Author: Dorothy

Rhode Island Library Information Network for Kids

Owner’s Manual

Information about your feline friend. Here’s how to ….
Captain Isaac Paine Elementary School

Visit the Capt. Isaac Paine Library online at http://www.ricat.net/common/welcome.jsp?site=7069
You can also pick it from the list of elementary libraries at www.ricat.net.
The Home Page links to resources available at — your tax dollars at work !
And more !

OUR CATALOG—To show you how this works, let’s try a sample search. Click on the Catalog tab, type the word “cats” in the Find box, and press [Enter]. This will search for everything in the Paine library that mentions cats. Click on the title Cats: how to choose and care for a cat. The resulting page will show you the book cover, tell you where to find it and whether or not it’s on the shelf. Click on TitlePeek to get even more information about this book, including the Table of Contents and reviews. Go back to the list of titles, and click on [add to this list] next to each item that interests you.
Next, click on the Web Sites tab under the green bar. This will take you to related web sites, all educator-evaluated and chosen for the K-12 curriculum. Each entry includes an annotation, a direct link to the web site, and indicates the grade level. You can narrow the results by grade level or domain type. Explore several of the web sites. Then click on [add to this list] next to each item that interests you.
Finally, click on the OneSearch tab under the green bar. This will take you to other online resources about cats that are available through AskRI. Click on [Get Results] to explore more databases. Click on Show under each resource listed, explore some of the articles found in that resource, and click on [add to this list ] next to an article that interests you.
To see what you’ve collected so far, click on Resource Lists in the left-hand column, and then View My List, which is everything that you added while you were exploring cats. Books, web resources and OneSearch databases are each listed under separate tabs. You can email, save or print each section.
For a different view of the library, click on Destiny Quest in the left-hand column of the Catalog. Destiny Quest has many of the same features in an exciting visual interface. Find lions (click on Go!) and then click on Face to face with lions. You can browse nearby books on the shelf by clicking on [Shelf Browse], and then dragging the orange pointer along the shelf. Add to your Resource List by finding and dragging items into the Book Bag. Find related web sites and OneSearch resources. Narrow your search by author, publication year, genre, length, or format. Explore the options for emailing, saving and printing out your list. Try out the options for finding exactly what you want using Advanced Search.

SEARCH TIPS
You can search by title, author, subject, keyword, or the name of a series.
You can use [*] to search for a variety of endings, or [?] to replace a letter: for example, wom?n will search for both woman and women. Teach* will search for teach, teaching, teacher, etc.
Using capital letters (or not) doesn’t matter— Spain, spain, and SPAIN will all return the same search results.
The search function also ignores punctuation, so you can just leave it out—arthurs surprise.
If you get too many results from your search, you can qualify it, by using NOT (IN CAPITAL LETTERS)—that is, you can search for “pets NOT dogs” to find items that talk about other pets.

There’s much, much more ! If you get a username and password from your librarian you can log on at the Capt. Isaac Paine Library to:
Place holds or reserves on items in the library to use with your students
Find out what you have checked out, and when it’s due
Save one or more Resource Lists that you create in RICAT, and share them with your students
Write a review of a book or video in the library’s collection
Recommend titles to other teachers and students
Add to the library’s Wish List of titles to be purchased

RICAT facts
RICAT has 145 school libraries and over 1million books, plus videos and CDs
Searching in RICAT links to related web sites and other online resources at www.AskRI.org
RICAT libraries can borrow books from other Rhode Island libraries and the world beyond !

Enjoy !