EBSCO E-books: Public Library Subscription Collection Webinar

Important to know before commencing:

General information on EBSCO E-books:

• Provides access to 41 thousand e-books which have been chosen specifically for public libraries
• Collection suitable for both children and adults (art, cooking, self help etc)
• Unlimited user access/licensing
• Titles are regularly added to the collection
• Loan period= 21 days
• Kindle not compatible
• Items download to Adobe digital editions
• Google chrome will not work to view the EBSCO e-book collection use safari/explorer/firefox

Searching for items:

• Truncation available for searching
• Browse by category or search for specific items
• Able to view detailed record of items

Viewing the item and checking out:

• Similar to other EBSCO databases – can save to folder etc
• As in all EBSCO databases the dictionary, citation, permalink, bookmark and export options are all available
• Option to open/save when downloading
• View items online either through:

o  PDF

o   E-pub format (text can be formatted to fit screen only in this option)

• Patrons can view the item offline by checking out and downloading the item
• 95% of resources can be downloaded offline – the 5% that cannot are mostly published by Cengage Learning
• Option to search within the full text of the article/book – may be useful for patrons searching a particular paragraph or recipe etc
• Can also email/save certain pages (up to around 60 pages) which may be useful for patrons wanting to share certain information (i.e. recipes for the recipe club)
• Table of contents allows users to jump to certain sections etc- contents has hypertext links
• Same as other e-book databases – right click to return items

Viewing from a mobile or tablet device?

• If viewing on the mobile- users will need the ‘bluefire reader’ app
• Bluefire reader app is compatible on both Iphones and androids
• With the app you can:

  o   Download books offline

  
  

  o   Easily return books and auto delete (just like overdrive)

  
  

  o   Customise the reading experience (i.e. adjust the font etc)

• Sample book will appear in the reader app – good to know as some patrons might get confused and think they downloaded it
• Trash can option allows you to delete certain items.
• Make sure the bluefire app and your device is on the latest versions
• Error message may occur on downloading the bluefire app and this is usually because the software is not up to date

 To transfer an e-book from your laptop or personal computer to mobile device:

1. Open your downloaded eBook in Adobe Digital Editions. If you have not authorized Adobe Digital Editions, you will need to complete that step first. An Adobe ID is not required for authorization. Simply select I want to authorize my computer without an ID and click Authorize.
   However, if you have an Adobe ID and would like to synchronize your reading across multiple devices, you can elect to authorize the app using your existing Adobe ID, or create a new one at the following link:
   Adobe ID Registration.
2. Connect your portable device to your computer with a USB cable.
3. Turn on the eReader. If the reader offers an option to Recharge or Connect to the computer, choose the “Connect” option.
4. Open Adobe Digital Editions – it automatically detects the presence of your device and offers to authorize it.
   Just as the Adobe Digital Editions software must be authorized, the portable device must also be authorized to be able to transfer protected content to and from the device.
5. Click Authorize Device in the resulting window.
   
6. Click Finished after your device is authorized.
   
7. After authorization, the device appears as a new bookshelf in your library. Transfer items to and from the device bookshelf by clicking on the book title, then dragging and dropping the title into the device bookshelf.
   Note: Do not disconnect the device while you are in the process of transferring a title to the device.
   

For more details on how to check items out, save pages and downloading Adobe Digital Editions visit: 
https://help.ebsco.com/interfaces/eBooks_Audiobooks/eBooks 

Or visit the tutorials online at:

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCBC_CPlZqhatEZJN_oIldtg 


~Sophie

A good argument and a good book

You may have noticed that “Points of View Reference Centre” and “NoveList Plus” are the two latest additions to the Library’s Web Resources collection.   I have recently attended a workshop for these databases and would like to share my learning.

“Points of View” Reference Center

Points of View Reference Center is an online database which includes full text articles from a wide variety of sources.   It is designed to provide students and schools with a series of controversial essays that present multiple sides of a current issue.  

The database provide students with information for assignment as well as writing tips in the writing of a persuasive essay or give an oral presentation on one or more sides of a current issue.   It provides more than 272 topics from a span range of current issues.  Topics covered include : AIDS/HIV, Arts & culture, Earth & Environment, Energy & Conservation, global issues; human rights; immigration; media & communications, people & society, war & peace…..and many more.

Each search resulted comes with 4 major articles: An overview (general information and objective background about the issue); Point (argument supports the issue); Counterpoint (opposing argument to the issue), and Guide to critical analysis (helps students better understand and judge facts vs opinion of the issue).

The essays in the “Points of View” provide questions and materials for further thought and study and are accompanied by thousands of supporting articles from the world’s top political and societal publications.  They are including
leading political periodicals, newspapers, government documents, reference books, radio and TV news transcripts.  

Navigating the database is user friendly.   To conduct a quick search, researcher can either use “Browse by Category” or “View All Topics” search.  However, performing a keyword search while viewing a Category or Topic, the entire database is searched.  This means results are not limited to the Category or Topic selected.  The “How to…” area provides information and guidance when conducting research for an essay.  

