It is already May and that means that our patrons will be looking into travel plans NOW! If you have patrons who are traveling abroad be sure to mention our helpful language learning resources for their travel needs – like Mango language.
It has never been a better time to learn with Mango because they now have a Chrome extension in beta that lets you practice language learning while you browse the web or even just watch a movie with Netflix! With the Mango extension installed you can double click on a word and have Mango instantly translate it for you or even hold down the Alt key, highlight a word and have it added to Mango for your next vocabulary practice.
They next time you watch a Netflix show in the language you are studying now the extension can help you translate and learn while you enjoy some quality drama. Now you and your patrons can have fun on the web and brush up your language skills for that next adventure abroad!
Can’t attend live? Register and you’ll receive the final recorded webinar via email.
The world of artificial intelligence is touching every aspect of life, and none more than academia. In this webinar, we will explore how AI can be used effectively by students. We will answer questions like:
• What is AI and how does it work? • When is it appropriate to look to AI for help with academics? • What kind of prompts will help me get what I really need from AI? • How do I vet what I get from AI so I know it’s accurate? • How do I use AI and still learn what I need to in school? • Where can I get more help with using AI in conjunction with academics?
Come learn more about how to reconcile AI with education.
This session is led by Tutor.com’s Training and Development Team. We’ll be holding a Q&A session after the presentation, so stick around at the end.
Do you remember your Adobe Digital Editions (ADE) username and password? Neither do I! It makes it frustrating to read the EBSCO eBook I downloaded! Is this familiar? Well, good news.
Due to the upcoming ADA II compliance deadline, EBSCO eBooks is sunsetting its Adobe Digital Editions requirement. The product will not be in compliance, and EBSCO has moved on! Welcome to the modern era: Thorium Reader!
Thorium is a modern alternative to ADE, specifically designed for offline eBook reading. Unlike ADE, patrons will nolonger have to create a separate username and password (note: they will still be required to use their EBSCO username and password).
Thorium’s benefits include a range of text-to-speech functions, the ability to choose font type, text size, and spacing, as well as change the overall layout of the eBook. It is also designed to work with a variety of screen readers, making it accessible to more types of readers than ADE could ever dream of.
This will only affect offline reading, when a patron checks out and downloads an EBSCO eBook from our collection. Right now, Thorium is only available via desktop and iOS apps, though the Android version is coming down the pike.
Again, the online reading experience won’t change. When a patron wants to download an eBook for offline use, they will need to download Thorium instead of ADE. Below, you can see what it will look like in the EBSCO experience. Note at the bottom, patrons are provided with a passcode that they will be prompted to enter once they open Thorium.
They will only need to enter the passcode once per device to open the downloaded eBook. Additionally, they can use the same passcode across six devices simultaneously. If, as happens, they forget the passcode, it is easy to generate a new one.
Thorium is available as an app on our Microsoft desktop and laptop computers. You can download it now to take a look!
But I’ve already blogged about that. What I’m here to blog at you about today is how the tools in the new Novelist experience can support you when building diverse booklists to use in Bibliocommons, printed booklists, display inspiration, and more.
Novelist’s advanced search has lots to offer, but I am going to focus on the author facets. You have to scroll down a bit to find them, but here you can see options for the author’s gender identity, cultural identity, and nationality. Lots to choose from!
For instance, let’s say you want to make a Black History Month fiction display in your Teen space, you can select “Black” as the author’s cultural identity.
Then you can select “Teen” as the Audience, and “Fiction” to return a list of novels.
Using just those three facets, you’ll get a list of more than 1700 titles! That’s a lot! Maybe too much! So, to go a step further, you can also use keyword searches. Here, I’ve used “secret societies” because secret societies are cool. You can see the results have narrowed down to a manageable list of 55 results.
From there, you can use the “Check the Library Catalog” button to be whisked away into our collections in Bibliocommons, find read-alikes, save items to lists in your Ebsco account, and all the other good stuff Novelist can do with its results lists.
Our collections are built to reflect the vibrant, diverse communities we support. Take a cruise through Novelist’s author facets to find out how they can help this vital work.
