Library Challenge-Lesson 6

I'm skipping past Lesson 5, since I have been unable to access NetLibrary from my home computer. When I started doing my research on WorldCat, I thought "I know this, and use it often". Boy was I wrong. I have been using it in it's simplest form, there is so much more. It was very interesting, and I hope I keep using all that I learned. I used the tutorial, and felt it was very beneficial. After spending some time looking at different ways to search, I started working on my assignment. I looked for the book "What is the What", the current One Read SD selection. There were 35 results to my search, 26 in English. 1701 libraries worldwide have this item. The top library listed was Augustana College. Yeah, that's my alma mater. I then clicked into my #1 selection and see the full record. I looked for the call # (class descriptor). LC PS3605.648 and Dewey 813/.6 (which is what we use at our Library). I clicked the author's name and there are 54 total results. I clicked on the first title there, and of course, got the subjects of those. If you aren't reading the One Read SD, I would highly recomment it. I'll tell you a few of the subject headings to get you interested. Sudanese--United States/ Refugees--Sudan/ Refugees--United States/ Sudanesischer Fluchfling/ Sudan--History--Civil war, 1983-2005. Pick it up, it's a good book. I am especially interested in it, since my son works with immigrants and refugees.

For the second part of the assignment, I looked and looked for what I was looking for. Since the assignment said "search in database" I was looking for exactly those words. Boy, I truly am the most challenged in the class. Finally, I accessed the "database" tab and found exactly what I wanted. It's so much easier than I made it. Wow, this is where I was feeling like, there is so much more on the WorldCat and FirstSearch than I ever realized. I selected OAIster as directed and typed South Dakota in the search box. I selected the first item which said "Sinclair, Lewis" and I thought, "I must be in the wrong place, what does this have to do with SD?" It was a letter written by Lewis Sinclair to Marcella Powers. He talks about "leaving Minneapolis . . .Albert Lea. . west to the Dakota border. West through Sioux Falls, SD a roaring metropolis of 34,000." I going to do a little more research. I have a daughter who has had several medical papers published through the Univ. of Wisconsin. Will I be able to find some of these research papers? I'm anxious to find out. Of course, I'll also have to back-up and do lesson #5.