Author: DRC VIP

SAT®/ACT® Essentials Test Prep
Your patrons get 24/7, no-cost access to The Princeton Review SAT/ACT Essentials self-paced courses. These feature:

• 20 full-length practice tests
• Detailed score reports
• Video lessons
• Practice drills
• College planner tool
• …and of course don’t forget online help from real tutors every day from 12 pm to 12 am

Download the SAT®/ACT® Essentials Test Prep below and share it with you patrons. Test Time is Fast Approaching!

https://tutor.com/clpgh

~ Hilary Lewis, Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh

The Digital Resources Committee is in the process of reviewing the databases in the eLibrary collection to determine which databases will be renewed for 2026.

Each database is evaluated by the same set of criteria to make sure our evaluations are consistent and thorough. Some of the criteria we consider are: 

User Experience

• Quality of interface: functionality, appeal, etc.
• Availability and usefulness of help features 
• Search function/options 
• Translation function availability/language options

Relevance

• Uniqueness of information: Readily available elsewhere? Costly to attain in other ways?
• Appropriateness for the target audience
• Degree to which content of database meets a community information need
• Level of audience interest

Authority

• Amount of peer-reviewed content
• Publisher/vendor reputation
• Ability to identify authority
• Quality of content contributors

Content Availability

• Amount of full text
• Amount of embargoed content
• Access to retrospective content

Accessibility Interface

• Compatibility with accessibility software
• Does the page layout allow for logical navigation using JAWS (or other software)?
• Quality/existence of alt tags and/or other coding
• Ability to adjust font size

The following databases have been reviewed

• Ancestry Library Edition
• Gale Biography in Context
• Gale Opposing Viewpoints in Context
• Gale U.S. History in Context
• Gale World History in Context
• Historical Black Newspapers
• Novelist Plus
• Novelist K – 8 Plus
• Creativebug
• Business Source Elite
• Consumer Reports
• Morningstar

Based on the criteria, the use and cost of the databases, and discussions during our monthly meetings, the following database will not be renewed upon its upcoming renewal date.

Opposing Viewpoints in Context

The remaining databases will be reviewed over the next couple of months:

• Gale Legal Forms
• Tutor.com
• Udemy
• Little Pim Languages
• Mango Languages

Announcements will be made after the DRC concludes our evaluation to notify staff which, if any, of these databases will not be renewed.

The databases not listed in our evaluation that are on the eLibrary site are Power Library databases, so we are not including them in our evaluation process.

If you have questions, please contact Hilary Lewis at lewislacknerh@carnegielibrary.org.

We have had some great training opportunities so far this year. In April, Heather from Western Allegheny Community Library did a refresher on Hoopla for library staff. Heather went over some Hoopla basics but also touched on some lesser-known features.

In September, Mary Phillips and I did a deeper dive into BlueCareer and FinancialFit. Two of our newer resources. BlueCareer provides information on skilled trades and can connect patrons with trade schools, apprenticeship opportunities and even a simple, mobile-friendly want to connect with employers. FinancialFit offers short, easy-to-understand lessons and interactive tools to help develop and support basic financial literacy.

Rounding out this trio of trainings, in October, we had an excellent overview of Tutor.com by our Tutor.com Account manager. If you haven’t used Tutor.com in a while, it’s worth a revisit. They’ve updated the interface and added in a new suite of tutoring options for Career and Technical Education (CTE) services.

These three trainings are available on the Training Resources tab here on the Backstage. If you have any problems accessing a training, please email me or sent me a message on Teams.

-Hilary Lewis, Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh

Join us on Wednesday, October 8, 2025 at 11:00 am for a comprehensive refresher on Tutor.com with Maxine Nebro. This will be great for those already familiar with the program, and those who are experiencing it for the first time as we’ll go over every feature available in your program. There have been a number of updates made in the past year, and we are super excited to share them with you! A Q&A will be happening at the end of the refresher, so be sure to bring your questions and stick around until the end.

The training will be recorded and posted to the eLibrary Backstage for those who cannot attend in person.

Join the training by clicking the link below. No registration required.

Join the meeting now

Meeting ID: 225 943 457 580 2 Passcode: Vt9p7GJ6

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