Young Adult Library Services Association (YALSA) presents a booklist called, Outstanding Books for the College Bound and Lifelong Learners, every five years for books that "offer opportunities to discover new ideas, and provide an introduction to the fascinating variety of subjects within an academic discipline". They are intended to help readers "gain an understanding of our diverse world and build a foundation to deepen their response to that world" (YALSA). Recently, YALSA released a new list, and I thought it might deepen someone's understanding of an academic subject area and was worth spotlighting. YALSA's booklist is broken down into five sections: Arts & Humanities, History & Cultures, Literature & Language Arts, Science & Technology, and Social Sciences. This is the first blog post of a five-part series that will cover all of these subjects and give you direct links to the titles from this booklist that we have access to at the Coeur d'Alene Public Library (at the time of posting). The links are here to help you quickly place holds or find out more information about a title. (Part 2/5: OBCB History & Culture can be found here.) Outstanding Books for the College Bound: Arts & Humanities
You're Welcome, Universe (by W. Gardner) We don't have access to every title on the list, but feel free to request that we purchase a missing title or format through our New Purchase Suggestion Form. This form is the best way to request things whether its a title that we don't have in any format, or even just not in your favorite format. Also, don't be afraid to submit a question about your homework or ask for some personalized reading recommendations. You can submit these types of questions anonymously through the Study Buddy Help Form at any time. If I think it needs to be addressed in the blog, I'll pause this series and address it.
I hope you find this helpful and interesting!
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Let's talk about fake news. It's a topic that pops up everywhere these days, and while it may not seem like fake news is directly connected to studying or learning, the skills that you use for spotting fake news are the same skills that you use for verifying whether or not an educational resource is legitimate, valid, useful, and worth sharing. Exercising your critical thinking skills to determine the legitimacy of something you read on the internet or see on TV can also help you become a more confident, informed citizen, who isn't easily tricked or scammed. Here's some resources I've found to help you spot fake news for what it is.
I hope this helps you on your quest for truth!
If you know of another great fact-checking resource that I haven't mentioned here, feel free to let me know in the comments below. And as always, if you'd like to see me cover a specific topic or you'd like homework help or a reading recommendation, please fill out the Study Buddy Help Form! Do you love languages? In the past, I've studied French, German, Spanish, Ancient Greek, Latin, Aramaic, and Ancient Hebrew. You could call me a bit of a language nerd (and you wouldn't be wrong. lol) I love languages. And while I've lost a lot of what I've learned over the years, I've never lost my love for words and how they can come together to tell beautiful, inciteful truths. Maybe you're like me, and you wish you could learn a certain language, but you don't have someone to teach you. This is where libraries shine. Libraries can help independent self-starters, like yourself, learn whatever you want to know. I'm just focusing that knowledge lens on language studies, today. To be honest with you, I haven't tried every one of the resources that I'm suggesting either. But I think part of the adventure of learning is finding out what works for you. And these resources are all free, so you can try out whatever you'd like and see if something fits your unique learning style and preferences. First off, I want to be sure you know about some of the digital resources that are available to you, namely Mango, Pronunciator, and Duolingo.
Last but not least, the Coeur d'Alene Library has a vast collection of items on its shelves that might help, too. Here's a booklist to help you find them and place holds: Language Study (YA+). Hopefully, this helps you find what you need to start learning a new language! If this raises more questions for you about using the library's electronic databases, please let me know in the comments below, and I'll try to address them.
Also, if you'd like more personalized help with any educational topic, please feel free to fill-out the Study Buddy Help Form. Today, I'll be talking about how to find reputable references from peer-reviewed journals for free online. (The term "peer-reviewed" refers to the review process that some academic or scientific articles go through. Basically, when something is "peer-reviewed", it has been read by numerous experts in the field, who look for errors and possible biases.)
