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 * WELCOME TO FOMF 2009 ! **

The margin of victory was 32 points!
Elle Merenbach Julia Bard
 * Chairs**

Ms. Conlon
 * Advisor**

FOMF Code of Ethics



 * FOMF Czar**: Mr. Lowell, who is the Hunt Director for all of FOMF this year, upon the retirement of Dr. Robert Hunter at Carlmont.

Welcome FOMFer! This webpage is a guide to walking you through the process of finding an answer, locating a proof, and citing your source. Hopefully this page will answer the many questions we face during this crazy, crazy weekend!

What is FOMF?
FOMF, or the Friends of Millard Fillmore Trivia Hunt, is an annual trivia competition involving schools from all over the Bay Area. Over the course of a weekend, we get a set of about 100 unbelievably obscure trivia questions, find as many answers as possible, and argue the validity of these answers to the competing schools. No knowledge of trivia necessary! Though if you have any trivia-inclined friends/ family, ask them to stick around....

If you still have questions, feel free to ask people who have more experience than you. The first person to ask would be your **row leader** (look for the big red capes). If they’re unavailable or don’t know the answer, come ask Julia Bard or me (Elle Merenbach), otherwise known as your hosts for this weekend. As for search engine questions, we have a guru on our side, **Ms. Conlon**. If you have technology questions, Mr. Montaigne should also be available.

Remember, we WANT to help you because YOUR help is invaluable to the team.

Rather watch a video than read? Watch this! (courtesy of the Carlmont FOMF team) This video is a GREAT explanation of the FOMF process from start to finish. Enjoy Carlmont’s theatrics. You can stop the video after **__3:24__** because the rest is just introduction of Carlmont leaders. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WNrOG81nXgI

What exactly happens on FOMF weekend?

 * Friday:** We go up to Carlmont High School, sing "Happy Birthday" to Millard Fillmore (in French) and receive the questions. We'll be back at the Casti library by around 6:00, meeting those who didn't come to Carlmont; after a quick dinner and team meeting, we'll all look over the questions and start to research. Friday night is one of the most //exciting// parts of FOMF, as a **massive** number of enthusiastic researchers demonstrate their search skills by __finding a majority of the answers before 11 pm__.
 * Saturday:** Library teams will go to Stanford's Green Library, as well as the SF and SJ public libraries. **We can't use Internet sources, but we //can//** **use the Internet to point us** **//at//** **hard-copy and magazine sources, and these sources are readily available at libraries.** Back at home (yes, you too will call Castilleja home), research continues; we're constantly sending leads out to the libraries via cell phone. Once library teams return, we have dinner and continue as we did Friday night.
 * Sunday:** Operates much the same way as Saturday. All teams return to Castilleja by 4:00; the leaders type up the answers, while everyone else relaxes a bit. The answers are run up to Carlmont by 7:00 //on the dot//, and then there is celebration and cake at Castilleja. (Yay cake!)
 * Monday:** Our answers are set in stone; now we defend them. All interested parties go up to Carlmont, where all the teams assemble with the official FOMF judges. The system of judging is complicated, but basically entails our " **lawyers** " defending our answers and sources while our " **readers** " examine other teams' answers. For our correct, well-sourced answers we get points; the team that has the most points wins. At the end of Monday's session, we claim the trophy again and dance in jubilation.

FOMF vocabulary (always handy): //__Row Leaders:__// We divide the questions into groups, and assign each group of questions to a "row leader," who should know //everything// about these questions: who's working on them, if we have leads, etc. If you don't know where to start, talk to your row leader. When you have finished researching a question, your answer, source, and bibliography also go to her. //__Bring-Ins:__// In addition to the trivia answers, we must bring in five specified items; examples would be specific movie tickets, newspaper headlines, a draft card, or the signature of someone important. Finding these items require lots of phone calls, lots of connections, and research.
 * //__[|Lexis-Nexis:]__//** It searches many periodicals simultaneously, similar to **[|ProQuest Platinum]**). For each answer we present, we must have two valid sources, and we can't use the Internet as a source. Lexis-Nexis and ProQuest scan through newspaper and magazine articles for search terms; once we know an article exists, we can physically find it at one of the libraries. //Use Lexis-Nexis and ProQuest: theay are among your best friends, along with the Top Research Links below.// The //**Historical Newspapers**// database is also excellent, because we can usually find the papers it includes (New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, and LA Times) on microfilm in libraries. Check with your row leader or Ms. Conlon for the login information for Lexis Nexis -- you will need this information to login on or off-campus. You  __do not__ need a password for ProQuest on-campus; off-campus access to ProQuest is through the library's database page below.

