Alkek Library News

Pump up your Presentations....

Do you have a presentation coming up? Do you want to WOW your audience? Then try one of the alternatives to Power Point Listed below. Most of the presentation tools are free, and only require you to create an account.

Ispiring free is a Power Point to Flash converter. It allows you to upload large files, keeps the embedded audio and video files and lets you embed as flash or to YouTube.

Sliderocket- flash effects (looks cool) but limits you to 15 mb file size. The interface is pretty easy to use and has some advanced features.

Prezi -collaborative, zooming flash effects, interactive

Glogster -poster presentation tool- has education version

Museum Box- This is an interesting tool that allows you to create a "museum box" with audio, video etc. (cool!) The site was inspired by Thomas Clarkson and anti-slavery campaigner who created a box that described why slavery was wrong. He carried around a box of items to illustrate his arguments during his campaign.(takes a little while to load.)

Animoto creates slick, professional, videos. There is an education version available. Allows you to create full length videos and  has large library of available music. You can also use voice thread/-with recorded narration- See the example: Great Depression using the Library of Congress collection.

Ahead.com- Create zooming presentations with Ahead. The free version allows you to have 300 mb of file size. Here are some examples of portfolios using Ahead.co

Go Animate- creates animated presentations. Free version for education.

Xtranormal- text to speech; animationed videos. This is where the "So you want to be a _______ videos. (Fill in the blank with lawyer, earn a PhD in political science major, etc.) 

Common craft is another animation creation tool. Many "How To" videos are created using Common Craft. Often used to explain complex subjects.

You can also just choose to share your presentations using GoogleDocs, Slideboom or Slideshare.  With Google Docs, you can also create and collaborate with others as a group project. If you presentation is really large, you might chose Slideshare whose file size limit is 100mb.

Timeline tools:

X Timeline-Easily create timelines using images & multimedia; Embeddable

Timetoast- Create timelines in minutes. Finished product has a slidable scale and highlights the important events.

Comic Strip Creators:

Chogger Use Chogger to draw your own comics, caption photos, take webcam pictures and add speech balloons.

Using Images:

Creative Commons - is a place to Share, Remix, Reuse — Legally!

Google Advanced Search: check box for images labeled with usable rights on images

Wikimedia Commons - is a database of 10,062,008 freely usable media files to which anyone can contribute.

 

Textbooks: Tips for Finding Them Free or Cheap

Finding Textbooks for Free:

Search the Alkek Library Catalog by Title and Author.

1. Check to make sure it is the same edition you need. Sometimes the library has older editions. If this is the case, check with your professor to see if it's ok to use an older edition.
2. If it has a Due Date that means it is checked out. You can "request" the book, and when it is due back, you may be next in line to check it out.

Search Reserves by Course or Professor to see if it is on Reserve. 

1. It is possible that another professor put it on Reserve—you can check out those also (for 2 hours, inside library use only).
2. A professor’s personal copy won’t appear in the Catalog, but you can find it under Reserves.

If the book is NOT available in Alkek, you can use Interlibrary Loan (ILL) to try to borrow a copy from another library.

1. ILL is an option, but it's not guaranteed that a lending library will loan the book or how long they will lend it for.
2. It's free to use the Interlibrary Loan service, but you have to create an ILLiad account first.

You can also check Other Libraries (such as UT) to see if the book is available locally, and then obtain a TexShare Card to go there and check the book out.  

Finding TextBooks Cheap:

Buy it used at a local bookstore or online through places like Amazon.

Chegg.com is a site for renting textbooks—both ebooks and hard copies. 

Coursesmart  has ebooks. They require a software download and are sold by limited-time subscriptions—typically by semester, so it’s like renting. Usually there is a choice of downloading an ebook to one computer, or logging into a site to view the text.

Cheapest Textbooks searches many sites for the cheapest new, used and rental texts.

Booksprice.com searches many sites for cheap book and ebook prices, and includes music and DVDs.

Also, see the eBooks page for other options for finding Free Textbooks.  (Scroll to the bottom of the page.)  

Guy Dore, Reserve, Periodicals & Media Assistant

Finding Statistics on the Web

Finding statistics on the web can be a daunting task if you don't know where to look, what organizations or government agencies gather the statistics.   For general population or demographic data the first place to go for information about the United States is the Statistical Abstracts of the U.S. or Census.gov website.  The US Census gathers the population data then disseminates it into various formats and reports.  You can search the Stat Abstracts or use the Index to find particular tables. The Index refers to the "table number"  and the online PDF version is the same as the printed version available in the library.  The Index has entries that range from the number of automobiles imported to the foreign trading and mining of Zinc. 

You can also use some of the Data Tools available at the Census.gov website such as the American Factfinder which is a good source for population, housing, economic, and geographic data.

Although the Census website covers almost any topic overall, there are other government agencies that specialize in gathering statistical information and it is often best to go directly to the source.  For instance, for health statistics, if you want to know the number of STDs (sexually transmitted diseases) reported by location you should go to the Centers for Disease Control Data Sets. Most Federal websites allow you to browse by state. For worldwide health data, see the (WHO) World Health Organization.

If you are looking for education statistics you would want to go to the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) website. Although, the Stat Abstracts above will also offer education related statistics, the NCES is more focused. You can find data on Early Childhood through Post Secondary.

If you are looking for weather data, such as historical rainfall totals or major storms, you would want to go to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) website or the National Climatic Data Center. 

There are many more places to search for statistical data and using a trusted source is the first step in getting accurate data.  Typically you want to look for government websites. Sites that use .gov or .org rather than .com are the safer bet.  If you are still unsure what agency or website has the data you need, when using Google or other search engine, add "statistics" or "data" to your search, in addition to ".gov" or "org".

