tips

Using Gale Analytics with non-ILS Usage Data

Gale Analytics: Tip of the Month | By Lisa Novohatski, Analytics Consultant | Gale Analytics was developed for use with data from the ILS, requiring three pieces of information: patron address, last activity date, and total checkouts. Gale Analytics is, however, data agnostic. This means that the tool will process any data it is provided … Read more

Patron Measures and Mosaics Explained

Gale Analytics: Tip of the Month | By Lisa Novohatski, Analytics Consultant | On the Patron Measures tab of all Gale Analytics dashboards, you will see the Mosaic panel on the right side. This panel allows you to understand which of the Experian Mosaic segments are most prominent in your service area- both within the … Read more

Access the Digital Savviness of Your Community

Gale Analytics: Tip of the Month | Lisa Novohatski, Marketing Analytics Consultant | Users of Gale Analytics gain free access to Experian’s Segmentation Portal. When you log in to the Segmentation Portal to learn more about a prominent Mosaic Segment for your library, you’re provided with several hundred data points. It’s important to understand how … Read more

Exchanging Ideas: Inspiring Conferences I Attended in 2017

| By Heather Hedden, Senior Vocabulary Editor, Gale |

Gale participates in a variety of industry conferences, not merely as an exhibitor, but from a thought leadership perspective as well where they have the company’s subject matter experts speak at various conferences beyond the traditional library field. As a senior vocabulary editor who updates and maintains the Gale subject thesaurus, I truly believe that conferences are not just for developing business, but also serve as a place for exchanging creative ideas. I have spoken at a number of conferences this year and have enjoyed both sharing my knowledge and coming away with new ideas.

The conferences I attended throughout 2017 were so empowering, I wanted to share them with you:

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Tricks of the Trade

By Tara Blair

Most professionals discover a few tips and tricks during their career that allows them to complete a job with ease and quickens their work flow. At Gale, we’re no different. We have a few tricks up our sleeves, and thought why not share a couple of our favorites with our readers? Although we use a handful of media and imagery applications on a daily basis, we chose two of our favorites to share with you today. Without further ado, I introduce Canva and Word Swag. Two helpful applications that can be utilized in marketing (and everyday life).

My personal favorite, Word Swag, allows users to add text to photos in seconds. Creating beautiful, custom text layouts is easy with the “Exclusive Typomatic Engine” – a term appropriately coined to describe the one tap text layout modifier Word Swag is famous for. Color, size, and skew are a few more easily operated text options offered to make your caption pop. And just in case writer’s block gets the best of you, the app inspires creativity with hundreds of pre-designed quotes, thoughts, and jokes. Best of all, not only are there over 290,000  Pixabay background photos to choose from, but uploading personal photos right from your phone is also an option. Word Swag is an easy-to-use graphic designer app that makes marketing and advertising seem effortless, even on the go! Take a look below at some samples made by everyday users!

thebaseproject amongmany  LOY2016

richardlazarte  wordswagapp2  he_is_my_strength

 

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Re-thinking Ready Reference with GVRL

nonfiction ebooks

By Holly Hibner and Mary Kelly

In the olden days before computers, ready reference collections were the soul of a library. Librarians helping patrons to answer questions or understand a topic always started in the reference section of the library. They were the most expensive materials and librarians were vigilant in guarding those precious items. I have been admonished by a librarian more than once for not handling these books carefully.

Ready reference collections have adapted to the new world of instant access, anywhere and anytime. Patrons still have questions and are trying to understand topics as always, but now they want it faster, more convenient, and always reliable. The reference need is still there, but now librarians have to think about access and delivery to patrons.

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