By Melissa Rayner
Happy Birthday, America! To honor the soldiers who gave so much in order to defend the American flag, I’d like to take a look back at the history of our stars and stripes, using Smithsonian Collections Online as our guide.
Gale Becomes First to Offer Google Classroom Integration to Libraries
Posted on June 30, 2015
Google announced yesterday the availability of a new tool for teachers called the Classroom share button. Gale, a part of Cengage Learning, is proud to be among the leaders first to integrate with Classroom, highlighting the rich educational content we provide and making our content easily available to educators and students.
Read moreGale Becomes First to Offer Google Classroom Integration to Libraries
New Reports and Enhancements to DemographicsNow
Posted on June 30, 2015
Both DemographicsNow! and DemographicsNow! Business and People have new tools and new EZ reporting great for start-ups and small business.
Enhancements to DemographicsNow include the following:
- New EZ Report: Sizing Your Market— Calculates the market size based on geography selections and expenditure variables to see which local areas may have a need for a certain type of business.
- User inputs up to 25 geographies and a customized Census Area Projections and Estimates (CAPE) variable tree with current year estimates and 5 year projections.
- The output report contains:
- Bar chart comparing the average expenditure ($) of user selected geographies
- Number of households in the geography
- Average expenditure per household
- Market Size
- Users can now save and upload report templates with custom variables.
- Users can edit report titles that display on the preview screen and the downloaded version of a custom report.
- Link to CAPE variables spreadsheet.
- Thematic coloring default turned off.
Google Sign In and Tools Available within Gale In Context Resources
Posted on June 25, 2015
Exciting News! Now available through Gale’s In Context suite of products is the ability for students to seamlessly login using Google Account credentials. The Gale In Context products that will provide this new Google functionality include Biography, Canada, Opposing Viewpoints, Science, Student Resources, U.S. History and World History. Now a Google for Education* partner, this new relationship supports Gale’s efforts to evolve from a traditional library content provider into the ed tech space by providing the educational technology, instructional tools and content to help our users be successful in school, work and life.
Read moreGoogle Sign In and Tools Available within Gale In Context Resources
In Other News: Race
A look at a current news item through the lens of different titles available on GVRL to find research inspiration.
By Michelle Eickmeyer
A fair skinned woman with a weave claims to be black. A white kid with twisted views killed nine innocent blacks while attending a Bible study. The president said the n-word. A lot of people are talking about a flag. The last two weeks have been filled with conversations of race and what it means in America.
Another Take on Summer Reading and Gale Resources
By Tanisha Howard-Hall
As a Customer Success Manager, I’m always eager to see what types of programing and promotions public libraries have going on. Summer reading is no exception!
For Teens
Brentwood Public Library in Tennessee is offering ACT Boot Camps for teens this summer! The boot camp gives a jump start
Student & Instructor Perceptions on Libraries and Research
By Jennifer Albers-Smith
When it comes to student and instructor perceptions about academic libraries and research, some interesting insights are revealed – as well as lot of questions.
In spring 2015, Gale’s parent company, Cengage Learning, issued its Engagement Insights survey to some 3,000 students and nearly 700 professors, gathering feedback on different topics including how both audiences valued the library, how they often they took advantage of its resources and more.
Read moreStudent & Instructor Perceptions on Libraries and Research
Top Library Leaders Share Their Thoughts: Turning the Page
By Misty Jones
For libraries to remain relevant and effective, we need to define ourselves and set a direction and identity. At the heart of setting this direction is remembering our core services, while adapting to our evolving internal and external environment. It means remaining open to new opportunities not yet envisioned, but still remaining true to ourselves and what we represent. By establishing a brand, libraries can identify themselves and their importance and relevance to their community.
Read moreTop Library Leaders Share Their Thoughts: Turning the Page
Celebrate with Gale: 800 Years of the Magna Carta
By Bethany Dotson
The Magna Carta, proclaimed at Runnymede on 15 June 1215, is 800 years old this week. The Magna Carta, or Great Charter of Liberty, is the document that King John signed, accepting restraints on the monarchy. It remains a cornerstone of modern English and American law. During the American Revolution, “the English used the Magna Carta to support their claim of parliamentary sovereignty, whereas Americans distilled from it the principle of ‘no taxation without representation.’”[1]
It’s no surprise, then, that using Term Frequency tool in Gale Artemis: Primary Sources, searching through the 26 collections currently cross-searchable in this experience (including Eighteenth Century Collections Online, the Making of Modern Law collections, Nineteenth Century Collections Online, and more), I was able to isolate a surge in the popularity of the term “Magna Carta” in documents published between approximately 1749 and 1796. The high point? Fifteen out of the 16,490 documents in Artemis: Primary Sources published in 1767 contain this term.
Product Update: Gale’s In Context
Posted on June 12, 2015
We added new content and resources to some of your favorite In Context products. Take a look at what’s available:
Biography in Context
New homepages added that spotlight the following:
- Caitlyn (formerly Bruce) Jenner
- Napoleon Bonaparte, the French leader who suffered his ultimate defeat at the Battle of Waterloo (200 years ago this month)
- Alex Morgan, an American soccer player heading to the 2015 Women’s World Cup in Canada
- Haider al-Abadi, the Prime Minister of Iraq
- Edith Windsor, the woman who challenged the Defense of Marriage Act in 2013
Content Notes added citing the recent passing of Vice President Joe Biden’s son, Beau Biden, who lost his battle with brain cancer on May 30, 2015.