Navarro ISD Libraries

Refer To: Your Teacher's Guidelines Big 6 Information Problem Solving Process bookmarks and posters Heirarchy of Resources	Follow the Research Process - ex. Big6TM Evaluate (step 6) and revisit other parts of the process over and over.
Caution! Floppy Disks Go Bad!!! The use of floppy disks is discouraged. Flash Drives (aka. thumb drives, key drives) can be purchased at HEB, Walmart, Office Depot, Best Buy, just to name a few. Even the cheapest will hold the data of many floppy disks and are not as vulnerable to damage. Always have a copy of your most current saved original in your network folder at school or on your home computer. Caution! Magnets damage or erase computer disks. Do NOT carry your disks in bags or pockets with magnetic holders, cell phones, radios or any other devices that may contain magnets	Cite your sources as you find information. The Navarro English Department requires MLA documentation for your citations. Links to citation tools and guides are provided on the Home Page of our district libraries website. Create a wordprocessing document and save as "citations." Copy/Paste your citations into the document. Number or code your citations. Mark the code next to the info from the corresponding source in your notes to refer to later.
Save in Rich Text Format (RTF) if you have Microsoft Works or another word processing program at home. This will maintain your formatting, but allow your document to be opened by MS Word at school for printing.	Set our NISD Libraries page as the Home Page in your browser while doing research. You can always change it later.

Hierarchy of Resources

This guideline is provided as a strategic tool to help students maximize accuracy and efficiency when performing information searches.

1. Encyclopedias – Brainstorming, Keywords & Cross References for chosen topic
2. Library Resources:
    Destiny - OPAC (Catalog)
    Reference Books
    Biographies
    Non-Fiction Books
    Periodicals
3. AV Software – Library use only
4. Teacher selected references and/or websites
5. Databases:
    DKC
      Newsbank – Newspapers
      Britannica Online
    TexShare
      Ebsco – Magazines & Journals
    Gale Databases – Choose the ones best for your topic – read descriptions
    Maps101
6. Websites cataloged in Destiny - OPAC (catalog)
7. Vivisimo - Uses the Google search engine and others, then "clusters" or categorizes the results. (Less time surfing.)
    Google – more authoritative searches than other search engines
    – searches .gov., org, .edu sites first
    Ask.com (formerly Ask Jeeves) has a kids search engine Ask for Kids.com
    For more Children's search tools see Major Children's Guides and Directories
    Other educator suggested web directories or search engines.
    See the Navarro Libraries Home Page for more suggestions.

      –You should probably have more information than you need from the internet by the time you get this far.

Other Sources to Consider:
     Community Resources
     Government Agencies, Museums, etc.
     Interviews of local or professional authorities (people) on a subject / in a field
     Public Library & TexShare Databases
     College/University Libraries