Gale Access Program Success Report: What a Difference a Year Makes

| By Gale Staff | Read this Gale report on how one program is increasing database usage and lowering collection costs for libraries. Support student success. For academic librarians, that goal is what motivates purchasing and collection development decisions. But it’s not always an easy task. With 80–90% of academic libraries facing flat or declining … Read more

New Insight into Usage

New, monthly Miss Humblebee’s Academy reports Now libraries can view the aggregate of what parents see in the dashboard when it comes to student performance by curriculum subjects and industry standards. These new reports are in addition to the customary usage and outcomes reports.  With these reports, libraries will understand where students are experiencing areas … Read more

Raise Your Hand If You Want to Know More About Usage, Part II

By Scott Steward

Welcome back to the Gale Technical Solutions blog series!

This is part two in a two part series.

In my last issue (usage part l), I focused on Gale’s definition of the usage metrics we report and how they are counted.  If you haven’t read it yet, you can find it here: http://blog.gale.com/raise-your-hand-if-you-want-to-know-more-about-usage/.

For this issue, I will be continuing my discussion about usage, focusing on the factors that affect usage such as discovery services, LMS, openURL and direct links.

Read moreRaise Your Hand If You Want to Know More About Usage, Part II

Raise Your Hand If You Want to Know More About Usage, Part I

By Scott Steward The topic I want to discuss is Usage, but since usage is such a broad topic, I will break it up into two posts. In Part I, I will be focusing on some usage basics; what metrics Gale reports and how they are counted. The next blog, Part II, I will focus on … Read more

You’re Invited! Geeking Over Google and eBooks Webinar

What: Geeking Over Google and eBooks Date: Thursday, October 06, 2016 Time: 03:00 PM Eastern Daylight Time Duration: 1 hour A webinar presented by Gale & Library Journal How do you save costs, increase shelf space, and boost usage in the 21st Century? Meeting the research needs of the 21st century library patron isn’t the simplest of endeavors. You have … Read more

We Love Analytics!

Posted on February 19, 2016

We love our work on the Gale Databases team, as we continuously add informative and engaging new content – this includes keeping up with the latest current events (World History In Context, Global Issues In Context), health news (Science In Context, Health and Wellness Resource Center), business developments (Business Insights), and topics being studied in school (Student Resources In Context, Research In Context, Kids InfoBits), to name just a few.

But we also love finding out how the content is actually used in these databases once we load it – and we look at many metrics, including:

  • Top Searches
  • Top Media
  • Most Popular Articles and Journals
  • Number of Users
  • And many others

Read moreWe Love Analytics!

Driving Electronic Content Discovery and Usage: Communication – Part 2

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

Librarians Bridge Access and Availability Gaps with Technology

GVRL eBook Success Story

Part of any librarian’s job is to provide access to information people may not immediately know they need, exists, or is accessible. Amy Calhoun, Virtual Branch Coordinator at the Sacramento Public Library, understands this challenge as well as anyone. It’s why she and her colleague Laurie Willis, an Electronic Resources Librarian at the San Jose Public Library, both set out to find a solution designed to ensure people would have access to information when and where it was needed.

“It just made sense to expand our offerings,” Calhoun said. Expanding her library’s science related content and making sure the information was current quickly became a priority.

Read moreLibrarians Bridge Access and Availability Gaps with Technology

Gale Customer Care Could be Your Key to Success in Boosting Usage

By Tanisha Howard-Hall

Does anyone remember, the singing group New Kids on the Block? Well, I can’t sing but I am the new Customer Care Consultant on the block! I am new to this role but not new to Gale. I was first introduced to Cengage Learning and Gale as the Web Marketing Intern. I recently graduated with my MBA with a concentration in Marketing. As the Web Marketing intern, I worked on a variety of projects and quickly learned how dedicated Gale is to serving its library partners.

Read moreGale Customer Care Could be Your Key to Success in Boosting Usage