Gale

See You In Beantown!

By Michelle Eickmeyer

In just over three weeks, we’ll once again be coming together to celebrate the role and value of librarians, and librarians and staff. Though the winter meeting is not as widely attended (and is quite a lot of meetings), the excitement of an ALA is difficult to match.

As vendors attending the show, we’re able to hear from you directly what concerns and issues you are trying to overcome and sharing some of the exciting things we have going on at Gale.

And there’s a lot!

Google for Education Partner

Earlier this year, Gale embarked on the strategic decision to become a Google Apps for Education Partner. This enables us to both make content more discoverable (and trackable to you!) AND easier to save/return to later. Tens of thousands of users have saved documents from the Gale resources they access through your library with their Google credentials. Students and teachers are accessing their In Context resources directly through apps in Google Classroom. Students and faculty beginning their research in Google Scholar are being directed to the library’s Academic OneFile. We’re so excited about our partnership with Google, and everything we’re working on next with them! More information can be found here.

Read moreSee You In Beantown!

Peer Picks…Meet Our Newest Peer Picks Selector

Posted on November 11, 2015

Robin BradfordRobin Bradford is currently the collection development librarian for fiction, Large Print, DVD, music and world languages for the Timberland Regional Library System in Washington. Prior to moving to Washington a few months ago, she was the fiction collection development librarian for the Indianapolis Public Library. She has worked in a variety of libraries, academic and public, in a variety of positions, from student assistant to librarian. The one thing that has been a constant throughout, however, is a love of reading. When she isn’t working, or tweeting, or blogging, or reading, or at a conference focused on books, Robin is looking at the map and planning her next adventure.

Read morePeer Picks…Meet Our Newest Peer Picks Selector

Catch a Rising Literary Star

Posted on October 29, 2015

These new authors are creating a buzz

Once upon a time, a young thespian named Will set his quill to paper and wrote a play. The word is, he did pretty well…becoming the most beloved playwright and poet of all time.

A few years later, a sheltered young woman living in the country wrote stories to amuse her family. Ms. Jane Austen also met with great success, we’re told.

Every great author started somewhere – by taking the first step and writing a first work. Today, the literary world is bursting with new talent. And Thorndike can help you bring promising new authors to your power readers – many of whom enjoy reading large print for ease and enhanced comprehension.

Here’s a sampling of first novels by promising new authors now available in large print from Thorndike Press.

Read moreCatch a Rising Literary Star

Love, passion, humanity – yes, please!

Unexpectedly, she saw a man standing on the sidewalk looking right at her. He was tall, with blond hair, and broad across the shoulders. He was also handsome; watching him stirred something in Olivia, a feeling that while unfamiliar was far from unwelcome……….. 

–Excerpt from Take Me Home by Dorothy Garlock

Romance novels have the same effect on their readers – stirring passion, happy memories, dreams, and, as public librarians know well, demand for more titles. Far more than the province of lonely women, romance titles attract readers of all ages with their lively story lines, adventurous plots, and exploration of all aspects of human emotion and experience.

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Widget Wonders: Save Students and Teachers Search Time

Posted on August 11, 2015

There’s a tsunami brewing in the Pacific, and several classes are working on a project to track its movement.  They have one class period to research and report. Ready? Go!  But wait…where do they begin? Can anything be done to help them find information more quickly and directly?

Here’s an idea to make you a hero in your school. Gale widgets.  They can give your students and teachers a shortcut to research on hot topics and ensure that content searched is trusted and relevant.

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In Other News: Race

three hands from different race people clasping hands

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.

Read moreIn Other News: Race

In Other News: Caitlyn Jenner & Gender Identity

transgender symbol

A look at a current news item through the lens of different titles available on GVRL to find research inspiration.

By Michelle Eickmeyer

When Bruce Jenner sat down with Diane Sawyer, he openly discussed a battle he has been fighting for most of his life. And on 24 April, he let the world in on his secret: Bruce Jenner, American hero athlete and reality pseudo-star, is transgender. Though Jenner is an actual stranger to most of us, many people do feel that they know Bruce. They may have seen him on TV, or on a magazine cover. They may have rooted for him all those years ago as he seemed to embody America’s battle against the USSR. Because of this unique position and circumstance, Jenner’s revelations and transition are special. For the first time, perhaps ever, most of the country (if not the world) can truly say they know someone who identifies as transgender. On ` June, the world said goodbye to Bruce, and hello to Caitlyn Jenner. She is who she has always been, and is now sharing her battle to be herself, and her appearance, with the world.

