Gale World History In ContextGale Biography In ContextGale U.S. History In Context
I know the kids would rather not hear this but school days are creeping ever closer… and thus I do want to remind everyone of the great school resources that the county libraries provide for those upcoming school projects. Gale In Context has some great offerings to help with those history projects and papers.
World History and U.S. History are the two history databases to help you ace the new school year. Now for information on historical and famous figures you can trust Biography In Context. Get those grades up with reliable sources from the county libraries Gale In Context databases this year!
Have you ever had a patron inquire about legal forms? Well, there’s a database for that! Gale LegalForms connects patrons to the Pennsylvania Legal Form Library and offers access to a wide variety of templates.
Patrons can browse by category or search for a specific form needed, and all forms are easily available and specific to Pennsylvania. For most topics, there are also multiple forms to choose from, allowing patrons to find the one that best suits their needs. The documents come in MS Word format, allowing patrons to easily edit them. Best of all, there are no fees!
One of the greatest tools we have to offer children is the Kids InfoBits database. You might already know it for its wide subject base and ability to adjust the reading levels of its content, making it an invaluable tool for any elementary-age student, but it’s also built with a number of features that make it accessible to everyone:
You can have the text of the article read aloud by selecting the speaker icon at the top of the page. This function means the website is instantly accessible to anyone whose reading skills aren’t quite advanced enough to read it on their own. It also makes this a valuable tool for new readers: they can play the audio while reading, leading to higher word recognition and comprehension of the sentences.
Adjustable text size makes the content available to anyone with visual impairments, and increases readability on a variety of screens. For younger readers who are used to seeing text nice and big, the text can be adjusted to be more familiar.
Display options can be customized. The background color can be changed, and, most importantly, so can the text. There are only four font options, but one is Open Dyslexic, a font that’s easier for people with dyslexia to read. On top of different fonts, you can also adjust the spacing of each line, letter, and word.
Articles can be translated to a variety of languages. You can also change your interface language, so the entire website will be presented to you in your chosen language. The importance of that is obvious, but I’ve got an additional benefit: for libraries with limited collections of books in languages other than English, this is a really useful tool. Kids InfoBits provides hours of readable content for kids who are learning a second language (and, of course, for anyone learning English as a second language).
With all of these features, Kids InfoBits is not only a great reference source, but an excellent companion to your early reader and international languages collections.
Maybe your patrons are wondering about it. Maybe they’ve already transformed into giant chickens themselves! That’s what bird flu does right? I read that somewhere on the internet.
Just kidding! When I go looking for information online, I start with library databases. I love Wikipedia dearly, but sometimes it will lead me astray. Just look at this link! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bird_Flu.
Luckily for me, POWER Library has provided two new databases that can help with health information and much more: Health and Wellness and Academic OneFile Select, both from our pals at Gale. As with other Gale products, they look almost the same but contain different information aimed at different audiences.
Health and Wellness contains full-text articles from medical publications and reference works, but also from more popular, general media outlets with a focus on health information that is approachable for a general audience. Here are the results for a search for “bird flu” with a publication date limiter of the “past month.”
Notice that it leads with four audio clips from various NPR programs. Health and Wellness is for a general audience looking for reliable information that doesn’t get too deep into medical jargon.
This resource is geared toward students, researchers, and curriculum-based learners. It provides access to full text articles across many disciplines, not just health, as well as also vocational/technical training material for students who are studying the trades. A nice complement to BlueCareer!
But back to the chickens. If I do the same search for “bird flu” with that “past month” time limiter, I get results that may not be appropriate for a lay audience but will definitely help with a college student’s research.
These new resources provide information for a variety of different types of patrons and are now live on the eLibrary website. Check them out!
