Lesson 5--NetLibrary

NetLibrary offers Full-Text access to over 12,000 books appropriate for grades 6 through 12, and adult. I like the features of NetLibrary's panel on the left of the screen that allows direct access to contents, e-content details (which lists author, publication, product ID, ebook ISBN, subject, language), and options offfers add to favorites, Email information. The notes tab allows you to create an account so one can use NetLibrary from home. The dictionary tab pulls up 4th Ed. dictionary, Rogets thesaurus, English to Spanish and Spanish to English. Currently viewing lists where you are right now and lists where you have been searching. Back to search results transports you right back to your list of books. Very easy to use!
I learned in Lesson 3--ProQuest searches that "one-half of all our citizens are touched by divorce in their lifetimes." (Joseph N. DuCanto)
1. This 2010 summer, divorce has entered my life. One friend and a close family member are both going through divorce, plus, as a school teacher/librarian, I work with students whose parents have divorced, or are going through divorce. These students show signs of preoccupation and struggle to do school work. Their faces are always sad. So, I remain focused on divorce as the topic of interest. Full-Text divorce produced 5,511 ebooks. Keyword divorce resulted in 15 ebooks.
Of the 15 ebooks, I spent considerable time reading the following 4 ebooks and taking notes: The Divorce Mediation Handbook: Everything You Need to Know by Paula James. Publication: San Francisco, Calif. Jossey BAss, 1997. I was not aware of "divorce mediation" until I read this book. The author says 80% of divorcing couples are better off mediating. The mediator is someone who is neutral and can encourage a calm discussion of the parties' needs and concerns rather than jockeying for position status in negotiations as is done by the lawyer. Women need to remember that they must say what they want because men are inclined to negotiate. The book contains sample stories to illustrate points made.
Coping With Divorce, Single Parenting, and Remarriage: A risk and Resiliency Perspective by Mavis E. Hetherington. Publication: Mahwah, N.J. Lawrence Eribaum Associates, Inc., 1999, has 14 chapters. I focused on Part III, chapter 6, Father Absence and the Welfare of Children, p.117. Children who grow up apart from their biological fathers do less well, are less likely to finish high school and attend college, less likely to find and keep a steady job, and the girls more likely to become teen mothers. Why? Fathers who live apart from their children are less likely to share their income with the children, the mother's and child's standard of living declines, parental time and supervision is less. To maintain regular routines and systems of supervision is very hard to achieve in one-parent families.
Helping Children Cope With Divorce by Edward Teyber. Publication: San Francisco, Calif. Jossey Bass, 2001. Young children have limited thinking abilities and time frame. They have not learned how to project themselves hours and days into the future. (p.32). "The attachment bonds we form with our parents when we are children are the essence of what is most human about us." (p. 35) From these early attachments, we develop the capacities to feel empathy, compassion, and love for others. Separation anxieties are intense for adults as well as children. Grandparents' roles and responsibilities and financial obligations to younger generations are touched upon in this book. Persons over 65 years of age control about 30% of all family networth in the United States and will represent 20% of the population by the year 2030. (p. 62).
The Eureka School libraries have 2 books on divorce, one in each library. NetLibrary has come to the rescue big time! Thank you, NetLibrary!!
Fighting for Your Marriage: Positive Steps for Preventing Divorce and Preserving a Lasting Love by Howard Markman, Scott Stanley, and Susan L. Blumberg. Publication: San Francisco, Calif. Jossey Bass, 1994. This book lists 4 harmful conversation patterns, uses conversations of couples arguing as examples, and tells what to do to stop these harmful patterns with examples demonstating what to say. (1.) Escalation. To Stop:Steer out of pattern, use softer voice, end on positive note. (p.17) (2.) Invalidation: Painful Put-Downs. To Stop: Show respect for and acknowledge the other's point of view. Don't have to agree, but respect and listen. (p. 20) (3.a) Withdrawal and Avoidance: Hide and Seek. This pattern is one of the most powerful predictors of unhappiness and divorce. (p.22) It gets worse if allowed to continue. Pursuers push more to get an issue discussed and withdrawers withdraw more. (p.32).(3.b) Physical Violence and Healthy Withdrawal. If conflict escalates to physical aggression, withdrawal is better. To Stop: Have to agree to stop the pattern. Set up a time when both agree on a comfortable time to face the issue. (4.)Negative Interpretations: When Preception is Worse than Realty. (p.25) I found this book to be an excellent source for handling conflict, dealing with issues, expectations, committments and more!

