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!

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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.

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Gale’s In Context: “A Comprehensive Instructional Reference” with Modern Tools

Searching for a “core, essential, and vitally important addition” to add to your library? In Context family of online resources are a “valuable addition for high school, college, or public libraries.” With current, authoritative, media-rich information, In Context, meets the needs of today’s students with an easily searchable, mobile-responsive design and integrated Google Apps for Education tools.

Check out some user reviews below!

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Let the Colors Flow

By Candy Jones-Guerin

Think quickly…who is your favorite American Artist?  Did you think of Andy Warhol or Andrew Wyeth, Georgia O’Keeffe or Mary Cassatt?

In August we celebrate American Artists Appreciation Month and pay homage to the visionaries that color our world. Take some time to look up your favorite or choose from the selection below and spend some of your summer reading time learning about these great American icons as well as those around the world that have had an impact on the art community.

Impressionism, 1st Edition
ReferencePoint Press
December 2015
Born in the mid-1800s, the Impressionist movement redefined the way artists approached their craft, opening the doors to previously unheard-of freedom in methods, viewpoint, and execution. This book examines Impressionist art, the tools, the techniques, the artists, and the artwork that so many generations have come to know and love.

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Working Like a Dog

By Tara Blair 

This work week was unlike any other. I eagerly awaited Thursday—yes, I said Thursday—for a day that otherwise only existed in my dreams. It was the day that Gale celebrated Take Your Dog To Work Day (TYDTWD), where staff members were invited to bring their best friend to the office. As I walked into Gale with my employee badge and my Australian Cattle Dog, I couldn’t help but think, “does this day offer any substantial benefits, or is it just pure amusement?”

After a small amount of research, I found that a doggone good time isn’t the only reward to sharing a cubicle with your four-legged companion.

Sit, stay….and read about all the perks of TYDTWD and check out some photos from Gale’s dog day.

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Lasell Library Uses GVRL to Enhance Student Research

Jill Shoemaker, a librarian at Lasell College in Newton, Massachusetts, where over 1,700 students have come to expect quick search results cShoemakeromparative to Google, but with relevancy and accuracy. Lasell Library uses Gale eBooks on GVRL as a “one-stop shop” to provide students “exactly what they’re looking for.” What they are looking for is easy to use access to digital research materials that meet academic standards. “I would definitely recommend GVRL,” says Shoemaker, “the books are excellent, the professors really like it, and it’s wonderful for the students—who love it!”

Challenge

  •  Information literacy librarian struggles to ensure honors students have access to and use digital research materials that meet academic standards.
  • Convince students who constantly compare digital learning tools to Google and the open web to use trusted reference sources.

Solution 

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Gale Donates Art Before Leaving ALA

By Tara Blair The American Library Association Conference is complete and so is the ‪#‎MyLibraryPic mosaic! Attendees posed for their photos at the Gale booth to be a part of the art. Staff used iPads to take the pics, which were immediately printed and given to the photographee for placement on the canvas using specific coordinates. As time went on, and hundreds of photos … Read more

iSchool to make strong showing at Digital Humanities 2016

Several iSchool representatives will speak at Digital Humanities 2016, the annual conference of the Alliance of Digital Humanities Organizations. The event will be held in Krakow, Poland on July 11-17. Presentations by iSchool faculty, staff, and students include: “Mining Texts with the Extracted Features Dataset” Presented by Postdoctoral Research Associate Peter Organisciak and Professor J. … Read more

Time to Hit the Trail

By Candy Jones-Guerin

Did you know that there are National Parks in 27 states? July is National Parks and Recreation Month and we think it’s the perfect time to hit the road and explore our great country. First let’s take a look at National Geographic’s quick list of the 10 most visited National Parks:

1. Great Smokey Mountains
2. Grand Canyon
3. Rocky Mountain
4. Yosemite
5. Yellowstone
6. Zion
7. Olympic
8. Grand Teton
9. Acadia
10. Glacier

Read moreTime to Hit the Trail