What do FOMF questions look like? 1.) The New York City Museum of Natural History named a spider after an award winning Hollywood actor in appreciation for his having narrated a documentary for the museum. Provide the name of this famous actor. 2.) Provide the name of the liquid shampoo developed around 1900 by a fire chief seeking a cure for baldness. 3.) Bring in a picture of your team captain taken at the site of the 60-foot-high "Cupid's Span."

**Top Research Links**
(but don't neglect all of the tools on the [|library website])

[|Google Books] - search directly inside hundreds of thousands of books. Not all are full-text, but even those that are aren't will often provide you with enough context to decide whether the book might be worth hunting down in a library.

[|WorldCat] - search multiple library catalogs simultaneously, and locate books in libraries closest to your zip code. Includes all area university and public libraries. Use[| advanced search] if you need to find out whether a particular __periodical__ (newspaper, magazine, or journal) is owned by a particular library. World Cat indexes at the level of the individual book or periodical __title__ -- it mostly can't see inside the book or the periodical. For that, you should use Google Books and the periodical databases below and on the library website.

[|Historical Newspapers] - search major national newspapers back over 150 years (library subscription database -- off campus, use the library website page above and note the password information after the database description).

[|ProQuest Platinum]- our largest collection of periodicals. About 60% full-text, earliest content is from the mid-1980's (through the present),

[|Lexis-Nexis] -- another periodical database which we subscribe to especially for FOMF. You will need an account and password to search Lexis Nexis. Ask your captains, a row leader, or Ms. Conlon for this information.

**how to find periodicals in other libraries**
**Stanford (Green) library:** Stanford has around 7,000 different periodicals.
 * **To look up titles**, search their catalog “Socrates (available as a link from the Stanford library home page or at the url: http://catalog.stanford.edu ).
 * **To search for a particular journal** **title**, do a BROWSE search and put the title of the journal (without initial The’s or A’s) in the search field, and search Periodical Title (if you keyword search instead of Browse search, you will get too many results if it’s a simple title like Life or Time – when you Browse search you get an alphabetical listing by title, and your title, if they have it, will be the second title in the list).
 * Make sure you select “Green Library [Humanities, Social Sciences] under the library drop down menu . Very popular magazines such as Time will be held at more than one library so be sure you’re looking at periodicals available at the library we are going to.
 * Once you’ve found your periodical, click on the Detailed listing to see more.
 * Check the Volume/date range section under the detailed listing to make sure Green carries the actual copy we need (for big papers, like the //NY Times// or //Chicago Tribune//, the date range will be sometime in the 1800s to current, but always check just to be sure.
 * San Jose library:** Look through the questions to find one that looks interesting to you. (There are copies of the questions on the glass table in the library.)
 * Go to http://www.sjlibrary.org/
 * Click on “ Library Catalogue ” on the left-hand side
 * Click on “Advanced Keyword”
 * Type in the name of the periodical you’re looking for in “Keyword(s)”
 * For “Location” put King Public
 * For “Material Type” put Magazine/Journal
 * Click on the name of the periodical
 * Check the Volume/date range section to make sure San Jose carries the actual copy we need (for big papers, like the //NY Times// or //Chicago Tribune//, the date range will be sometime in the 1800s to current, but always check just to be sure.

**San Francisco library:** Look through the questions to find one that looks interesting to you. (There are copies of the questions on the glass table in the library.) >
 * Go to http://sfpl.lib.ca.us/.
 * Click on “More Catalogue Search Options”
 * Click on the “Advanced” link in the yellow box
 * Type in the name of the periodical you’re looking for in Search Criteria
 * Change the scope from “View Entire Collection” to “Main Library”
 * For Material Type, choose “Periodical” (if you’re looking for an article)
 * Click the yellow “Search Catalogue” button
 * Make sure you find the correct edition. For example, if you’re searching for //The New York Times//, don’t click on //The New York Times Upfront// or //The New York Times current history//.
 * Click on the correct periodical to get the details.
 * Check the Volume/date range section to make sure San Francisco carries the actual copy we need (for big papers, like the //NY Times// or //Chicago Tribune//, the date range will be sometime in the 1800s to current, but always check just to be sure.

Once you've found your print source and where it's located, be kind to your fellow Casti girl who will hunt it down tomorrow by providing the __**//CALL NUMBER!!!//**__

DON’T FORGET TO FINISH YOUR FABULOUS WORK BY FILLING OUT A __//**BIBLIOGRAPHY SHEET**//__ (you can find one on all the tables) AND DO A PROPER MLA FORMAT CITATION !!!!!!

YOU’RE OFFICIALLY DONE WHEN YOU EMAIL YOUR ROW LEADER AND SIGN OFF ON THE WHITE BOARD!

Happy Hunting!!!