Schools

Google and Microsoft Integration

Meet Your Users Where They “Are” The key to connecting users to trustworthy, relevant content is ensuring that it appears in their workflow. Google is a comfortable, highly used pathway in most students’ study routine. Gale is a Google for Education Partner, which means after authentication, users can sign in to their library’s Gale content with their … Read more

A New Gale.com Experience!

By Thomas Piggott

Home Page Screenshot
The new Gale.com homepage with reorganized navigation. Click to enlarge or visit the website.

Gale.com is changing! We’re proud to announce a new and improved experience, with even more to come as we continue to make updates.

Hi, I’m Thomas Piggott, the User Experience Designer for Gale.com. I wanted to be the first to introduce you to some of the new features of the website, along with providing a peek into what’s to come.

Gaining a Better Understanding

At Gale, our goal is to empower libraries and learners by partnering with you. About a year ago, we began thinking about how our website could help us live up to that goal. We delved into understanding what capabilities the site needed in order to make your life easier. We collected feedback from interviews with more than 40 customers around the world and held discussions with our sales representatives and customer success managers who know what you ask for the most.

Read moreA New Gale.com Experience!

Relevance Default Sort Enabled In InfoTrac Products

Good News! In an effort to further improve the user experience by delivering the most relevant articles among the first search results returned, we have enabled the default sort to Relevance for all InfoTrac products. Results will be ordered by relevance, and because currency is an important element of periodical content, the determination of relevance will contain a significant boost for recency. Users still have the ability to toggle and view by newest/oldest date if they choose during their research session.

Additionally, Gale has retired the “My Account” feature in InfoTrac products including PowerSearch, in favor of Google and Microsoft 365 collaboration tools our users are already employing. This change will provide one simple, seamless login experience, further enabling users to access Gale content anytime, anywhere, and from any device.

Read moreRelevance Default Sort Enabled In InfoTrac Products

New Titles Added to the InfoTrac Collections in July 2016

The titles below have been recently added and can be located in the product using Basic or Advanced Search forms. Titles can be found via Browse Publications within two weeks. For complete coverage information please see the product title lists.   Academic OneFile  Acta Antiqua Academiae Scientiarum Hungaricae (Akademiai Kiado) Print 0044-5975 Online 1588-2543 Peer-reviewed … Read more

Tales from the “Olden Days”

By Debra Kirby

You know those stories adults like to tell kids about how much harder they had it when they were young? Like having to walk uphill for miles in the snow to school every day or having parents who made you eat every morsel of food on your plate – even liver. The message behind these stories of course, is to get listeners to appreciate how good they have it compared to life in the “olden days.” Working on  our exciting new 3D product Gale Interactive: Science recently got me thinking about how much I hated  biology labs, where I was actually expected to do such disgusting things as dissect frogs (never mind the horrid smell of formaldehyde) and how kids today can dissect a virtual frog instead if they have access to a product like Gale Interactive: Science.

Read moreTales from the “Olden Days”

Diving into The Olympics

By Tara Blair

9781680200058_00010
Zeus prepares to hurl his trademark thunderbolts.

More than 70% of the world’s population tune in to the Olympics, it’s no surprise that the event is ranked as the most common shared experience on Earth. We know the world is well informed of the quadrennial event held and are patiently waiting for August 5th. I backtracked nearly 3,000 years on Gale resources to uncover some knowledge and history most fans are unaware of.

Read what I found!

Originating in 776 BCE, the Olympics began as a festival to honor the mythological Greek god, Zeus. As the son to the supreme god of time, Cronus, and goddess of fertility, Rhea,  Zeus was the leader of the heavens and earth. After overthrowing his father through a tremendous war with a few devoted Titans and his destructive thunderbolts, Zeus proceeded to take control of the universe. Ruling from their court on Mt. Olympus, Zeus, as well as the other Titans, became known as Olympian gods. As the story goes, religious festivals developed on the foot of the mountain to worship Zeus and approach his strength. In order to commemorate the greatest of all gods, the Greeks believed they should offer him the best of everything , which included dexterous athleticism. Thus, the Olympics were born.

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Product Update for Academic OneFile

Academic OneFile now includes a unique new browsing experience for users. Committed to improving user experience and based on feedback from students, this feature is designed to address significant searching needs.

  • Defined topics for ease of browsing
    Users won’t need to guess what to type in the search box—we’ve identified the topics for them. Gale has created browse-able topics by combining our superior subject indexing with taxonomies from Cengage Learning textbooks to create the most relevant periodical content around their research needs.
  • Navigating advanced searches 
    This feature does the searching for you, making it ideal for the user who struggles with effective Advanced Search strategies and overwhelming results. Users can drill down within one of six subject areas–like Marketing, Psychology, or Criminal Justice–to view relevant results in their topic of interest.
  • Focused and relevant results 
    Content is tailored to specific topics. Smaller and more targeted results will empower users to quickly find relevant content. Publications are hand-selected by subject-matter experts to ensure content is focused on the selected subject area.

This new browsing feature adds to the current Academic OneFile experience.  All the familiar searches–like Basic, Advanced, Subject, and Publication–are still available options.

Read moreProduct Update for Academic OneFile

Tricks of the Trade

By Tara Blair

Most professionals discover a few tips and tricks during their career that allows them to complete a job with ease and quickens their work flow. At Gale, we’re no different. We have a few tricks up our sleeves, and thought why not share a couple of our favorites with our readers? Although we use a handful of media and imagery applications on a daily basis, we chose two of our favorites to share with you today. Without further ado, I introduce Canva and Word Swag. Two helpful applications that can be utilized in marketing (and everyday life).

My personal favorite, Word Swag, allows users to add text to photos in seconds. Creating beautiful, custom text layouts is easy with the “Exclusive Typomatic Engine” – a term appropriately coined to describe the one tap text layout modifier Word Swag is famous for. Color, size, and skew are a few more easily operated text options offered to make your caption pop. And just in case writer’s block gets the best of you, the app inspires creativity with hundreds of pre-designed quotes, thoughts, and jokes. Best of all, not only are there over 290,000  Pixabay background photos to choose from, but uploading personal photos right from your phone is also an option. Word Swag is an easy-to-use graphic designer app that makes marketing and advertising seem effortless, even on the go! Take a look below at some samples made by everyday users!

thebaseproject amongmany  LOY2016

richardlazarte  wordswagapp2  he_is_my_strength

 

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Encyclopedia of U.S. Economic History:an “Interesting” and “Informative” Title

Looking for an “interesting” and “informative” resource that offers comprehensive coverage of American economic history from the arrival of Europeans to the present? The Gale Encyclopedia of U.S. Economic History is an “exceptional” one-stop resource that provides clear explanations on difficult topics for high school and college level learners.

Read what a few of our patrons had to say!

Read moreEncyclopedia of U.S. Economic History:an “Interesting” and “Informative” Title

Life and Career Skills:An “Engaging” Series with “Pertinent Information”

The Life and Career Skills series currently stands as a four volume set aimed at developing skills your users need to transition successfully in the real world with themes ranging from personal finance to social skills. Offering the most “up-to-date” content delivered in an “engaging” and “logical” question and answer style, the Life and Career Skills series supplies “foundational” information.

Read a review posted by the American Reference Books Annual, June, 2016.

Read moreLife and Career Skills:An “Engaging” Series with “Pertinent Information”