Pack Your Bags! Travel Books on GVRL

Posted on March 16, 2016

Originally posted in December 2015 by Henrietta Verma of Library Journal

Travel books are popular with those who are actually starting to pack their bags as well as armchair voyagers. Either way, the library’s travel collection has to be kept up to date, and that can be expensive and time consuming. GVRL offers a great alternative: an online selection of travel titles for locations nearby and far-flung, and you’ll never have to weed the shelf. Titles include books for various kinds of travelers, from backpackers to families with children.

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Earth Day 2016: What will you be studying?

Posted on March 16, 2016

By Candy Jones-Guerin

Earth Day is the largest secular observance in the world, celebrated by more than a billion people every year. March 20th marks a day of action to encourage changes in human behavior and provoke policy change for our planet.

Schools across the world will be talking to their students about our precious resources and encouraging them to think about how to care for their future.  Will you be joining the conversation?

Here are some recent titles to help you get the conversation started:

Projects with Recycling and Reusing, 1st Edition
March 2016
Readers will learn how to care for their environment as they make all sorts of fun crafts with supplies that can be found around the house. See how to make a bird feeder from a milk carton, a pocket pouch from cloth, musical shares from plastic bottles which are just a few of the projects you’ll find. In addition they will learn important facts about conversation and waste with insightful text and engaging photos.

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Which (Potentially Unknown) American Novel will Inspire Your Research?

Posted March 15, 2016

By Bethany Dotson

American Fiction, 1774-1920, released this week from Gale, brings over 17,750 titles to digital life – which is an astounding number. If you read two of these books every minute and didn’t stop to sleep or eat, it would still take you more than 6 days to read through the full collection. The content from 1774-1900 is based on Lyle H Wright’s famous American Fiction: A Contribution Toward a Bibliography, the most comprehensive bibliography of American adult fiction during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, and includes both well-known authors (Mark Twain, Harriet Beecher Stowe, etc) and the obscure.

Luckily, all of these titles are fully indexed and full-text searchable, and the metadata and data are available for text and data mining and other forms of large-scale digital humanities analysis, making it possible to unearth new insight from this large body of work.

To give you a brief idea of what you might find—and to provide some inspiration—we’ve randomly selected a year (1860) and highlighted six very different novels, those published between  Abraham Lincoln being selected as the Republican presidential candidate and South Carolina seceding from the United States Union.

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Fact-Checking Movie “History”with Gale Resources

Posted on March 14, 2016

By Traci Cothran

I love the way movies inspired by historical events bring the past so vividly to life, especially for students who have never heard of these past events or notable people. But sometimes films stray from the facts in favor of presenting a stronger cinematic experience. I watched “Race” – the story about Jesse Owens and the 1936 Olympics – and wondered what was factual and what was “movie magic.” Students can use their brains and fingertips to search Gale databases –  like U.S. History In Context, Students Resources In Context, and Research In Context – to find out the truth, by investigating the following:

  • Following Jesse Owens’ gold medal wins, did Hitler shake Owens’ hand? (Bonus question: Did US President FDR ever welcome Owens to the White House?)
  • Were Owens and other African-American students allowed to live in student housing at Ohio State University?
  • Did German athlete Luz Long mark the takeoff area to help Owens qualify for the long jump?
  • Was that part in the movie where Owens had a romance with another woman (not his future wife) during college factual?
  • Did Owens capture 4 world records within 45 minutes at the 1935 Big Ten Track & Field Championship?
  • Why were US sprinters Marty Glickman and Sam Stoller scratched from the 4 x 100 event?

Read moreFact-Checking Movie “History”with Gale Resources

Business Stats You Can Compare Anywhere, Anytime

Posted on March 14, 2016

By Tina Creguer

Jay, a brash, young entrepreneur in the competitive field of mobile gaming app development, is putting the finishing touches on his business plan.  He already has appointments with potential investors, and he’s scurrying to pull together all the information they’ll grill him on.  Foremost on their minds will be viability of this new business and understanding the competitive landscape. He knows who his major competitors are, but needs help finding consistent data that will help him compare market share and descriptions.

There’s good news for Jay, and for anyone searching for comparative business stats.

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HOW RESEARCH PARTNERS DEMONSTRATE THE IMPORTANCE OF TODAY’S LIBRARY

Published on March 11, 2016   To illustrate how Gale, a part of Cengage Learning, bridges the librarian-faculty gap, we worked with Thomson Reuters on a State of Innovation article to show how librarians can facilitate academic collaboration. In the article Sarah Tanksalvala, a copywriter at Thomson Reuters, shares Thomson Reuters’s ideas as well as … Read more

Offer a Unique Perspective on the World

Posted on March 11, 2016

The National Geographic Society is synonymous with exploration, photography, maps, and rethinking the world as we know it. From the iconic National Geographic magazine to the popular National Geographic Traveler and hundreds of books, maps, videos, and images, there is simply no substitute for the depth and quality of National Geographic Virtual Library.

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Hitting the Right Note

Posted on March 11, 2016

By Candy Jones-Guerin

Music in Our Schools Month is the National Association for Music Education’s annual celebration during March which engages music educators, students, and communities from around the country in promoting the benefits of high quality music education programs in schools. It initially began as a single statewide Advocacy Day and celebration in New York in 1973 and transformed itself into a month-long celebration of school music starting in 1985.

Take some time this month to learn about some of history’s great musicians with these eBooks available on the GVRL platform.

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, 1st Edition
October 2015
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart introduces young readers to one of history’s greatest composers. They will trace Mozart’s life from his childhood touring Europe as a musical prodigy through his years in Italy, Salzburg, and Vienna. They’ll learn about his struggles for independence and his musical innovation.

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Take Control! Finance Books on GVRL

Posted on March 10, 2016

Original article published in Library Journal on February 3, 2016

Many patrons are interested in gaining control over their personal finances. They want to learn about budgeting, taxes, and how to invest wisely. Some are actively seeking the best ways to dig out of dire financial straits but lack the funds to seek professional assistance. Gale Virtual Reference Library (GVRL) offers a wide range of reference material that can guide library users through processes such as estate planning, investing for the future, learning about tax incentives to start a small business, or rebuilding or improving a poor credit score. No matter their fiscal situation, patrons will find what they need in GVRL. Check out some of the below titles!

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Continuing the Tradition with Gale Primary Sources

Posted 3/9/16

By Robert L. Lisiecki

Providing a wealth of rare, formerly inaccessible historical content from the world’s most prestigious libraries, Gale Digital Collections has been changing the nature of research for years. This isn’t changing; however, to more accurately portray what it is that we are offering, we have decided to update our name: With that, we are happy to introduce you to Gale Primary Sources.

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