You can also use the library "Databases by Type" and use either the Statistics or Census/Demographics list to find a database that has the information you need.

As always, if you need additional help finding information, please use the Ask a Librarian service!!

Need a Lesson Plan or Classroom Activity?

Thinkfinity.org, the merger of Verizon's MarcoPolo and the Thinkfinity Literacy Network, is a free, comprehensive digital learning platform that includes resources for the classroom, professional development opportunities, and access to national and state education networks. For more information about Thinkfinity click here.

National content partners include:

• International Reading Association
• National Center for Family Literacy
• National Council on Economic Education
• National Council of Teachers of English
• National Council of Teachers of Mathematics
• National Endowment for the Humanities
• National Geographic Society
• ProLiteracy Worldwide
• Smithsonian National Museum of American History
• The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts

Thinkfinity.org is arranged so the educator, student or parent can easily access resources tailored to their needs. The search engine will search by keyword with choices to limit by subjects including arts, science, social studies, and more. You can also limit to resource type including lessons, interactives, assessment, worksheets, plus others. Grade limits range from K-Higher Ed. and Vocational Education. The user can also limit by content partner.

Thinkfinity.org also includes an Afterschool section with interactive games and activities.
The goal of Thinkfinity is to use emerging technologies and communication tools to provide free, universal access to all of Thinkfinity.org's learning opportunities.

Internet Archive and The Librarian

I haven't been to the Internet Archive website for a while and didn't realize how much has been added in the past years. The Internet Archive Wayback Machine is still an interesting tool to see the evolution of websites, some as far back as 1996. Alkek Library's evolution goes back to 2003 under the Texas State name, and under SWT.edu you can see our very first website. Usually the pages aren't complete due to images no longer existing and the links sometimes don't work, but it is interesting to see what has changed and what is still the same. Enter a URL into the search box to be taken back to the archived internet pages.

What brought me to the Internet Archive most recently is a colleague sent a link to the video that's included in this post. The Internet Archive is actally a digital library and since it began in 2002 has grown to include moving images (147,000+ movies), live music archives (over 62,000 with a Grateful Dead Collection), audio (322,480 recordings) and texts (well over a million texts including many historical and literary favorites.)

The National Film Registry Picks includes favorites such as the Fall of the House of Usher (1928), The Phantom of the Opera(1925) and many more.

The Librarian is part of The Prelinger Archives which includes many educational, advertising and industrial films. I loved The Librarian which was a vocational guidance film. It shows the work of library personnel circa 1947. Its amazing how so much has changed, yet so much is the same.

Do You Know about Pandora?

I always like to hear about good things on the web. I have known about the website for a few years now and I actually forgot about it for a while, but have recently been reacquainted with Pandora Radio.  Pandora is known as the Music Genome Project.

What's nice about Pandora is you can listen to music you like online for free, as long as you want. You create a personalized radio station based on a song title or artist and then all the songs that play after the first initial song are in the same music genre. You can have as many personalized radio stations as you want.   

So, for example, I just clicked on the Stevie Ray Vaughn station I created and the next five songs that played were: I Ain't Superstitious by Jeff Beck, The Thrill is Gone by B.B. King, Crawlin' Kingsnake by Buddy Guy,  Going Home by Ten Years After, and then the fifth song was another Stevie Ray song. The next 5 songs will be different artists and then the artist you started with will fall into the queue again.  I like this because you hear new music you've never heard of, but since the music "gene" fit whatever artist or song you originally entered, the sound is similar and usually something you like. However, if you don't like the song or artist, you can let Pandora know about it. You can vote yes or no for each song and your radio station will change accordingly.Voting for the song actually improves the genome project.

Another option is take the different radio stations you've created and mix them to play a "quick mix" which mixes up the different genres to get a whole different musicset. If you want to buy the song, you can do that too.

Pandora has started a video series to go along with the genome project. Some of the videos are from projects such as South by Southwest or the John Lennon Educational Bus. Others are educational music related and there are many other videos to see like the Buddy Guy's Legends video when Buddy Guy showed up.

Use Startpages to Organize Your RSS Feeds & More

One of the coolest new tools I've been using lately is NetVibes startpage. A startpage is a personalized web homepage. Others include: iGoogle, Pageflakes, and MyYahoo. I've chosen Netvibes because you also have a public version you can share with others socially. (Pageflakes also has this feature.) Here is my Netvibes public page. Notice the different tabs .

On both the private and public page, you can choose what modules and widgets to add.  Netvibes already has many to browse and choose from. If you already have a delicious, facebook or flickr page you can have them fed to your startpage. See the larger view of the image by clicking on it.

You can also create different tabs to organize your feeds. I have one for blogs, database & journals feeds, and one I have created for research feeds for a presentation I am giving.  Tabs help to organize your RSS feeds according to how you want to view them.

On the private page, you see the same modules as on the public page plus you can add a widget to monitor your email from your different accounts in one place, have a calendar, weather widget, and more. Its as easy as clicking the "add content" button, pasting the RSS feed URL into the box and adding it to your page.

Most databases will allow you to subscribe to a search query or the latest articles from a particular journal. Use the databases help feature or look for the RSS image to find out how.

Here is a nice comparison of different startpages that discusses the different features of each one. At the bottom of the post is a chart that puts all the features together for easier comparison.

Watch the library workshop page for future workshops in late summer or the fall semester on setting up personalized startpages. Or follow the links above to create your own startpage now.

We Have a New Look!

Welcome to the new library website. We hope you find the new design easy to navigate. The Start Your Research box is intended to help you search the library catalog, databases, and other information resources quickly. Through the headlline links we will be providing news about research tools, new databases and other information of interest to students, faculty and other library users.

So let us know what you think. Use the "How are we doing" link on the home page near the bottom of the left navigation bar, or send a message to: library@txstate.edu.