Database & eResource Trainings

The Digital Resources Committee will be sponsoring four Electronic Resource trainings throughout 2017. These trainings will look at both database and downloadable resources, and will offer tips on how and when to use these resources. The first training is scheduled for Monday, March 6th at Northland Public Library and will include a webinar component. A list of all of the training dates and locations will be sent out to einlibs soon, as well as being posted on here on the Virtual Lexicon.

We hope that many people will be able to attend one of these trainings throughout the year. In the meantime, take a look at our eArticles and eResouces pages to review all of the great resources we offer!

–Hilary Lewis Lackner, Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh

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New science database available now!

Good news… we now have access to Science Reference Center through POWER Library. Science Reference Center is an Ebsco database so the interface and searching features should be familiar to many of you. This is a great replacement for the county subscription to Science in Context which was cancelled in September 2015.

Description of Science Reference Center:

This e-resource contains full text for hundreds of science encyclopedias, reference books, periodicals, and other reliable sources. In addition, Science Reference Center includes more than 280,000 high-quality science images from sources such as UPI, Getty, NASA, National Geographic and the Nature Picture Library.

Links to the database will soon be added to the Find Articles pages at erec.einetwork.net. In the meantime, you can access the resource from POWER Library. Please remember to add the links to your library database page if your library  manages their own list of databases.

Happy researching!

Sharon (Mt. Lebanon)

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What Does the MasterFile Downgrade Mean?

You may have heard that Ebsco’s MasterFile product that we provide for county library users is being downgraded in 2016 to save money in response to budget cuts.  The change will mean we now have access to MasterFile Premiere instead of Complete. You will notice this change on erec.einetwork.net in the next couple of weeks.

What does this change mean for your patrons?  MasterFile is a tiered product with several levels of access. The good news is that we still have a decent product in Premiere, which is a more comprehensive product than Main Edition (which is offered through PowerLibrary). The bad news is that we are losing about 1300 titles of books and magazines only available in Complete.

Here is the complete list of titles lost:
https://backstage.einetwork.net/wp-content/uploads/2016/01/copy-of-mfc-titles-lost-when-downgrading-to-mfp.xls

The DRC committee decided that the list of titles lost included mostly less popular, low demand items and the loss wouldn’t have a great impact.

In 2015 the top 20 titles retrieved in the database were:

  1. Consumer Reports
  2. Consumer Reports Buying Guide
  3. American Record Guide
  4. Time Magazine
  5. School Library Journal
  6. Billboard
  7. EDUCATION WEEK
  8. Library Journal
  9. Time.com
  10. Educational Leadership
  11. Money
  12. Foreign Affairs
  13. USA Today
  14. AMERICAN JOURNAL OF PUBLIC HEALTH
  15. PHI DELTA KAPPAN
  16. The Columbia encyclopedia
  17. Education
  18. SCHOLASTIC SCOPE
  19. CHRONICLE OF HIGHER EDUCATION
  20. People

All of these titles will still be available in MasterFile Premiere!

For a complete list of titles accessible through premiere visit: https://www.ebscohost.com/public/masterfile-premier

Dustin S.
Sewickley Public Library

 

 

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New Find Articles Page

The Digital Resources Committee, formerly EREC, has redesigned the current county databases landing page at articles.einetwork.net .  We hope the page is more user friendly and intuitive for patrons, better designed for mobile devices.

We are looking for your feedback on the redesigned page BEFORE the site goes live.  Please add any feedback and suggestions to the comments section of this blog post.  We are asking for all feedback on or before Friday, November 7th.  Or you can email me at shillingd2@einetwork.net.

Currently the page can only be accessed from within the library.  If you are not in a library this link will not work.

Here is the link: erec.einetwork.net

—-

P.S. Don’t forget about eResource Challenge Lite, coming November 1st.

Dustin, Sewickley

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