It is really hard to pinpoint the best sites! I learned quite a bit of information that I did not know that was available through the South Dakota State Library! I personally liked the The World book Online & The Learning Express. Of course, I love learning about animals so the World Book was very interesting to me!
The Learning Express seems to be such a helpful site that anyone can use and benefit from!
 Now that I have the knowledge that there is useful information located in the South Dakota State Library, I will have another way to give patrons more researching options. Many times there are patrons looking for information that lies in a book and unfortunately we don't always have the certain book they are looking for. Thanks to the South Dakota State Library for making this valuable information available, I will now have more ideas for them!

It was quite interesting looking up my own name under the AncestryLibrary site. I actually found my name listed in there! Basically it listed where I lived with addresses that were very close to my own. I also did a little more searching and found pictures of me in yearbooks in school! It is crazy that all of this information can be located in the site! I had forgotten just how much I looked like a "boy" in school after seeing those "lovely" pictures!!
Next, I looked up my grandfather on my father's side, George Folkert Schriever in the census. Upon looking up this information, I realized how much I did not know about him. All I could list was his full name and the day he died. I didn't even know the year he was born!  The amazing thing was that even though that was all I knew, he still came up under my search! It also listed his parents and his siblings. What an awesome site! I hope to research this site more when time allows!
There were 3,615,253 listings of pictures available. There were pictures of baseball teams, soldiers, even of historical buildings and towns in South Dakota. What a great assortment of pictures throughout South Dakota. Someone doing a report or simply just showing their children the history of South Dakota would definitely benefit from this!
HeritageQuest is another great site to use for searching history. You would definitely need some useful information to get started. I would like to take more time to research within this site. I like that there is such a variety of things you can learn within.
Sanborn Maps is such a neat site! I love the fact you have so many town maps available to pick from when researching. The town map I chose was Parker,SD where I live. I found The First Presbyterian Church, 
where I currently am a member, located in the map. We are very fortunate today that people from many years ago kept good records. It is also great that all of these maps were put into a State site for all to enjoy!

In the ArchiveGrid I looked up Sitting Bull and found he was a Native American shaman or medicine man. He led the Cheyenne Warriors against the United States at the Battle of Bighorn. Sitting Bull toured with Buffalo Bill Cody's Wild West Show. He was eventually shot and killed while resisting arrest for his beliefs in the ritual Ghost Dance! I typed in Buffalo Bill Cody's Wild West Show in the search box and came up with 46 different forms of information. When I changed my search to add quotation marks to my search, I found that only 2 forms of information came up. The institutions that had materials for use were Cornell University Library and Smithonian Institution.  Just changing how you search for information can determine what you will find!

I was not aware that Paul Revere did anything like this. He was a man that made silver tea, coffee sets, etc.
It was nice to actually see the pictures, instead of just reading about them. The Sioux Indians utilized so much of their land and surroundings to create so many different items.  They made such a vast variety of useful things for their families!

To be honest, I don't really have a favorite artist. I chose to research Albert Bierstadt. 
At our small town library, we applied for a grant to receive the beautiful pictures  in the Picturing America program. What a great way to add art to the library! Thus the reason, I picked the artist Albert Bierstadt for the beautiful picture of the Grand Canyon that hangs upon the upstairs library balcony .
He has painted so many wonderful paintings! Besides having the pictures to view, it also lists what museum that it calls home. Anyone in our town & surrounding communities would be pleased to find the many wonderful art pieces that can be accessed through CAMIO.

I went through some of the paintings listed on this site. There was such a great assortment of different paintings by so many well known artists and actually some I had not heard of before. I added 4 paintings to my favorites list. It was nice to have the option on how to view them and also to edit them if needed.

I am amazed how many different ways there are to look up a book in the Worldcat resource! I chose to research the book Holes by Louis Sachar. When I looked under Title Phrase search, I came up with 280 records found. There were 3,963 libraries worldwide that carry some type of record of it. Black Hills State University was the top library on the list. The call number listed is PZ7.S1185 and the Dewey is listed as fiction. This way of cataloging is different then I am used to. We usually go by AF, JF, TF EF, etc. I  also found that by clicking on the author's name, I found all of the other books he had written. He has been very busy!
As I scrolled down to the subjects that are in this book I clicked on a certain subject and it brought different book titles that had these similar ideas in them. A person could go on & on to find out more information and books. So much information right at my fingertips!

Next, I did the research on the OAIster program by typing in South Dakota. I selected Sylvan Lake, B. & M.R.R. I was pleasantly surprised to see it was a picture of Sylvan Lake Hotel. How beautiful it must have been in the 1800's!! Whenever I go to the Hills, I try to see this lake and I can't imagine there ever being anything there. The picture is located in Colorado listed with information about it as well as that it can be purchased. There is so much history out there if we really want it! The research tools are endless in the South Dakota State Library!!