The coverage of each full text article includes: current topics of debate, information type, abstracts, general reference sources, citation and Lexile scores (difficult level of the document).   Each article is created by two authors who are experts in that particular subject field.  The database also contains images, illustrations, video, charts, graphs and diagrams that are related to the topic.  Each article concludes with a “Further Reading” section that contains links to more articles on the topic.  The database is frequently updated and new articles are added to.

However, the “Points of View” is an American database.  The controversial issues contents are mainly American, therefore, search terms are needed to be American terms.

The database is topic driven, it may be difficult to know where the topic goes to due to broad headings eg   “facebook” would be in the topic of “People & Society” instead of “Media & Communications”.

Although I have not had a chance to introduce this database to library users,  I believe it would be useful for school assignment information enquiries.

“NoveList Plus” Online Database

Being given a storyline or plot characteristics to find a book or asked for looking for a book in a specific genre or search for a series; may be, sometimes, challenging and time consuming.   NoveList Plus provides the solution to answer the request quick and simple.

Developed by librarians, NoveList Plus is an upgrade to NoveList.  In addition to the fiction database that NovList has offered, NoveList Plus adds nonfiction pleasure reading.    It is a comprehensive online readers’ advisory tool for librarians.

NoveList Plus offers bibliographic information on more than 200,000 titles, including over 50,000 nonfiction titles selected for their appeal to the general reader.  Approximately 20,000 new titles are added each year.   In addition, using NoveList Plus, you can retrieve author read-alikes( include suggested titles), book discussion guides, book talks and feature articles.   It also contains over 1,850 searchable Award Lists (the best in a specific area or additional ‘hot’ titles), over 185,000 book cover images and nearly 36,000 first chapter excerpts.

It also includes special sections for teens, older kids (9-12) and young kids (0-8).  It also contains the option to sort by popularity and/or Lexile scores.  The picture book extenders are brilliant for story time activities.  


In NoveList Plus, you can search for books with certain plot characteristics or a series by entering a series name or finding authors who write like your favourite, using similar subjects, themes, and appeal factors.


In NoveList Plus certain indexes can be filtered to a specific reading level due to the existence of Lexile scores.  Use the “Featured Book Display” ideas to create a display for different reading levels in the Library.  NoveList Plus also contains helpful training materials for readers’ advisors.


This link provides a tour of the database and is worthwhile trying.


http://support.ebsco.com/training/flash_videos/NoveList/NoveListOverview?NoveListOverview.htm

The above two online databases also link to the Library catalogue to display the availability of the search item.


Becky

I emailed everyone a couple of weeks ago about the Library EBSCOHost folder.

Since then I've been adding articles based on various assignment questions. I've also started adding articles about the set texts for HSC English Area of Study. If all our study guides are checked out, students can find a lot of information in these areticles. I know the HSC starts next week but I think the syllabus stays the same for next year.

So far I have created folders for the following subjects:

• Belonging
• The Joy Luck Club
• The Namesake
• Idi Amin
• Aboriginal Australians
• Massacres
• Commonwealth Games
• World Heritage Sites

If you're looking for information on any of these topics and we're either out of print resources or the student needs online articles, you can quickly login to EBSCO as the Library and email the corresponding folder to the student (they will need to set up an EBSCO account to access these articles - this takes less than 5 minutes). This will at least save you time searching for articles and I'm hoping to update the folder periodically.

If you're not sure how to login to the Library account just contact me and I'll talk you through it. If you want to add anything to the folder you're more than welcome to. Feedback or suggestions would be great as well. Many students aren't aware of our Online Databases and often head straight to Google. It would be really good to eventually take a more hands-on approach to educating users about these resources e.g. run user education workshops, screencasts etc. If you've got any other ideas I'd love to hear them.

Thanks.

Karen

Ref rap- More science madness!
Seeing the presentation of mad science at Sutherland library in the school holidays has reminded me of the great resources the library has relating to information about science. For aspiring scientists and anyone else who would like more science project ideas, or to conduct further experiments, there are lots of great ideas available on the World Book database. These can be accessed from world book on for kids by clicking on the Science projects icon. There are heaps of projects to choose from covering eight different areas including animals, plants, machines, matter and energy, microscopic life, our planet, your body and science you can use. There are long term experiments, last minute experiments, as well as tips for working safely. You can also access these projects plus more experiments for older students from The World book Online Info Finder.

A good starting point for future scientists and school students requiring information on general science topics is The Science Reference Centre. This database covers a wide range of scientific topics including biology, chemistry, earth & space science, environmental science, health & medicine, history of science, life science, physics, science & society, science as inquiry, scientists, technology and wildlife. It is a full text database including access to science encyclopaedias, reference books, periodicals, newspapers and biographies. It has all the great search features associated with Ebscohost databases, such as smart text searching, saving selected documents to a folder and creating email alerts and RSS feeds. You can search within particular publications, search for images, or if you want to browse, you can search by subject. For example, typing in “science project” allows you to see all content about this topic showing the number of items available in each format. You can also limit your searches to just images, or use filters including date ranges, lexile reading level, publication type, or benchmarks.

