Uncategorized

Thanks to everyone who signed up to participate in the ACLA eResource Challenge!

Today’s post will provide a little more information about how the Challenge will work.  The Challenge, developed by the Electronic Resources Evaluation Committee (EREC) and the ACLA Downloadables Committee, is designed to be a quick, fun way to increase your knowledge of the electronic resources available at our libraries.

All registrants are being randomly assigned to a team.  Teams will be announced Monday.   The first official challenge will be posted on Tuesday and our friendly competition will begin!

Here’s how it will work:

Each week for six weeks, starting on September 24, two new challenges will be posted on this blog, along with a survey link. Just click on the survey link to submit your responses.

The first challenge each week will focus on databases. We’ll include specific questions to prompt you, but what we’re really interested in are your brief observations and comments, so don’t feel tethered to the questions. The second question each week will focus on downloadables. Again, we’ll provide specific questions, but in this case, the answers are not subjective, so please stick with the questions.

For each exercise you complete you will be entered to win one of our great prizes.  The more challenges you complete, the better your chances of winning.  Three lucky participants will win a Google Nexus 7 tablet.  One winner from each team will win a gift card. We’ll draw the winning names during the first full week of November.

You may be wondering whether one team will really beat the other. The cross-county competition is meant to make the challenge more fun and to help us learn from one another. We’ll compile some of the most useful responses to share with everyone, but your answers won’t be judged, either individually or as a team. Really, the winning team is the one whose members learn the most about our electronic resources. We will tally and publish our results though, and the team with the highest rate of participation will be declared ACLA eResource Champs and earn bragging rights.

Enjoy the Challenge!

The Members of EREC and Downloadables

Now that you’ve tackled a warm-up database question, let’s move on to downloadables.

We actually have several for you to choose from.  Feel free to take on one or all of them!  We’ll give you one tip: one of the questions will help you answer another question.  (CLP staff who participated in the CLP vs. FLP eResource Challenge: these will look familiar.)

Question 1: Complete the following tasks on our OverDrive site: Search for an available ebook or audiobook in your favorite genre or subject area. Then, check the title out, choosing a 7-day loan period. Tell us the title you checked out and which OverDrive formats we own it in (EPUB, KINDLE, MP3, etc.). Did you find a way to narrow your search to available items?

Question 2: A young woman stops by the desk and asks whether she can check out and download an OverDrive ebook for her Kindle while in the library. What do you tell her?

Question 3: As an alternative to the standard method for retrieving Kindle books (using a browser to check out and deliver the book to a Kindle via Wi-Fi), some patrons might opt to download the OverDrive Media Console (OMC) App to their Kindle Fire. Using the OverDrive Help pages, detail the steps required to download the OMC App to a Kindle Fire (an Android-based device). What might the advantages or disadvantages of using the OMC App on the Kindle Fire be?

Question 4: What steps can you suggest to a customer who receives an “Unable to acquire license” error when trying to open an OverDrive ebook?

Question 5: A patron calls the reference desk and asks if he needs a computer to download a book to his phone. What is your response?

As with the last warm-up, it is not a requirement to provide us with your answers, but feel free to post your responses in the comment section below.  Once the official Challenge begins the questions will include a link to follow to submit your response.

Stay tuned for information about your team assignment!

Eager to get started with the ACLA eResource Challenge?  We’ve developed some warm-up challenges to keep you busy while we put the teams together.  Today’s warm-up will cover databases.  Later this week we’ll switch our focus to downloadables.

For this warm-up we’ll be utilizing our history resources. You’ll find the scenario below.  For the official challenges we will also include a link that will take you step-by-step through answering the challenge.  For the warm-up, though, feel free to share any tips or observations in the comments below.

The question is just a guide. Use it as a starting point to explore the resources. Your responses can be brief, include bullet points, incomplete sentences, whatever is easiest for you.

The Scenario:
A patron calls the library and says, “I was listening to the radio the other day and they were discussing the countries in Europe after World War I. They were well into the discussion, and the program was almost over so I was only half paying attention to it. I could swear someone mentioned something like the ‘Pittsburgh Agreement,’ but that seems impossible. What would something called the ‘Pittsburgh Agreement’ have to do with Europe after WWI? Can you help me figure out if I heard correctly?

Search for information using World History in Context and/or U.S. History in Context.  What did you discover? How easy was it to find an answer? If you tried the search in both databases, which would you recommend, and why? Do you have any tips for making the search easier?

P.S. Don’t forget to sign up to follow the Virtual Lexicon blog (on the right).  That way you’ll get notification every time we post a new challenge.

[youtube=http://youtu.be/gjb3udp1738]

Done with Questyinz… now we have some questions for you! Think you know a lot about databases and e-books? Join other library staff countywide in this 6 week challenge (1 database question and 1 download content question per week) AND earn CE hours. You will be randomly assigned to a countywide team. The team with the highest rate of participation will earn bragging rights. Individual prizes will also be awarded based on participation.

The Allegheny County Library Association eResource Challenge will run from September 23 – October 31.

Sign up on the right to receive eResource Challenge updates and questions by email.

Register here by Sept. 15.

Brought to you by the EREC and ACLA Downloadables Committees

P.S. These are all new challenges, so CLP staff who participated in the CLP vs. FLP eResource Challenge should still register!