INFOTRAC Newsstand Offers Local Newspapers!

The INFOTRAC Newsstand database offers full-text coverage of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette and the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review.

Users can now limit their searches in a variety of ways that the newspapers websites do not offer.

To limit to these local papers, follow the steps below:Picture1

1. Go to the INFOTRAC Newsstand database
2. Click on the Advanced Search option
3. Type the word Pittsburgh into the “by publication title” field and click on the source you would like to search after it pops up in the drop-down menu.

 NOTE: you CANNOT type the name of the newspaper, you MUST click and select the newspaper title when it appears. The search will yield zero results if you type it in manually.

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INFOTRAC Newsstand has index and full-text coverage for the Post-Gazette from April 25th 2000 to the present and for the Tribune-Review from November 28th 2006 to the present.

Rob (Bethel Park)

Continue ReadingINFOTRAC Newsstand Offers Local Newspapers!

There’s a new way to answer that age-old question: what do library users want?

We’ve just recently signed up for a free service that OverDrive provides called Recommend to Library. But don’t worry–it’s not an open invitation to request all the titles we can’t provide because they’re simply not available. Rather it’s a way to search the entire list of titles offered by OverDrive, including titles not currently available in our collection.

One way to see what OverDrive offers that we don’t currently own is to click on the Additional Titles radio button when you do a simple search.

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Another way to get there is to go the Advanced Search page on OverDrive. As you can see at the bottom of the image below, users can choose to search “Additional titles” here as well.

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In either case, what comes up will be a list of titles that match the search criteria. The first titles that appear will be those that we currently own, followed by those that we don’t.  If one (or more) of the latter is of interest, searchers can click the Recommend button.

For those with plenty of time on their hands and no particular authors or subjects in mind it’s also possible to browse the entire list of non-owned titles.  When users do a search of the library collection they’ll see this link at the bottom of their search results.

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One thing that might be a little confusing is that recommendations can’t be made by casual browsers.  They can only be made after signing in to OverDrive.  On the bright side, this means that users can keep track of the titles they’ve recommended in the “My Account” section of OverDrive.

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When the recommendation is made, users are prompted to check what action they’d like to have taken.  They can ask to be notified by email or to have the title put on hold for them–or both–if the library purchases the title in question.  They’ll also be required to confirm their recommendation.  For now recommendations are limited to 5 per day per person.

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So, what happens next? OverDrive creates and sends lists of recommended titles regularly for consideration by selectors.  Titles are added when they meet the selection criteria and funds permit.

Happy Searching!

Lisa D. (CLP)

Continue ReadingThere’s a new way to answer that age-old question: what do library users want?