Posted June 29th, 2016.
Gale is pleased to announce upcoming enhancements to Testing & Education Reference Center (TERC) in the coming months. This invaluable education and career database will receive interface updates to the online courses (summer), practice tests (fall), and have a responsive design by year end.
Users will experience:
Leaving Money on the Table
How to Get Started with Major Gift Fundraising from Individuals
Posted June 29, 2016
By David Baker, JD, Principal, Giving Design Group, Inc.
Giving Design Group, Inc. is one of the few companies that provides comprehensive fundraising & development services for libraries. David Bake, the founder of the organization, shares some knowledge on how to get fundraising for public libraries started. Read what he has to say!
Year after year, about 80% of charitable giving comes from individuals. The most recent Giving USA numbers tell us that 72% of annual giving comes from individuals and 8% of giving is received from bequests (the last wishes of previously living individuals). Only 15% of annual giving comes from foundations and 5% from corporations.
Leaving Money on the Table
How to Get Started with Major Gift Fundraising from Individuals
Posted June 28, 2016
Good news! Gale LegalForms is going mobile responsive and will undergo an interface update August 1. These enhancements improve usability and increase accessibility so that it’s easy for users to navigate Gale LegalForms anytime, on any device.
Users will appreciate the same reliable, up-to-date content on a modern interface with streamlined navigation and responsive design giving access to authentic, professional legal documents—and this is the only digital resource to offer legal forms that are state-specific.
Read moreProduct Update: Interface Enhancements to Gale LegalForms
Posted June 22, 2016
By John Chrastka, Executive Director, EveryLibrary
EveryLibrary is the first and only national organization dedicated to building voter support for libraries. They are chartered “to promote public, school, and college libraries, including by advocating in support of public funding for libraries and building public awareness of public funding initiatives”. Their primary work is to support local public libraries when they have a referendum or measure on the ballot. John Chrastka, the Executive Director of EveryLibrary, encourages libraries with a few important tips on how to overcome the barriers to innovation they most often face.
Posted June 13, 2016
By Holly Hibner, Adult Services Coordinator, Plymouth District Library (MI)
As libraries continually seek to be a valued educational partner in communities, schools, and institutions, bringing trustworthy digital content into the natural path of their users has never been more important. To make it easier for people to find and use this relevant, authoritative information, Gale, a part of Cengage Learning, has partnered with Google for Education in two ways: providing intuitive integration of popular workflow tools through Google Apps for Education and indexing content in Google Scholar. With more than 50 million Google Apps for Education teachers and students worldwide, and an average of over 40,000+ Google search engine queries per second, Google is indisputably the place where people get their answers.
Posted on June 7, 2016
By Liz Mason, Vice President, Product, Gale
Searching for an “unparalleled assemblage of newsletters, newspapers, and periodicals by, for, and about gays and lesbians?” Archives of Human Sexuality and Identity, Part 1: LGBTQ History and Culture since 1940 brings together approximately 1.5 million pages of primary sources on social, political, health, and legal issues impacting LGBTQ communities around the world. Rare and unique content from microfilm, newsletters, organizational papers, government documents, manuscripts, pamphlets, and other types of primary sources sheds light on the gay rights movement, activism, the HIV/AIDS crisis, and more.
LGBTQ issues were at the forefront of the news in 2015. A major U.S. Supreme Court ruling on same-sex marriage, high-profile transgender celebrity appearances, and many related stories dominated social news. Many media have declared the Rainbow Revolution in full effect. And while LGBTQ resources have been published for many years (the USC library began their collection in 1952), access to materials has been limited and not broadly publicized. In fact, libraries with significant LGBTQ collections remain small in number.
Read moreBring All the Colors of the Rainbow to Your Collection
By Leah Sewell, Communications Editor, Topeka & Shawnee County Public Library
Have you ever been on the other line of a survey call? I haven’t, personally, but I’ve often wondered if I would be a willing participant. Perhaps in the midst of a particularly juicy book, soaking up one-on-one time with my fast-growing 9-year-old or closely watching a new recipe simmer, what would compel me to answer the phone, but also to converse with a researcher for an indeterminate spell? Well, for one thing, I’d pretty much drop everything and let dinner burn to gab with any stranger, on the phone or otherwise, when the topic is libraries.
You see, in my career as the Topeka and Shawnee County Public Library’s Communication Editor, I am enamored with the “public” part of the public library. How does the public feel about our services? How will they react to a minor or a major change? How can we woo them, engage them, help them feel a part the community through literacy and learning, and subsequently change their lives for the better?
My library is focused on the public and the public good. It’s asking the right questions, discovering people’s goals and needs and assisting them so they can reach them. Ultimately, it’s about making a difference in the community by working with our fellow citizens to make their lives better. That’s a good chunk of the reason why we’re the Library Journal / Gale, a part Cengage Learning 2016 Library of the Year. We have our ears to the ground.
When the 2016 Pew Research Center report, Libraries at the Crossroads, was released in September 2015, I wondered about the people on the other end of those cell phones and land lines. Those individuals that Pew cites variously as “a share of Americans” or “a majority of Americans,” or “low-income Americans” are real individuals with busy lives, loved ones and their own dinners to prepare. Yet, they all sat a spell to gab about libraries.
Posted on May 31, 2016
By Rhonda Sewell
Long gone is the notion of public libraries lingering in the shadows and doing little to advocate their value to their communities and promote their many offerings, programs, and activities. Advocacy and unapologetic promotion of our transformative systems is now a major priority. Such ideas hold a sacred place in our discussions surrounding public service, strategic goals, funding, construction, marketing, and digital implementation for libraries. Even the Twittersphere of endless hashtags has transitioned from reading sentiments to action items and rallying statements such as #LibrariesMatter, #LibrariesTransform, and #SaveOurLibraries.
Because doing more with less is a reality for public libraries, especially as competition for funding sources and customer demands increases, advocacy matters now more than ever. “Advocacy, the process of acting on behalf of the public library to increase public funds and ensure that it has the resources needed to be up to date, is critical to the success of libraries,” states the Public Library Association (PLA)[i].
Posted on May 5, 2016
You may remember last year when we published a blog about Samantha Cole’s editorial in Fast Company magazine. Since it’s National Small Business Week, we thought it would be the perfect opportunity to make sure you’re not missing out on an opportunity to leverage the gift of free advertising. Keep reading; it’s not too late.
Cole’s article, “Who Needs Business School? The Hidden Startup Resources at your Local Library,” perfectly tells the value story of public libraries and specifically, how you support local entrepreneurs and foster economic growth. Do you ever read or hear something and think to yourself, “I couldn’t have said it better myself!”? This is one of those moments. What Cole has explained about libraries—and how she has explained it—is evidence-based and right on point.
Read moreDo You Keep Your Library’s Business Resources Hidden?
Posted on May 2, 2016
By Kristina Massari
Advocacy on behalf of libraries is at the core of everything we do at Gale – from our My Library Story website and our support for Library of the Year, to making sure the buses are running at ALA meetings and beyond.
We’re proud to support libraries and the ALA by participating in this year’s National Library Legislative Day (May 2-3). Our representatives are meeting with legislators and staff on Capitol Hill to discuss the important issues affecting local libraries and to rally for federal support. We’re also proud to sponsor two first time National Library Legislative Day attendees from our home state of Michigan.
Read moreGale Supports Libraries During National Library Legislative Day