SDSL Challenge Lesson #1

I chose to explore World Book School Edition. For the first discovery exercise, I chose to research Coyotes, the mascot of Univ. of South Dakota.

The World Book Kids page is easy to navigate - I was able to easily find the Coyote entry, and copy this picture:

The habitat information, however, was sparse. All the coyote article mentions under "habitat" is: "Deserts, mountains, grasslands," which doesn't really describe their habitat.
"Coyote." World Book Kids World Book, 2012. Web. 11 Jan. 2012

World Book Student has a more traditional ("Google-like") search page, and the information provided is more detailed (but not much more). Definitely geared toward older students: fewer images and clickable buttons, more text.

World Book Advanced is a more familiar interface to me. I chose to search Sri Lanka because of some personal connections. The menu on the left provides a valuable limiting/filtering tool, similar to many academic databases. The right hand column had links to primary sources, mostly Presidential letters. The information about Sri Lanka seemed fairly accurate and up-to-date, including the effects of the tsunami in 2006 and the bloody end (maybe) of the long civil war in 2009.


Because I am a health science librarian, I don't imagine my students using this resource too much.


Finally, in World Book Discover, there is a translator "widget" on the left that will translate articles into many different languages (though not Tamil, spoken by Sri Lankans in the north).