Posted on September 9, 2015
“To initiate, maintain and support cooperative action for the improvement of library services.” Who could resist a mission statement like that? With our history and culture of library advocacy, certainly not Gale. That mission statement, by the way, belongs to the Chief Officers of State Library Agencies (COSLA).
Posted on September 11, 2015
Take a look at the latest content updates made to Gale’s In Context products.
Biography In Context
New homepage spotlight images have been added this week. In addition you’ll find that these images have special “hotspots” that allow users to hover over portions of the image to find fast facts about the topic and links to additional content. The new spotlights include:
A new portal page has been added that features Lindsey Graham and updates have been made to biographies for Elizabeth II, Queen of England and Stephen Colbert. In addition a new video is available on the home page featuring Bill Gates and the future of technology.
Read moreContent Updates for Gale’s In Context (week ending 9/11/2015)
The results are in: Opposing Viewpoints In Context is the clear winner! In an issue of The Charleston Review, Susan Moore of Limestone pitted Gale’s Opposing Viewpoints In Context (OVIC) against EBSCO’s Points of View Reference Center (POV).
Read moreComparative Review: Opposing Viewpoints in Context and Points of View Reference Center
Posted on September 9, 2015
Posted by Jan Snyder and Jennifer Maurer
Part II
As we wrote in Part I of this series, we feel privileged to have a very rich collection of Gale databases and eBooks at our fingertips to use with students and staff, at zero cost to us, through the Oregon State Library’s Statewide Database Licensing Program. Statewide access provides consistency for students as they move from elementary to middle school and then high school.
But the real value and power of these resources are unleashed when librarians and educators collaborate and communicate. In the second part of this blog series, we’ll discuss – from our own perspectives – communication.
(If you missed it, be sure to also read Part I — Driving Electronic Content Discovery and Usage: Collaboration.)
Jennifer
Electronic Mailing List:
While presenting about Gale databases to various audiences falls under the heading of training, it is also a form of communication. However, I also have a direct channel of communication about OSLIS and its resources, including the statewide databases. The State Library created an electronic mailing list called OSLIST. As I learn about new school library staff in Oregon, I automatically subscribe them. Through OSLIST, I share ideas for how to use the databases as well as communicate about new Gale products and features.
Read moreDriving Electronic Content Discovery and Usage: Communication – Part 2
Posted on September 3, 2015
There is more exciting news for our fans of Gale’s In Context suite. Recent enhancements rolled-out this week make it even easier for students and teachers to quickly access, use, and share content for homework and class assignments. Take a look at what’s new:
Posted on September 3, 2015
Posted by Cenee Precure
Life never stops teaching. Be sure to never stop learning. ~ Michael Josephson
As our high school sat on the cusp of all things Google with shiny new Chromebooks and whispers of Google Classroom drifting through the hallways, the school library was at that place once again…dig in our heels and resist another district technology implementation or dive in and embrace the challenge!
As a relatively new librarian, serving high school faculty, staff, and students for the first time, I knew I had to build relationships, be willing to take some risks, and be bold enough to learn from my mistakes along the way. Thankfully, there were brave teachers that were willing to embark on this journey with me.
With cinnamon rolls in tow, I met with the English teachers during their PLC and presented a quick overview of the TexQuest resources and had a representative from Imagine Easy do an online webinar introducing the Scholar Edition (formerly known as the School Edition of EasyBib). I knew if I could get just one teacher to buy into how these two digital platforms could work together, the paperless research project might actually become more than just a seed of an idea.
Read moreJumping Into Digital Learning – One Librarian’s Story
Posted on September 2, 2015
Easy to search and highly visual nonfiction titles from Britannica Digital Learning can be a resource for your libraries and classrooms to help meet the education research needs for students of all ages. Available on Gale’s award-winning GVRL platform, students can take advantage of popular tools like automatic citation generation highlighting, annotation and more.
Read moreGrow Your Nonfiction Collection with Britannica Digital Learning Titles
Offer highly-visual and content-rich digital learning that will appeal to young children who are at the peak of curiosity and wonderment. With accessibility on tablets and smart phones, and anytime, anywhere access, educational materials are now easier than ever to integrate into daily life.
Read morePut Preschoolers in Your Community on a Path to Learning
Posted on August 31, 2015
Posted by Jan Snyder and Jennifer Maurer
As librarians, we feel privileged to have a very rich collection of Gale databases and eBooks at our fingertips to use with students and staff, at zero cost to us, through the Oregon State Library’s Statewide Database Licensing Program. This allows for statewide access to a wide range of vetted information, on unlimited topics, for use by our patrons. These same databases are available at K-16 throughout Oregon, as well as at public libraries, for use by all state residents. In talking with librarian friends across the country, we know that we enjoy a benefit not available in many states.
Funding for the statewide databases comes from a Library Services and Technology Act (LSTA) grant. Another grant project was initiated some 15 years ago, when members of the Oregon Association of School Libraries (OASL) and Oregon State Library staff shared concerns about access to information literacy resources for students and teachers, as the number of licensed school librarians employed across the state declined. OASL applied for a LSTA grant from the State Library to create OSLIS, or the Oregon School Library Information System, and that has become a continuing statewide project. In addition to offering information literacy resources and citation generators in MLA and APA formats, OSLIS serves as the K-12 access point for the statewide databases.
Having statewide central access to the databases provides consistency for students as they move from elementary to middle school and then high school. It also means that students and educators served by school library staff who are not familiar with how to link directly to databases still have access to statewide resources.
Read moreDriving Electronic Content Discovery and Usage: Collaboration – Part 1
Academic libraries need to be embedded in campus culture
New survey from Gale and Library Journal reveals disconnects among academic faculty and librarians