---------------------- Information from the mail header -----------------------
Sender: American Memory Fellows <AMFELLOWS@RS8.LOC.GOV>
Poster: Carolyn Karis <ckari@URBANSCHOOL.ORG>
Subject: Re: New AM Homepage
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
melesan@yahoo.com writes:
> I really felt that
>the description of the contents of the pages was very informative and
>necessary for a browsing individual to know what he is looking for.
>Now that information on one(actually several) page(s) has disappeared.
I would agree with Mel that I liked the collected, easy to browse
descriptions of the collections in the older version. I often used them
with students and faculty to locate possible collections for their
research. The longer descriptions and the keywords made it possible to
hunt through that one Browse list and determine the collections for focus
research. Now we tend to doing more all collection searches that we then
narrow down--a slightly longer but perhaps more exhaustive approach. I
can understand the rational for the shorter descriptions with the
increased number of collections. I am really impressed with the
additions!
On another note, one of our faculty sat and sat and waited for the opening
screen of the American Memory site (the one with the red, white, and blue
blocks which become images from the collections) to do something. She did
not know to click on "Enter American Memory" to enter the site. I found
this opening interesting and enlightening and enjoyed going to the
captions for the pictures as a way to discover new American Memory things.
However, I noted that when I returned to that opening screen, new images
had appeared. This might be disconcerting if a user had followed a
caption to its collection and then wanted to go back to the original to
explore other images. Upon return, the images will have changed.
Unlike some of my reservations about the new American Memory page, I do
prefer the New Learning Page! The new setup is much, much more user
friendly. Now I can find things and it is much, much easier to see the
breath and depth of materials available.
With the current test group of Grandparent Projects, we are using the
collections quite extensively for their individual research papers.
Topics that have resulted in American Memory hits include the rise of
suburbia, female movie stars, the Model T, conscientious objectors, and
toys.
Carolyn
Carolyn Karis
Urban School of San Francisco
1563 Page Street
San Francisco, CA 94117
ckari@urban.pvt.k12.ca.us
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Tue Jan 04 2000 - 12:24:15 EST