Atlas

http://www.whereis.com/ - Our Stage 3 students are studying the discovery of gold in Australia this term. This online atlas gives them the opportunity to discover where the main towns of interest are in relation to one another and to where they live now. They can also calculate the distances and observe the physical geography of the area to determine the difficulty of the trips undertaken by diggers.

Biographical Guide

http://library.uow.edu.au/search~S0/ - Excellent biographical guide for Australians. Example: Many results to a search for Ned Kelly.

Verso Solution

I love this idea as it has a visual identification as well as an expected call number. It reminds me a little of the iBooks interface on an iPad where the books are presented on a bookshelf. As far as I know this method has not been marketed yet to DEC schools. In fact we are waiting for our new cataloguing system in October this year, which one would imagine has to include something like this to cater for the inevitable shift from print to online reference materials.