Child Day Care Newsletter

The Waukesha County Child Day Care Certification Department offers more then just certification for child care facilities. They also offer a monthly newsletter that I think is a great resource for parents or child care providers. The March 2011 newsletter touches on safety recalls, St. Patrick's day crafts and recipes, information on a lending library, and new standards for cribs. They also have a helpful link page that has one or two resources that may be of interest. Definitely check out the newsletter!

Online Job Applications -- How to Make Them A Little Quicker

Applying for jobs can be stressful and time consuming. Most job postings are listed on the internet and most applications are accepted electronically. With a focus on applying for jobs electronically I will try to give some tips and tricks to reduce the time you sit in front of the computer.

LOOKING FOR THE JOBS

Interest Cards: Automatic E-mails from Companies

A lot of larger companies and government entities will allow you to sign up for “interest forms” where they will e-mail you anytime a job in your field open. An example of that is Waukesha County. Once you create a profile with them you can file out an “interest form” and then they will e-mail whenever a position opens up in your field.

Details: For an example check out Waukesha County’s website.

Metasearch Websites: Check out Indeed.com

There are a lot of options for search engines to look for jobs. For example there are company websites, city websites, county websites, organization websites, and for profit sites like CareerBuilder and Craigslist. All of these options can be overwhelming.

If you want one website that grabs a variety of these job posting from other all these types of websites try a metasearch website. The results won’t be as precise as if you searched a regular website, so be ready to wade through about 50% more jobs. Try my favorite metasearch site, indeed.com.

FILLING OUT THE APPLICATION:

Google Chrome: Auto Fill

Google Chrome is a web browser similar to Internet Explorer and Firefox that is offered for free by Google. This web browser offers the cleanest add on option called “auto fill” that I have used yet. Basically you can add your contact information (e-mail, name, address, phone number, etc) to your profile and it will save it. Then the next time you are filling out an application, with the press of one button, the entire contact portion of the application is filled out.

Details: Download Google Chrome here. Get more information on setting up your Auto Fill profile here.

Plain Text Resume: Use Copy and Paste

Though this isn’t as quick and easy as Auto Fill, it will still help your aching fingers type less. Have a thorough plain text copy of your resume filled out. This means a simple resume with no embellishments like bold, bullets, or any other features. (Tip, on my plain text resume I also have extended information about former employers, like supervisor, address, telephone number, etc. some applications do ask for that information.

When it comes time to fill out the “work experience” portion of a resume, utilize copying and pasting from the plain text resume to the application. I use shortcut keys for the copying and pasting. Always have this plain text available by saving it in a online document storage place, like Google Documents (it is free!).

Details: How to make a plain text resume information can be found here. How to copy and paste information can be found here. How to utilize short cut keys can be found here.

MAKE REALISTIC GOALS

Limit Your Time in Front of the Computer

Set goals as to how many applications you are going to fill out for the day or how long you are going to spend. Also make sure to make your goal attainable, if you start setting your goal over 10 applications in 1 day or spending more than 4 hours at a time at the computer, you may be over doing it. After a certain amount of time your productivity and attention to detail will start to decrease and you will not be as accurate or thoughtful in filling out your applications. You want to make the best first impression! Good luck!

Hopefully these couple of tips and tricks help you fill out your applications easier. If you want some help learning how to make a resume please stop on in at the Mukwonago Community Library for our Resume Workshop on Wednesday,March 2^nd,2011 at 2 pm. I would also advise you to bring a flash drive to save your documents on.

Web Surfing

My type of surfing doesn’t involve a wetsuit, but a mouse and keyboard. Follow along and I will guide you through some of the most popular websites of 2010!

Time Magazine publishes an annual list of what they consider to the best of the Web. I have highlighted three of my personal favorites from that list:

MIT OpenCourseWare: The prestigious Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) has an initiative to allow partial access to undergraduate and graduate level courses for FREE to anyone. Access to these courses can be found on their website. I have used the Spanish course and dabbled a little in Astronomy. (I am not very good at Astronomy.) But MIT even has their own YouTube channel so you can watch lectures while looking at printouts from their website. Be prepared these are not all full courses, but there is enough pieces to find a very rich education experience...for FREE.

Pogo: Games, games, and more games....what more can I say? Some free games on the internet seem cheap and poorly planned. Pogo offers a variety of bright, and mostly child friendly entertaining games, from the mindless to the slightly educational. I do not recommend using this website at work!

Groupon: One big discount for your area once a day! This website is amazing for helping you find hidden gems in the community. Though there isn’t a Groupon location for Mukwonago, we are so close you can check out Milwaukee, Chicago, and Madison for ideas (triple bonus!). One of my favorite buys from this website was a three month fitness bootcamp in Milwaukee for $60, which saved me almost $200. Also if suggest friends to the website and they purchase something you get a $10 credit. Pretty cool!

Alexa is a Web Information Company that provides an update list of the top 500 internet sites on the web. The top three you can probably guess:. Google, Facebook, and then Youtube. I prefer using the Time List because their ratings are based on enterainment and quality, where Alexa is just amount of visitors. Popularity does not equal quality. Enjoy your surfing!