Caitlyn is the most recent in a growing list of main-stream transgender people. In 2007, Candis Cayne turned heads as Billy Baldwin’s mistress for 11 episodes on ABC’s Dirty Sexy Money, marking the first time a trans character appeared for more than a single episode on prime time American television. Chaz Bono began his transition in 2008, after suffering for years with the press. Laverne Cox, one of the stars of Orange is the New Black, became the first transgender person to appear on the cover of Time Magazine (May 2014) for an article titled “The Transgender Tipping Point.” Andreja Pejic (Instagram) was the first transgender model to appear in Vogue magazine while Hari Nef (Instagram) signed with modeling agency IMF earlier this year, a first for the powerhouse agency. There are others, famous and not, making changes every day.

Less 1/3 of 1% of the U.S. population identify as transgender (Source). Historically, this group is the recipients of an extremely disproportionate amount of violence, 20% of murders and 40% of violence by police. (Source) More recent statistics for the first quarter of 2014 show that 10% of violent crimes were committed against trans kids under 18. Kids.They were beaten, stabbed, stoned, shot, hanged, strangled, and dismembered. (Source) Sometimes by strangers; sometimes by family. Too often, they kill themselves.

Read moreIn Other News: Caitlyn Jenner & Gender Identity

In Other News: Bribery

man receiving rubber-banded Euros behind his back

A look at a current news item through the lens of different Gale electronic resources.

By Michelle Eickmeyer

Boy, oh boy. American’s have an interesting relationship with soccer. For decades, soccer has held an unyielding grip on, well, every other country in the world. Though there have been the exceptional fanatic interspersed, soccer has largely remained relegated to a kid’s sport. Yes, most children play soccer. No, most adults couldn’t name 4 teams. Until 2014. (See my previous post here.)

During the 2010 World Cup, held in South Africa, 34% of American’s watched at least some part of a match. And we didn’t watch too much. (Source) But in 2014? We were ready. A lot of us watched, and we watched a lot of the matches. Thirty-nine percent more of us watched 33 percent more. (Source)

Why is soccer’s time “now” in America? One theory is that all those kids who grew up playing soccer, are now adults and are putting their time and money where their hearts have always been. Another believes American’s have begun to embrace the opportunity for a “great and exciting” game to end with a very low score.

When the U.S. led the charge to investigate corruption within FIFA, soccer’s global governing body, it raised a few eyebrows. Why is America getting involved was asked by several people, but with varying tone. ‘You don’t even like soccer’ on one side, and ‘finally but how come someone who cared more didn’t step up a long time ago’ from the other. The most frustrating response, in my opinion — as an American who likes soccer — was from Russian president Putin who said we were once again meddling in world affairs which were not our concern and somehow tried to get Edward Snowden involved. (Source) That is the sole statement I have read expressing this (paranoid?) opinion; let’s leave it alone. Other voices from around the wold have been more supportive, including this BBC article.

Obviously, no one at the DOJ consulted me when they planned this action, but there are several reasons which make it easy to understand how/why we chose to act when others did not. We like a fair fight. We aren’t afraid to say no or ask tough questions, even if we have to ask them of our friends. We don’t like being taken advantage of. And, perhaps most importantly, we can sometimes see things differently because we don’t have years of “just accepting it” like many other countries.

 

Read moreIn Other News: Bribery

In Other News: Charity

close up of charity entry in the dictionary

A look at a current news item through the lens of different titles available on GVRL.

By Michelle Eickmeyer

Saving and improving lives is expensive work. And without donations, most of it would not be possible. This week, the Federal Trade Commission charged four “charities” and their administrators for out-right stealing nearly $200 million. Two charities have already been dissolved. Reprehensible behavior. But if you want to give, how do you know with whom to spend your money? One solution is Charity Watch, an independent organization that can help you understand where and how a donation might be spent. There are a number of other resources and websites; that is just one.

In 2013, Americans gave $335.17 billion to charity. Of that, $240.6 billion was given by individuals (Source).  I’ve been especially interested in final numbers of donations for 2014 for a number of reasons. First, my cousin’s 2-year-old was diagnosed with leukemia. (Did you know that the National Institute of Cancer dedicates only 4% of its funding to pediatric cancer research (Source ) Why did cancer have to touch my family to learn that?) Second, the ice bucket challenge (and Mike Rowe). Here’s my previous post on it! In 2014, the ice bucket challenge raised $220 Million for the ALS Association (Source). That’s about 700% more than the year before (Source). Did more people give in 2014, or did people give more, or did they just give differently? The new numbers, expected next month, will tell.

Who currently gives (or doesn’t), and how much, when, and why are sometimes surprising. Low- and middle-income people give a higher percentage of their income than their high-income counterparts. Residents of large cities are less likely to give. When you compare the level of giving across states and the District, of the 20 most generous, only two voted democrat in the last election (Source). All sorts of assumptions will not be made on why that is the way it is.

Read moreIn Other News: Charity