Another choice is the Pro Quest Science Journals. This is a more academic database. It also covers a wide range of science topics in a variety of scientific journals, newspapers, trade journals, reference/reports and dissertations. This database allows the user to conduct basic and advanced searches, as well as searching by topic or publication. In a basic search, after typing the initial keyword, sentence or question, you are offered suggested topics to browse, and you have the option to narrow the search by document type.
Searching by topic allows you to enter the topic of interest or browse the subject directory. Alternatively, you can look up topic A-Z and search by people, locations, companies, subjects, dates and publications.
If you search by publication there are indicators of whether they are full text, and the coverage dates, with some titles going back to 1992. You can also create RSS feeds with certain titles.

This has been just a quick overview to remind you of three databases focusing on science, the library has on offer. They are all fairly easy to navigate and are designed to meet the scientific information needs of different customer markets. So if you have a chance, why not have a look so you can show our customers just how much more scientific it can be to use these free databases, rather than just the internet.

I recently blogged about using personalised folders in EBSCOHost to store articles related to popular school assignments and share them with students and other staff. I'll shortly be setting up an account for the Library so that we can all access the folder and share resources more directly.

The idea behind this is to create a kind of virtual reference folder. All staff will be able to access it, create new folders for a subject and add new articles to an existing folder. You could add to the folder during quiet times, or while you're searching for online information.
When a student comes into the Library looking for information we could email them a link to the folder so they can have access to both our print and electronic information. There are a few issues related to this:

1. The folder will need to be updated regularly. EBSCO has subscriptions to some frequently updated information so if you come across anything that isn't in the folder feel free to add it. I'll also make time to check it periodically for new information.
2. There is no way to share non-EBSCO sources as yet. This means that anything we find in the federated search that isn't from an EBSCO database can't be shared. I emailed EBSCO about this problem but they currently can't see a solution to it either. This will effect information on subjects such as local studies where most of the resources are located in our catalogue rather than on EBSCO. In this case, you can use the folder as a reference - you just can't share it.
3. Email is currently the only way we can share folders. It would have been good to get a link to the folder resources but this currently doesn't work. This makes it difficult to match the folders up to QR codes. If anyone can think of a way around this please let me know.

For more information on sharing folders follow this link.

Passcode: 9a842c08-7b53-4265-adca-260291822f30
Karen invites you to share my Cronulla Beach folder.
*To view this folder, login to My EBSCOhost and click Add button next to
your Shared by folder.
*Enter or copy & paste passcode provided above.
*Hit Submit button to accept the invitation.
*The folder will be filed under my MyEBSCOhost's username, karenbeath,
under your Shared by folder section.


The sender also included this note:

After sending this out we've discovered a couple of minor problems:
1. It only allows one person to use that passcode from the one email address. I've unticked the 'Restrict passcode to singe use' option in the sharing form, so it should work for everyone now. If not, please let me know. Ordinarily we'd be sharing this with student's individual email addresses so it shouldn't be a problem.
2. The contents of the folder are arranged under 'Articles' and 'other content sources'. When I share
the folder it only seems to share 'Articles'. This new code should allow you to view other content sources. I'll see if I can find out if there is a way around this and get back to you. Try it now and see if it works. Please let me know of any problems you might have with it so we can iron them out early. Any ideas of how to market this to students would be great as well.

Thanks.
Karen

This e-mail was generated by EBSCOhost Research Databases. Neither EBSCO
nor the institution from which the Shared Folder Creator generated this
e-mail is responsible for the content of this e-mail. Please do not
reply to this message. For questions regarding your shared folder invite
please visit http://support.ebscohost.com/contact/askus.php.

Passcode: b22bde05-765e-421d-9e37-21fe13d06396
Karen invites you to share my Cronulla Beach folder.
*To view this folder, login to My EBSCOhost and click Add button next to
your Shared by folder.
*Enter or copy & paste passcode provided above.
*Hit Submit button to accept the invitation.
*The folder will be filed under my MyEBSCOhost's username, karenbeath,
under your Shared by folder section.

The sender also included this note:

In light of the recent renewal of the year 10 Cronulla Beach
environmental issues project, I thought now might be a good time to tell you about an idea suggested at the EBSCO Marketing training I attended earlier in the year. You can create personal accounts and folders within EBSCO, store relevant items in there and email them to interested students/parents etc. I thought I'd try it with this Cronulla Beach project using our integrated search trial. I've saved some of what I've found in this folder. Check it out and tell me what you think.

NOTE: Naturally, users will only be able to access articles from databases that their Library subscribes to.

This e-mail was generated by EBSCOhost Research Databases. Neither EBSCO
nor the institution from which the Shared Folder Creator generated this
e-mail is responsible for the content of this e-mail. Please do not
reply to this message. For questions regarding your shared folder invite
please visit http://support.ebscohost.com/contact/askus.php.