| By Gale Staff |
The Gale support site is a comprehensive platform that equips users with the necessary tools to effectively manage and promote their Gale resources. With direct URLs and MARC records, accessing the resources becomes simpler and more streamlined. Additionally, Gale Pages enhance the discovery of resources, ensuring that users can easily find what they need. The site also provides a range of promotional and training materials, enabling users to effortlessly reach out to new learners and maximize the impact of their Gale resources.
Why These Changes?
To keep the support site optimized, we recently coupled insights from our partners with user testing and in-depth data analysis to update Gale’s support site for more streamlined, customized functionality.
The heart of Gale’s mission is delivering digital resources that allow your learners to accomplish their goals and get where they want to be in the future.
We also know that you need time-saving support materials to keep your users engaged. Thus, the Gale team prioritizes providing an ever-expanding selection of tools and support materials in an intuitive and accessible user interface.
Learning Community-Specific Filtering
For institutions with large collections of training materials, we have added new learning community–specific filters to Gale Support so that you only see material relevant to your collection. With these updates, it’s now even easier to quickly find and access the product support resources you’re looking for.
When you log in to the Gale Support site using your location ID, our default filters will automatically display the products you’re subscribed to and organize them according to learning community type: K-12 schools, public libraries, or academic institutions.
Don’t know your location ID? No problem! We’ve made it easy to find what you’re looking for by searching your institution name or ZIP code.
New Training Learning Pathways
One of our most exciting new features is our Training Learning Pathways. Now, you can discover content based on the goals and audience you have in mind. Learning pathways include the following options.
Get Started
The Get Started pathway caters to librarians, educators, or administrators who want to hit the ground running after subscribing to a Gale resource. The introductory materials include webinars and resource guides to set users up for success by covering all the basics of the content and workflows available and assisting users in leveraging its full capabilities.
Train Your Staff
The Train Your Staff pathway is a comprehensive resource toolkit packed with expert guidance on best practices in training your staff. We created it to help implement a professional development program that instructs your whole team in effectively implementing Gale resources. This comprehensive collection of training materials is designed for both new partners and long-time subscribers.
Continue Learning
Once you’re comfortable with the basic Gale platform functionality, the Continue Learning pathway covers more complex topics to maximize impact. Whether you’re looking for better ways to promote your Gale resources or seeking insights into usage trends, you will learn everything you need to support your learning community with advanced applications in the public library or classroom setting.
Find Lessons and Activities
K–12 users are invaluable partners in education—and our Find Lessons and Activities pathway reinforces that connection.
This content collection empowers educators by providing fully-made lesson plans and activities utilizing Gale resource collections that keep students excited about learning while supporting instructional goals. Additionally, engaging activities such as scavenger hunts and book studies are ideal for providing direct instruction that supports students’ research skills.
Updated Product Page Tools
To make it easier to find support materials and information for their resources, we made our product pages more user-friendly.
Each product page now includes:
- Direct Links: Link directly to each of your Gale online resources so patrons can quickly and easily access the content they need.
- Resource Icons: Download our official icons for your Gale products, available as low-res, high-res, and thumbnail options.
- MARC Records: Download Gale product MARC records in MRC format to integrate into your library catalog.
- Title Lists: Access title lists for Gale databases according to the Knowledge Base and Related Tools (KBART) recommended practice and other standard formats (XLS, XLSX).
- Training: Build your product-specific expertise with on-demand tools that take Gale resource usage to the next level.
- Marketing Material: Extend the reach of your resources with downloadable communication templates, digital assets, and printable materials to promote Gale resources within your library, online, via social media, and more.
Improved Webinar Discovery Experience
Webinars are among the most valuable assets available through the Gale Support site. They provide guidance and insight on topics such as “Build Strong Readers: Integrate the Science of Reading with Gale In Context” and “Gale Resources to Support Undergraduate History Students.”
To make finding the content you’re interested in as easy as possible, our new interface is more personalized and efficient, separating the upcoming and recorded webinars into distinct pages.
Stay Ahead of the Curve With Upcoming Webinars
On the upcoming webinars page, you can register for a live session with a Gale trainer to grow your knowledge of the topics most relevant to your and your users’ needs. These sessions are organized into a simple calendar view so you can quickly reference the topic, date, and time at a glance.
See something you’re interested in? Click on the calendar entry for more information about what you can expect from the training and to reserve your spot with our webinar registration form.
On-Demand Learning With Recorded Webinars
The recorded webinars page is a comprehensive library of our past trainings, so you can revisit previous sessions at your own pace or catch up on any content you may have missed. Our on-page filtering options let you find professional development materials that complement the Gale products offered in your library.
Want to Learn More?
With so many exciting changes to the Gale Support site, we’re inviting our partners to a free webinar on June 13 to explore all the updates in detail.
During the session, you will get insights into best practices for navigating the layout and workflows, and we’ll answer any questions you may have about the available tools.
Register here to secure your spot!