A good argument and a good book
A good argument and a good bookYou may have noticed that “Points of View Reference Centre” and “NoveList Plus” are the two latest additions to the Library’s Web Resources collection. I have recently attended a workshop for these databases and would like to share my learning.
“Points of View” Reference Center
Points of View Reference Center is an online database which includes full text articles from a wide variety of sources. It is designed to provide students and schools with a series of controversial essays that present multiple sides of a current issue.
The database provide students with information for assignment as well as writing tips in the writing of a persuasive essay or give an oral presentation on one or more sides of a current issue. It provides more than 272 topics from a span range of current issues. Topics covered include : AIDS/HIV, Arts & culture, Earth & Environment, Energy & Conservation, global issues; human rights; immigration; media & communications, people & society, war & peace…..and many more.
Each search resulted comes with 4 major articles: An overview (general information and objective background about the issue); Point (argument supports the issue); Counterpoint (opposing argument to the issue), and Guide to critical analysis (helps students better understand and judge facts vs opinion of the issue).
The essays in the “Points of View” provide questions and materials for further thought and study and are accompanied by thousands of supporting articles from the world’s top political and societal publications. They are including
leading political periodicals, newspapers, government documents, reference books, radio and TV news transcripts.
Navigating the database is user friendly. To conduct a quick search, researcher can either use “Browse by Category” or “View All Topics” search. However, performing a keyword search while viewing a Category or Topic, the entire database is searched. This means results are not limited to the Category or Topic selected. The “How to…” area provides information and guidance when conducting research for an essay.
The coverage of each full text article includes: current topics of debate, information type, abstracts, general reference sources, citation and Lexile scores (difficult level of the document). Each article is created by two authors who are experts in that particular subject field. The database also contains images, illustrations, video, charts, graphs and diagrams that are related to the topic. Each article concludes with a “Further Reading” section that contains links to more articles on the topic. The database is frequently updated and new articles are added to.
However, the “Points of View” is an American database. The controversial issues contents are mainly American, therefore, search terms are needed to be American terms.
The database is topic driven, it may be difficult to know where the topic goes to due to broad headings eg “facebook” would be in the topic of “People & Society” instead of “Media & Communications”.
Although I have not had a chance to introduce this database to library users, I believe it would be useful for school assignment information enquiries.
“NoveList Plus” Online Database
Being given a storyline or plot characteristics to find a book or asked for looking for a book in a specific genre or search for a series; may be, sometimes, challenging and time consuming. NoveList Plus provides the solution to answer the request quick and simple.
Developed by librarians, NoveList Plus is an upgrade to NoveList. In addition to the fiction database that NovList has offered, NoveList Plus adds nonfiction pleasure reading. It is a comprehensive online readers’ advisory tool for librarians.
NoveList Plus offers bibliographic information on more than 200,000 titles, including over 50,000 nonfiction titles selected for their appeal to the general reader. Approximately 20,000 new titles are added each year. In addition, using NoveList Plus, you can retrieve author read-alikes( include suggested titles), book discussion guides, book talks and feature articles. It also contains over 1,850 searchable Award Lists (the best in a specific area or additional ‘hot’ titles), over 185,000 book cover images and nearly 36,000 first chapter excerpts.
It also includes special sections for teens, older kids (9-12) and young kids (0-8). It also contains the option to sort by popularity and/or Lexile scores. The picture book extenders are brilliant for story time activities.
In NoveList Plus, you can search for books with certain plot characteristics or a series by entering a series name or finding authors who write like your favourite, using similar subjects, themes, and appeal factors.
In NoveList Plus certain indexes can be filtered to a specific reading level due to the existence of Lexile scores. Use the “Featured Book Display” ideas to create a display for different reading levels in the Library. NoveList Plus also contains helpful training materials for readers’ advisors.
This link provides a tour of the database and is worthwhile trying.
http://support.ebsco.com/training/flash_videos/NoveList/NoveListOverview?NoveListOverview.htm
The above two online databases also link to the Library catalogue to display the availability of the search item.
Becky
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1 comment :
Great Report Becky!
I think Points of View Reference Centre would be good for debating teams, Society and Culture assignments etc, though i agree that it is very Americanised.
I've been been checking out some of the RA articles on Novelist Plus and they've been pretty helpful so far. We also have links to our catalogue within the Novelist Plus database so you can search straight from the database.
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