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This is the final set of summaries.  (Phew!)  Tomorrow the individual and team winners will be announced!

Week Five Database Challenge

As many of you noted, business questions can be particularly challenging, especially for those of us who don’t tackle them often, and this was a two-parter!  Let’s start with the first question.

The Scenario:

A student is doing a presentation on the H.J. Heinz Co. for one of his college business classes. He needs to include some information about competitors to Heinz. Help him find Morningstar’s Fair Value Estimate on the ConAgra stock price.

Did you have any trouble using Morningstar to find the information? If so, how did you resolve the issue?

Well, apparently we wrote the question poorly because a lot of people tried to look up the Fair Value Estimate of Heinz (rather than ConAgra) in Morningstar.  That was an understandably frustrating experience because Heinz went private recently and is not listed in Morningstar.  Sorry about that!

Another challenge a lot of folks mentioned was trouble getting into the database. The likely culprit?  Our limitation of six simultaneous users.  This is not usually a problem, but when 200 people are trying to access the database at once it’s definitely more likely to happen!

As far as finding the requested information, many people were able to quickly identify the ticker symbol for ConAgra and locate the Fair Value Estimate.  However, a lot of you shared the experience of Devon E. from CLP, “I’ve never used this database before and was a little overwhelmed by all the stock-jargon when I got to the main page.”

A few people also noted that Morningstar includes a section about competitors, which might prove useful to this patron.

And now on to part two:

He’s concerned that his presentation will be too dull, so in order to spice it up he also wants to find:

1. three products other than ketchup that the company makes
2. a slogan used by the company in the past
3. a list of historical facts about the company

Try to find each piece of information in both Business Source Premier and Business Insights: Global.

Were you able to find all of the information in both databases? Which was easier to use? Share something you liked and/or disliked about each database.

There wasn’t consensus on this one, and almost everyone acknowledged that either database could be utilized to help this patron.  Each has strengths over the other, and individual preference varied.

Multiple people appreciated that Business Source Premier allows limiting by article type.  On the other hand, many people found the consolidation of information and the “cleaner” Business Insights interface to be more appealing.

Lots of you commented that Business Insights is better for a quick overview, while Business Source Premier is useful for a more thorough, complete analysis.

Susan H. from Eastridge noted that the chronology in Business Insights ended with 2008, while the chronology in Business Source continued through the present.  Furthermore, as Kaarin V. from CLP discovered, the profile in Business Insights “made no mention of Warren Buffet taking over the company in February.”  Perhaps not an issue for this student’s needs, but a potential problem in many other cases.

Many of you included really fun historical facts in your responses (thanks!)  The slogans you reported finding?: “The slowest ketchup in the West,” “Beanz Meanz Heinz,” “57 Varieties,” “Good things come to those who wait,” “Dreamz Meanz Heinz,” and “Slow Good.”

Week Five Downloadables Challenge

The Scenario: A patron is looking for downloadable audio books for a short road trip. He wants one fast-paced title for each leg of the trip. It will take him between 4 and 5 hours each way.

Explore the two eAudio services we offer (CLP folks go to the eCLP page).

Which eAudio service would you use to help this patron and why?

We’ll keep this one short and sweet!

Our main goal with this question was to prompt you to discover the ability to limit by duration in OneClick, which many of you mentioned in your responses.  However, a lot of you would also recommend OverDrive, primarily because the collection is more extensive.  Several of you noted that once the OneClick search was limited by duration and genre, the results were fairly limited.

Rita B. from CLP summed up the thoughts of many when she stated, “For this patron, I’d use OneClick because of the ability to limit by duration, but if he wasn’t thrilled with the limited selection, I’d refer him to Overdrive.”

Week Six Database Challenge

The Scenario:

A patron stops in and says, “I was walking downtown this summer and there were what seemed like hundreds of people walking around in animal costumes! There was a sign that said “Welcome Furries!” What are Furries and why were so many in Pittsburgh?”

Using Newspaper Source Plus or MasterFile Complete, help this patron find articles explaining what the furries are and why they are in Pittsburgh. Limit your search to full text articles written in the past two years.

Share something interesting you learned about either the database you selected or the furries. Bonus points for anyone who shares something about both!

The patron decides they are very interested in the furries. Help them set up an automatic alert anytime new articles on furries are added to the database you selected.

Patrons need to create an Ebsco account in order to set and receive automatic alerts. Share at least one other benefit of having an Ebsco account.

Let us start by saying we are pleased to be the ones to introduce so many of you to the furries!

As far as which database offered the best results for this particular query, Newspaper Source Plus wins in a landslide!  Nearly everyone discovered that it yielded multiple relevant articles, while MasterFile came up with practically nothing.

You shared LOTS of interesting things about the furries, but in the interest of time and space (and focusing on our true purpose), we’ll stick to the interesting things you learned about the databases:

• you can translate full articles into over 25 different languages (including Bahasa Indonesian, but as Amy S. fro Northland discovered, there is no translation for “Furries,” at least in that language)
• you can listen to articles in American, British or Australian dialects – multiple respondents
• Newspaper Source Plus includes radio and TV news transcripts – multiple respondents
• the “Image Quick View” option allows you to view thumbnails of the images in an article right from the results list
• you can search for just cover stories using MasterFileComplete
• you can search both databases at the same time since they are both Ebsco products
• you can narrow your search to only articles with photographs
• both the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette and the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review are indexed with full text in Newspaper Source Plus
• Newspaper Source Plus also includes non-US newspapers

Here are the most commonly cited benefits to having an Ebsco account:

• save previous searches
• retain preferences
• save and organize articles and citations in folders
• access search history
• access saved information from any computer
• share searches and results

We also included a bonus question this week:
What is the common theme across all the eResource Challenge database questions?

We loved all of your answers to this question, but the one we were really looking for was Pittsburgh!  All of the topics in the database scenarios were related to Pittsburgh or the region.

And FINALLY, the final summary:

Week Six Downloadabes Challenge

The Scenario: A patron calls because they have just checked out some magazines but are taken to a screen that says their cart is empty and prompting them to purchase magazines. Help them find their free checked out magazines!

What do you need to tell this patron so they can access their library magazines?

This is another one we included because it has come up with some regularity lately.  A lot of you had difficulty recreating this scenario (a good thing!), which made it difficult to complete.

In this case, the patron was not automatically being directed to their library check-outs when they logged into the Zinio consumer site immediately following the check-out process.  It’s an unnerving experience, especially if the process has worked correctly before.  Luckily, the solution is simple. All the patron needs to do is click on the “Your Library” tab at the top of the page.

The Follow-up:

The patron also mentions that they would like to stop receiving advertising from Zinio, but they would like to receive notification when a new issue of their checked out magazines becomes available. What can you tell them?

Were you able to figure out how to do this? If so, what did you do?

This is a little tricky because, as far as we know, you can’t do both from the Zinio website.  Jennifer L. from The Library Place explains it this way, “I was able to figure out how to do it through the app, but not both on the website. On the website you can go to Account Settings and then Preferences. You can select No, to not receive notifications and save your changes. Within the app, if you tap More, then Notification Settings, you will be able to select how you want to be alerted as far as your subscription goes. Under ShopAdvisor you can select it not to be enabled.”

So, basically, it seems that you can change both settings in the app, but only change the advertising setting from the website.

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We hope you’ve found the eResource Challenge and these summaries to be a helpful and fun experience. We’ve definitely enjoyed it and learned a lot from your responses.  You’ll have have ample opportunity to tell us what you liked and didn’t like when we post an evaluation on Friday.  Thanks for playing along!