Month: January 2017

More Enhancements to Gale eBooks on GVRL

Last month, Gale eBooks on GVRL underwent quite a few improvements. From visual and accessibility enhancements to options for homepage customization (read the full blog), our goal is to continuously update the platform based on our users’ needs. Below are three, additional enhancements users can expect to find in product: Search within custom collections. Previously users … Read more

“Huck Out West”… The Buzz Keeps Coming!


Amazon named it a “Best Book of 2016” and Men’s Journal named it one of the 7 Best Books of January!

Coming soon in Large Print, Huck Out West by Robert Coover, is continuing to receive extraordinary reviews from Booklist, The Washington Post, Publisher’s Weekly, and many more! We can’t be more excited to have this title available soon in a format for all readers to enjoy.

“Coover delivers a near-masterpiece. It’s pitch-perfect and laceratingly funny but also a surprisingly tender, touching paean to the power of storytelling and the pains of growing up.”—STAR Booklist review 

“The characters are colorful, with names such as Pegleg, Yaller Whiskers, and Eyepatch. Huck finds love and there’s the inevitable return of Tom, whose adult mischief is more sinister than his teen antics. A lively and fast-paced encore for a beloved American hero.” –Publisher’s Weekly

“Revisiting Huckleberry Finn’s America—by picking up where Mark Twain left off.”-Kirkus Reviews 

Read more“Huck Out West”… The Buzz Keeps Coming!

Academic OneFile Expands Browse-By-Discipline Feature

Releasing mid-February, Gale is happy to announce that the browse-by-discipline feature within your Academic OneFile will automatically update to include coverage in three key areas of study –Biology, Chemistry, and Environmental Science. The expanded offering of curated content will provide users with greater access to full-text-scholarly journal content that supports the concepts and topics discussed within the STM disciplines.

And there’s more! In an effort to further improve the user experience, we’ve updated the appearance of the browse-by-discipline icons, resulting in a cleaner presentation and easier navigation. Take a look at what your users will experience when the enhancements roll-out this February.

Read moreAcademic OneFile Expands Browse-By-Discipline Feature

The Biking Librarian Promotes Resources Throughout the Community

By Sally Robertson, Librarian, Nashville State Community College

I am a bike commuting librarian at Nashville State Community College in Nashville, TN.  My passion job is what I do. I love helping people find the information they need. I am a member of the Tennessee Library Association and a part of the Sustain Round Table of ALA. A bike is sustainable transportation and also a great way to tell Tennessee citizens about TEL. I commute to my job by train and bike. Sometimes when I ride through neighborhoods I will stop and chat with people, always telling them about all the great free resources Tennesseans have access to in TEL, and handing out TEL and database bookmarks!

Some of the reasons I like to promote the Tennessee Electronic Library (TEL) resources so much are that they are:

Marching into History

By Debra Kirby

I have always admired the brave men and women who, throughout history, have taken a stand for their rights and the rights of others, often at significant inconvenience and sometimes risking their lives. Saturday, January 21, I had a chance to be part of history by participating in the Woman’s March on Washington. Fortunately, the inconvenience for me was not significant, nor was there any risk to my life. It was an exhilarating experience to be among so many people who took the time and traveled from sometimes great distances – including other countries – to stand up for the rights of women, minorities, and the environment. Here are a few of my observations on the experience:

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50-Year-Old Flashbulb Memory

By Debra Kirby

Flashbulb memory is a term first coined in 1977 by psychologists to describe the vivid, detailed and lasting memories triggered by experiencing or hearing news of traumatic events. Most people have a list of “flashbulb memories” that, depending on their age and location, might include the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor; the JFK, Bobby Kennedy, and MLK assassinations; the Challenger explosion; and the 9/11 terrorist attacks. People often say they can remember in sharp detail where they were, what they were doing, and sometimes even what they were wearing when news of the event broke.

One of the events on my flashbulb list occurred on January 27, 1967 when astronauts Gus Grissom, Edward Higgins White and Roger Chaffee perished in the launch pad fire at Cape Canaveral.

Read more50-Year-Old Flashbulb Memory

Dakota Access Pipeline: A Look Back at 100 Years of Conflict

Once again, the Dakota Access Pipeline—and the controversy that surrounds it—is in the news. At the heart of the controversy is the pipeline’s potential threat to the Standing Rock Indian Reservation’s clean water supply. However, clashes between Indigenous Americans and the federal government over water rights are nothing new.  These conflicts have been documented for … Read more

The Job-Market Moment of Digital Humanities

By Leonard Cassuto Digital humanities have become integrated into the academic job market. In fact, digital humanities are one of the few growth areas in the academic job market today say’s Leonard Cassuto of “The Chronicle of Higher Education. That raised the question: Will expertise in digital humanities get graduate students the academic jobs that … Read more

American Governance named to the RUSA 2017 Outstanding References Sources List

The most noteworthy reference titles published in 2016 have been named to ALA’s RUSA (Reference & User Services Association) 2017 Outstanding References Sources List. These titles, including American Governance, 1st Edition, are highly recommended for inclusion in any library’s reference collections. View the full list of award-winning titles or learn more about American Governance, 1st Edition.  This title is … Read more

Witness the March Towards Women’s Rights

Introducing Women’s Movements and Issues – the first in the Women’s Studies Archive, a collection that traces the path of women’s issues from past to present—pulling primary sources from manuscripts, newspapers, periodicals, and more. It captures the foundation of women’s movements, struggles and triumphs, and provides researchers with valuable insights.

Read moreWitness the March Towards Women’s Rights