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Sender: American Memory Fellows <AMFELLOWS@RS8.LOC.GOV>
Poster: Charlotte Bruce <canbruce@HOTMAIL.COM>
Subject: New LOC look
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Hi All,
I've been looking at the new LOC pages and am impressed, though I had
to get my bearings and ask Judy Graves where something was that I
couldn't find at first. The pages seem to be intuitive if I take time to
browse. It's just that the new changes made Helen and I hustle as we
get ready for a presentation for AP teachers Feb. 12, and for middle
school teachers Feb. 16.
We use the Country Studies/Area Handbook Program section a lot at our
school and I found itagain under "Using the Library" from the main page.
I like the other version with the pop down menus, but this way is ok. I
wondered if it is something that could be linked to the Learning Page
since schools use this info a lot.
As for American Memory, I like the instructions about "New images will
load..." and "the "Captions for above imagery" notations. Whether the
"Enter" info is at the top or bottom of the grid of pictures doesn't
make much difference to me since if you click on the name "American
Memory" or the pictures, you go to the collection.
My problems are with the next page. Like others, I miss the list of
collections with descriptions and date ranges. That presentation was
good for quick looks and for the conference work we have done in lieu of
descriptive brochures. I wish I had printed out a copy for easy
reference as I did the maps when they were new. I can't get used to
having to click on the Search button to have my search begin, showing my
lazy side of just hitting the Enter key.
I like the red Notice button - it helps our students think about what
they will use in their projects. They like the timeline and the region
buttons. We do too.
I haven't worked with the Broad Topics much, but what I have searched
isn't as good as doing a keyword search across the collections or in
specific media types. Maybe I need to explore it more or maybe I'm so
tuned in to using the section of AM that is relevant to our project that
I can't put it in its proper place yet.
I'm curious about the placement of Library Divisions with the good
navigational lines that run across the bottom of other screens. I like
the option of being able to select collections to search by clicking in
the boxes to remove the ones we don't need. I wondered about the
possibility of some similar technique with the Topics section of the
Learning Page. When we type or select a topic there, we are given a
list of the collections that are relevant. It would be nice to be able
to do a keyword search at that point instead of going to each collection
separately or writing down the collections to opt out of the others
under media types.
Under Collection Finder and to the right side of the page under
Original...where there are choices by media type is where I'm working
the most right now, particularly in photos and prints. In comparing my
searches to past searches I'm getting a lot more text mixed in with the
photos than before. I found text in this section that I like, can use,
and didn't find by searching text, but it was surprising.
The Learning Pages are sensational. I like the look and user
friendliness of the site. Our teachers who have been introduced to it
like it too and like its depth of information. They are thinking of
topics to suggest.
In all, I love this collection and wish I could quit my day job and
spend all day looking at the materials - at least for awhile. We found
some new materials in albums and had a brainstorm as to how to present
our lesson visually. Keep up the good work! This resource is so
important to educators and we value it highly.
Charlotte
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