MeL

This guide is here to aid you as you do a research paper using the MeL Database to find information. (Most Michigan schools computer have an icon to the Database on their desktop, but if you are working from a home or public computer this is for you.)

First go to http://www.mel.org, it should look like the photo above.

Click the first bubble: MeL Databases, your screen should then show something similar to the photo on right.

Pick any link to fit your needs. Feel free to post questions in the comments. Any questions will be add-ons to this quide.

Author

Nina Lacour, who wrote this book, is going to chat with us via skype n April 22 at 6;30 pm.

The Teen Trainers create social networking pages for Spies Public Library

Hello Michigan libraries! This is Matt from Spies in Menominee, I just thought I'd update you with everything we've been doing. Emma and I have been making a bunch of social networking pages, including a Flickr page, A facebook group, a Twitter page, and this blog. Just to include all of our pages, here's a link to our YouTube page. We're working on our Wikipedia page, but it's a little bit complex. Margaret and Amie are using our tablet to make posters to advertise for our guest speaker. We had a Skype conference with Jessica, half to practice for Nina's Skype session planned in the near future (no exact date has been given), and half to ask about a couple issues we were having with a couple of our projects. It was a lot of help to us and we'e glad she has our back. We're having a lot of fun with our work, and I apologize for not talking anything exciting. Maybe next time! Oh, and our library video we're planning on making is going to be totally awesome.

Guest Speaker to Spies!

We, the teen trainers at Spies Library have decided on the guest speaker that we are going to bring into the library for our next project. In the past few weeks, we have been planning the event and we just thought that we'd let you in on what we've decided and what we've been doing so far!

Our guest speaker will be the new, up-and-coming author, Nina Lacour. One of our group, Amie Beland, was the one to suggest her for our purposes. When we first talked about people to bring in, Amie brought up her name and we all thought that it was a good idea. Amie then contacted her over facebook and asked if she would be willing to do an event with us. Nina responded with an enthusiastic. "Yes!" Of course, flying Nina all the way in from her home California didn't seem at all practical or possible, but we immediately though of doing a skype event as an alternative.

For this event, we plan on inviting people from our school and community to come and ask Nina questions over Skype about the writing process, her book, and anything else they want to know! We will start with a list of pre-written questions, and then leave it up to the audience to ask. Using Skype also gives us an opportunity to show Skype and its uses off to people in the audience who don't know what it is.

In order to create publicity for the event, we are going to create posters using our wacom art tablet and post them around town and in our school. A few weeks ago, when we met with the Teen Council, we all got out our art supplies out and created some concept posters for our poster. We got some great ideas from the Teen council members and over the next few weeks, we will be working to incorporate these ideas into our tablet-created poster.

If you want to learn more about Nina, you can visit her site which I have put in the links. And if you want to learn more about her book, Hold Still, check it out and read it! Or, you can read my review on chilifresh!

Digg!

Hey this is Matt from Spies Library in Menominee. Let me start out by saying I have never in my life used Digg before this day. I've always been pretty tech oriented but I've never taken the time to look at this site in particular. I've got a rough idea about what the website is for, but it might be a good idea to let Digg explain its self:

"Digg is a place for people to discover and share content from anywhere on the web. From the biggest online destinations to the most obscure blog, Digg surfaces the best stuff as voted on by our users. You won’t find editors at Digg — we’re here to provide a place where people can collectively determine the value of content and we’re changing the way people consume information online."

If you're wondering what that means, it means Digg is a site (primarily for news) where the users both find news, videos, or pictures, and decide what pictures and news stories are the most entertaining or interesting. Unlike conventional news sites, the viewers are the ones picking what is worth reading or watching, not editors. The site uses a point system. When a user "diggs" a story, it gains a point, and when a user "buries" a story, it loses one. It's a simple system, but it works. You can filter media on Digg by categories (Technology, World and Business, Science, Gaming, Lifestyle, Entertainment, and Offbeat) or time frame (Most recent, 24 hours, 7 days, 30 days, 365 days). If you're not viewing by most recent, stories show up in order of how many diggs they have. All the fuss about digging and burying is to figure out which articles are on the front page and which articles no one will read. You can digg or bury stories you like or dislike, leave comments, find related stories, email the story, post the story to Facebook, and tweet the story all from a convenient toolbar that comes up when you click on something on Digg. That's most of what there is to know about Digg as a reader.
Here's a picture of a search I did on Digg for technology stories no more than a week old: http://i45.tinypic.com/2w4bb5j.jpg

Now We'll move on to submitting media. You need to make an account to submit stories, and accounts are easy to make and free. I'm going to submit this article from the Detroit Free Press about Lil Wayne delaying going to jail over dental work. Here's the link:http://www.freep.com/article/20100209/ENT04/100209062/1039/ENT04/Lil-Wayne-sentencing-delayed-for-dental-surgery

To submit an article, click the "submit new" button at the top of the page. After you do that you're brought to a page with a pretty straightforward interface. Paste the link into the bar and pick whether it is a news article, an image, or a video. In my case it's a news article. After that, type in a description and alter the headline if you want, and your story is submitted! Here's a link to the story I picked with the Digg toolbar: http://digg.com/d31IRcW

It's about as simple as that. People will either start digging or burying the story I submitted, only time will tell. If you have any questions or comments, let me know!