While all the databases within the umbrella work similarly, there are two search options (within the EBSCOhost umbrella) that are likely to be the most useful to you as a secondary student. One is called Explora: Secondary Schools. The other is Academic Search Premier. (Both are available to you with or without your library card through LiLI.org.)
SEARCH TACTICS FOR BOTH
Since the research databases are so similar, the same search tactics can be used for either option:
Hopefully, this helps you find what you need for your next big research project! If this raises more questions for you about using the library's electronic databases, please let me know in the comments below, and I'll try to address them. If you'd like more personalized help, please feel free to fill-out the Study Buddy Help Form. Ever get stuck because you don't know how to do something? Maybe you knew how to do it once, but now the memory's faded. Or maybe you were sick or on vacation the week that the concept was taught. With increased remote learning happening, teachers aren't always easily available, and sometimes even when they are, the concept might be a bit trickier to explain over text. I have two online learning tutorial websites to recommend for just this occasion. The first is the LearningExpress Library, which is mostly known for its wide-array of practice tests for nearly all of the big name standardized tests, such as the SAT, ACT, GED, college placement exams, etc. In addition to their practice tests though, they offer a variety of other content, including a good collection of school-related tutorials and study aids in the School Center portion of their database.
The other major collection of tutorials that comes to mind is GCFLearnFree.org. This site is mostly known for its computer tutorials that help people who aren't tech-savvy get up to speed.
For instance, you can find a Grammar tutorial about Commas, which includes funny illustrates and interactive aspects in its presentation that may help you remember the knowledge better in the future. This resource is offered for free by the Goodwill Community Foundation, and also allows you to create a free account where you can track what you've learned or tried. Do you know of another awesome tutorial database? I'd love to hear about it. Please let me know in the comments.
And as always, if you'd like to ask me, the Teen Librarian, for help with a specific research or school-related topic, let me know by filling out the Study Buddy Help Form. This week, I had someone ask me what career resources the library had that could potentially be accessed on or offline. So I did some digging. We have a lot of great career-related materials in the Young Adult Non-Fiction section at the Coeur d'Alene Public Library, but our catalog is a little clunky when it comes to running searches for them. So I thought it might be helpful to create a booklist. I've designed this booklist as a pdf with embedded links, which can be accessed if you have internet. Simply click on a cover, and you should be taken directly to the book's record in the catalog, where you can easily place a hold on the title by signing in to your library account. I've also included some wonderful links to reputable websites that might also help you research careers. If you don't have internet access at home, you can also download this resource from this website, while you are at the library (or on free wi-fi somewhere) and look at the covers offline from home. If you'd like to check out one of the books, you can place a hold by calling us, too! Just have your library card handy when you call, and we can take care of the rest. To download the pdf, click on the image below. If this is useful to you, please let me know in the comments!
If you'd like to see another booklist on a different research topic, feel free to fill out the Study Buddy Help Form, and let me know! Hi! For those who don't know me, I'm Angela Flock, the Teen Librarian at Coeur d'Alene Public Library.
The purpose of this blog is to help teens handle the current learning environment and get help from an adult when you're struggling. This blog is for every teen, regardless of their situation. Some of you are being homeschooled for the first time. Some of you are trying to handle remote learning for the first time. Some of you are struggling with social distancing when you are in-person, and probably feel like it's hard to make and keep friends. While I can't solve all of these issues, I can help you by showing my support from a library research perspective. Just to give you a little background about myself, I'm a former teacher, tutor, and college prep writing professor, and I have a masters in education and library science. I'm also on your side. I want you to succeed, regardless of what you're going through. I'm here for you. To help me help you, I've created a google form that allows you to anonymously ask me questions and get help. You can fill out as many of the questions as you want, or as few as you want. I will read every response, and try to address requests, concerns, and questions here on this blog on Wednesdays. Here's a link to the Help is on the Way! form. I hope you find it useful! |
AuthorAn online blog series for homework help for teens, created by Angela Flock, the Teen Librarian at Coeur d'Alene Library. Archives
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