Wisconsin Unions

Disappearing senators, days of protesting in Madison, and a state full of concerned citizens boil down to one thing: heated debate. There is a lot of rhetoric and fast talking by newscasters and colleagues these days regarding their opinion of the situation. I am providing a few of the more substantial articles and information about the protest events. There is no intent to be biased in a general direction, I only mean to provide the resources and allow you to be the critic. Please read and if you have any resources you believe I overlooked or should be added please feel free to comment below.

For the most in-depth local coverage I have found check out Madison based Channel 3000’s website. It includes a long list of stories and video coverage about the events from the first mention of Governor Walker targeting state worker benefits in a speech on February 2^nd, to current day protests. If you scroll down to the bottom of the page linked above you will find a list of relevant article according to title and date, which is the cleanest type of timeline I have come across.

Keefe, Jeff. "Wisconsin Public Versus Private Employee Costs: Why Compare Apples to Oranges." 15 Feb. 2011. Policy Memorandum #173. N.p.: Economic Policy Institute, 2011. N. pag. PDF file

There has been discussion as to where Wisconsin public employees rank in pay compared next to the private sector. This memorandum put forth by the Economic Policy Institute using their finding and Bureau of Labor Statistics to state their findings say public employees make substantially less in income but have better benefits. All statistics and percentages are clearly labeled and easy to understand

Siegel, Fred. "How Public Unions Took Taxpayers Hostage. " Wall Street Journal 25 Jan. 2011, Eastern edition: ABI/INFORM Global, ProQuest. Web. 21 Feb. 2011.

A lot of people are concerned that unions, especially those affiliated with the government could hold to much power. This article discusses some of the history of how unions have gained power and represented themselves. It is an opinioned piece against the power of unions, but it is historically accurate. The author Fred Siegel is also a reputable source having written many credible stories and having worked as not only a scholar but political advisor.

Carr, Julie and Kathy Barks Hoffman. "Republicans Challenging Unions in State Capitols." Associated Press 18 Feb. 2011: n. pag. NPR. Web, 21 Feb. 2011.

The Associated Press does a good job of representing the situation in Wisconsin and how it may most likely find similar effects in other states. It confirms the budget short fall, the number of public sector workers, and provides examples of other states that may have similar situations.

Please share your suggestions!

MLA, APA, Chicago, and AHHHHHHHHHHHHH!

Do citations and bibliography rules make you want to cry? Or perhaps you secretly love creating in text citations and want to make sure they are perfect every time. Whatever your opinion is on creating citations and bibliographies, they get easier when you use the library. You can copy and paste already created citations or utilize software that will build the citations from scratch for you. Let’s discuss your options.

Copy and Pasting Already Created Citations

EBSCOhost offers premade citations for all of its scholarly articles. You can check out EBSCOhosts different databases through our subscription database page. Once you login start searching for your articles. Once you select an article, on the right hand side of the page there will be a button that says “Cite”. Click on this button a pop up window will show you all of the different citations styles. From this point you can copy and paste to your heart’s content. A little warning from my experience, the citations offered by EBSCOhosts are not always perfect, so double check.

Building Your Citations From Scratch..(with a little help).

There are several free citations builders available on the web and today I will introduce you to EasyBib and NoodleBib.

EasyBib.com is a simple bibliographic management tool that creates citations in MLA, APA, and Chicago styles. You choose what type of citation you are building and then fill in the blanks, from there EasyBib will create your citation for you. I especially liked this feature because you could create a list and then download it to a Microsoft Word or Google document file. This download feature minimizes a lot of the time and clumsiness involved in editing if you were simply to copy and paste citations. I recommend this citation builder for younger students who are just learning citations.

Though free and easy to use this program still comes with areas for improvement. The simplicity sometimes misses the finer details necessary for Chicago or Turabian citations. Also make sure you pay close attention to font size and margin spacing when you download citations to a Microsoft Word document. If a professor or teacher specifies a certain style of paper, EasyBib may not automatically create the style you are required to make.

NoodleBib.com is more complex free bibliographic management tool that also creates MLA, APA, and Chicago styles. This software also is a fill in the blank type citation builder, though you should expect a lot more blanks than EasyBib. This citation builder is a little more time consuming, but you can expect accurate and correct citations. Though you do not get the handy downloadable feature, you can expect better results for professional style citations. This citation builder is appropriate for high school age students and above.

If you are using the two citation builders for simple print journal articles you are likely to get similar results. There are minor differences if you are using it to build a bibliography of references used from an electronic database. Be careful about what information you add into the blanks and pay attention to any side notes or pop up information. Your citations are only as accurate at the information you put into it.

If you still want more information please check the library catalog for the writing style manuals. These are always the authoritative source of creating proper citations. Happy writing!

Extra Extra! We Are Temporarily Moving During Expansion!

We’ll be open thru March 18th, re-opening yet to be determined, but estimated on March 23rd.

Saturday, March 19th we’ll begin the process of moving everything out of our existing building. If you feel like volunteering to help with the move please sign up at the Circulation Desk at the library. Out new temporary home will be located at:

Goodden’s Sporting Goods location,
1012 S. Main St. (ES)
(Across from Amato Ford) see map below for directions.

When we reopen at the temporary location you can expect:
• Reopening with entire collection available
• All library services available
• Most programs will be held at the new location. Some larger programs, particularly

Summer Reading programming, may be held at the Village Hall
• Check the library’s website or the Mukwonago Chief for information on
re-opening dates.

Help us feel at home in our new temporary location and come and visit often!