2015 Library Challenge
I am starting out with World Book searches.  As assigned, I looked up a mammal.  I chose an alpaca, since I had crocheted my daughter a scarf from alpaca wool, and was very impressed by how soft and warm it is.  An interesting fact about alpacas is that they are found in South America, mostly Bolivia.  They live where areas consist of a very low levels of oxygen, but the fact that their blood holds high levels of oxygen in it allows them to be adapted to these conditions. In World Book Student, I learned that alpacas descended from vicunas, and are also related to llamas and guanacos.  And of course, llama's are well known to our young patrons through books such as Llama, Llama Mad at Mama and many more. In World Book Advanced I researched the country of Nepal, since through his job at Center for New Americans, my son has helped many refugees from Nepal settle in Sioux Falls. We have met many people from Nepal, and heard many stories of their life and culture there.  Nepal is also familiar to us because of the well known tourist attraction of Mt. Everest. The site gives a lot of information between links on the left and right (Presidential papers, common topics, location articles).  It is hard to select what would be most valuable to our patrons, because this depends on their particular points of interest.  Our final project in World Book Discovery asked us to look up American Government.  There are a lot of links to encyclopedia articles, videos, and websites.  Patrons will like that they can save their research, and return for continuation.  My only hope it that by becoming more familiar with these resources, I can do a better job at directing my patrons to them more often, and get our patrons, teachers, and students to use these resources more often.