Wednesday, April 28, 2010

Gale Virtual Reference

I chose Literature as my area of interest and looked at the book "Literature and Its Times: Profiles of 300 Notable Literary Works and the Historical Events that Influenced Them."  I had to tear myself away from a great article on the Hobbit to complete this assignment!

This is a five volume set which I didn't notice right at first, until I wondered where the rest of the 300 books were.  Each essay appears to be well written, although I found the one on the Chocolate War a bit preachy.  Many links to other supporting articles in the index.

This would be a good source for literature students doing a paper or for people like me who are curious about a book they might never get around to reading.

I also looked at World War I Reference Library and learned to my surprise from the timetable available that the US didn't officially end WW I until 1921, two years after the Treaty of Versailles was signed by other combatants. 

The second part of the assignment:  When I typed in zinc I got a whole list of possibilities so decided to limit my search to zinc in foods which brought up 5 citiations.  The first one gave me the answers I needed.  I like the fact that it highlights your search terms.

The MP3 download might be helpful to some; I prefer reading text.  If I have to take notes I'd rather do it from text than listening.  I listened to info on 3M from a business source and Germany from the Cold War Reference Library.  It did take me awhile to find the link since it's not prominent.

Gale Virtual Reference is a good collection of reference materials and could be of great value in finding info for people.

1 comment:

Jane Heitman Healy said...

Thanks for your comments, Cheerful. We think Gale Virtual Reference Library greatly expands libraries' reference collections, plus it's available from home 24/7 with barcode & password. You found some good stuff (I will have to look up that Hobbit article!). I agree about the MP3 and ReadSpeaker, but for people with vision impairments or reading disabilities, it's a godsend. It's also helpful to hear some of those scientific terms pronounced in the chemistry, biology, and medical books.