#19 - dataz! bases!

Philip's Atlas of the Universe
Today at the children's desk, I fielded a lot of questions about the solar system. I wouldn't recommend Philip's to those kids, but the material there is certainly suitable for Grade 7's to high school ages (it doesn't pull any punches in describing orbital matheminucia, chemical compositions, etc.) seeking more numeric facts about a particular cosmic entity. What's best about this eBook is the browsable table of contents interface.

However, the keyword searching has a few quirks. First, the tiny 'check within this publication' radio button is not checked by default, and can lead to users unwittingly searching the whole Gale database instead of the publication that they clicked on.

As well, Gale's keyword search results does not allow for a sort by Relevance, and defaults to a Sort by Document Title. This could be confusing for first time searchers weaned on Google, as a query for 'Jupiter' brings up 'Asteroids' as its first article. Users will have to be instructed that the first article is not necessarily the most relevant one!

Shakespeare for Students
Another publication hosted on the Gale databases; has all the keyword searching quirks mentioned above.

Now here's something I wish I had when I was going through my BA. Plot synopses of every major play! Act-by-Act summaries of the action! Tons of useful analysis! None of those boring soliloquies to sift through! None of that hoity-toity literary scintillation to get in the way! Also useful are the list of Media Adaptations of each play, highlighted in a purple text box where applicable; great way of pointing lazy readers to audio and DVD renditions of these plays. Sadly, the write-ups are wonderfully concise and approachable reads. And by sadly, I mean that might make them prime candidates for plagarism. Do kids still do that these days? Is it still 'with it'? I don't know anymore.