Discovery Exercise--Proquest

For my topic of interest, I researched "texting and driving". I found this topic interesting because it is in the news everywhere, and every States are deciding how they will deal with the distracted driver. I read an article from the Journal of Transportation; Atlanta; 7-17-10. 40% want internet in cars, and 50% admit to illegally texting/phoning while driving. BUT 87% believe in-vehicle web access is a safety concern, and 95% want internet banned or restricted in vehicles. We have a dilemma, since people want it both ways. So, I'm not sure how we will solve this. In 2009, National Highway Traffic Safety Adm. found nearly 6000 people died in crashes involving distracted drivers, and more than 500,000 were injured. (P.S. please make your car a no-phone zone.)

In an article by David Runk in Transportation Topics; Alexandria; 7-5-10 the conclusion seems to be we need to educate the public. Michigan's ban on texting while driving is an enforcement challenge. Texting drivers are fined $100--It's the Law. The article points out texting, like drunk driving or lack of seat belt usage is a public safety issue.

It was interesting to read the articles on this topic. They were easy to locate, since it is a topic in the news right now.

As I did the second part of the assignment I used the publication tab to locate Library Quarterly. I researced the topic of rural libraries, since that's "where I am". There were articles from grants and funding opportunities to where libraries are going in the future. I also located where we can find SDLN holdings available to us by Inter-Library Loans on these topics.

I agree with Library Chick that Proquest is handy for research, especially when there is a specific topic, or you know the specific publication you are looking to research. You can really find anything. But I did have some frustrations when I thought, "well I will just use this to find some ideas for a storage cabinet I want to have built". I am not familiar with carpentry publications, and probably wasn't using the right search words, so I kept getting the message about narrowing my search. I think to have success at every topic, you need to know the proper language for searches.