2. Constitution Day Full-Text resulted in 1,067 ebooks, pulling up Martin Luther King Day as well. "Constitution Day" Full-Text resulted in 21 ebooks and pulled up constitution day in other countries, too. I selected Representing Popular Sovereignty: The Constitution in American Political Culture. SUNY Series in American Constitutionalism by Daniel Lessard Levin. Publication: Albany State University of New York Press, 1999. The Search within this ebook feature will take you directly to the page where your search terms are found. I found this reference to be profound, detailing the struggles to even get a Constitution Day established, the troubles of trying to define a concept, a document, how to personify the Constitution to advertize and promote it. Pages 3-6, 14-22, 53-60 (Marketing the Constitution) certainly broadened my view and understandings of what the Commission on the Bicentennial had to do to promote the Bicentennial!
In past years in grade 6, I have taught a unit on the Bill of Rights and the ten amendments. I used 6 print references, and the lesson plans from The Constitution and Bill of Rights: An Institute for Secondary and Upper Elementary Teachers. We the People... Lesson Plans Submitted to the Commisssion on the Bicentennial of the U.S. Constitution by the University of South Dakota. 1992.
Full-Text Bill of Rights 1,100 ebooks. Listing each amendment in quotation marks, Full-Text "First Amendment" 298 ebooks. The results ranged from 6 ebooks for "Twelfth Amendment" to 209 ebooks for "Fourteenth Amendment." Full-Text "Articles of Confederation" 94 ebooks.
Listing only titles and not all the bibliographical data for each book, I found the following 10 books of value: 1. The Articles of Confederation. 2. The Federalist Papers. 3. The Complete Idiot's Guide to American History [Part 3: Building the House. Chapter 11. From Many, One (1787-1797)] [The Articles of Confederation led to the Constitution, to the Electoral college, George Washington set the qualities for President.] 4. The Complete Idiot's Guide to the American Presidents. 5. The Bill of Rights: A Bicentennial Assessment. 6.Inaugural Addresses of the Presidents of the United States from George Washington to Bill Clinton. 7. Let's Celebrate Today: Calendars, Events and Holidays.
8. Shaping the Eighteenth Amendment: Temperance Report, Legal Culture, and the Polity, 1880-1920. 9. The Criminal Law Handbook: Know Your Rights, Survive the System. 10.
Trust and Risk in Internet Commerce. A tremendous amount of resources to augment the libraries, American History and government classes and more. Thank you, NetLibrary!

3. Full-Text western AND history Publisher Nebraska resulted in 43 ebooks. Full-Text "Western History" Publisher Nebraska pulled up 13 ebooks. What a find! Thank you! I do like to read about Native Americans. Joseph M. Marshall III is one of my favorite authors. I selected the following 5 books to browse. Again, I will only list titles. I will return to this search again for some more great ebook reading!
a. Great Western Indian Fights by B. W. Allred. 1966. This book has maps. The Bozeman Trail, 1866-1868. b. Letters of Mari Sandoz by Mari Sandoz, Helen Winter Stauffer. 1992. I found most intriguing. c. From Fort Laramie to Wounded Knee: In the West That Was by Charles W. Allen. Edited with an introduction by Richard E. Jensen. 1997. What a life! What a book! It took years to find a publisher. Allen was a survivor of the Battle of Wounded Knee and married into the Oglala Sioux Tribe. From eyewitnesses, as well as his own experiences, Allen describes the battle. A third of the book is devoted to events leading up to the Wounded Knee Massacre.
d. Old Deadwood Days by Estelline Bennett. 1982. The earliest print of Deadwood Gulch shows burned out timber on the hillside, which gave the place its name. (p.20). e. The Medicine Men: Oglala Sioux Ceremony and Healing. Again, NetLibrary has increased our "holdings" a thousandfold! Thank you!
These databases just keep getting better and better. Thank you for offering this Challenge: Electronic Resources Edition.
And it is a challenge, as I am still doing inventory/weeding in the elementary library, and have yet to get back to the high school library's inventory/weeding, plus am also deep into doing automation via ResourceMate. The school board has hired a retired English teacher to help, but I have to be here to answer her questions and explain how cataloging works! It's working! :)