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Build Diverse Booklists with Novelist

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Happy Black History Month, everyone! 

If you haven’t noticed yet, Novelist has a new look that is: just like all the other Ebsco products! If you want a broad overview about the new Novelist experience, you can click here to learn more about it from Ebsco itself. 

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. 

-Mary, Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh 

Continue ReadingBuild Diverse Booklists with Novelist

Get the Word Out about Gale LegalForms

Finding reliable, relevant, and state-specific legal forms is super easy with Gale LegalForms. While we are able to recommend it to patrons when they ask for help, how can we get the word out when they don’t ask?!

Thankfully, Gale’s done the work for us! They have a selection of Marketing Materials to highlight this very useful resource.

Gale Support offers marketing materials to create bookmarks, blog posts, flyers, social media posts & more.

Screen shot of list of GaleLegalForms marketing materials.
This is just a sampling of what’s available!

Many of the products are customizable for your location where you can add your library’s logo, website, etc.

Screenshot of Gale LegalForm marketing poster with red arrows pointing to areas that are customizable.
Customize documents specific to your library!

You can print flyers or shelf talkers to display near your collection of legal titles or to post in high-traffic areas or near computer centers.

Find them all on Gale’s Marketing Materials site: https://support.gale.com/doc/gale-legalforms-one-sheet

Don’t let users think they have to pay for legal forms online. Make sure they know they can get reliable free resources from your library!

-Richelle, Sewickley Public Library

Continue ReadingGet the Word Out about Gale LegalForms

New Novelist user experience incoming!

Starting June 16, Novelist will transition to an updated user interface. The new design will furnish patrons with an improved experience while still providing library staff with the same in-depth richness we depend on for our work.

Please click here to read an overview of what this is going to look like, as well as learn more about what you can do to manage your own Novelist account ahead of the transition. 

One big change for staff that I’d like to highlight is how folders will be reconfigured. The folders function in Novelist is useful for managing book groups, outreach, lists, special projects, and so much more, so it’s important to make sure your folders and data are ready for the transition before the 16th. 

If you have books, lists, and articles saved to the “My Folders” option, that material should migrate automatically and be stored under the new title “My Dashboard.” 

However, if you have Search Alerts set up, those will not migrate, and you will have to re-create them in the new My Dashboard section. Take note of what Search Alerts you have and be ready to set those back up after the transition. 

Additionally, if you have any folders under the “My Custom” function, you will have to download that data and add it manually after the transition.  Have this done before June 15th, otherwise you may lose the data. 🙁

You can click here for detailed instructions on how to manage both Search Alerts and My Custom folders for the transition.

Novelist is also providing training sessions on June 17 from 2:00 PM – 2:45 PM, and on June 26 from 2:00 PM – 2:45 PM. If you can’t make either of those times, register anyway, and you’ll be sent a recording of the session to watch when your schedule allows.  

Click here to register for the June 17 session. 

Click here to register for the June 26 session. 

You can also take a look through the user guide for the New Novelist Experience below.

This is a lot! Let Mary P. know if you have any questions. Onward, Novelist!

-Mary Phillips – Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh

NoveList-NavigatingTheNewExperience-TutorialDownload
Continue ReadingNew Novelist user experience incoming!

Beyond Mango

We all know Mango Languages is fantastic. If you don’t, you can get up to speed here. But did you know about our other language learning tools? 

Let’s say you want to learn some Greek, so you head over to Pimsleur, a trusted name in quick and impactful language instruction for over 60 years. The Greek program alone is $19.95 a month! The Pimsleur method is effective, of course, but you’re going to be spending more than $20 getting the hang of the language. 

If you are set on Pimsleur, you can head over to Hoopla, where “each lesson provides 30 minutes of spoken language practice, with an introductory conversation, and new vocabulary and structures.”

In fact, Hoopla has a fantastic array of Pimsleur options, including English instruction for native speakers of a variety of other languages (English for Arabic speakers, English for Norwegian speakers, etc). 

You don’t have to limit yourself to Mr. Pimsleur, either! Hoopla has lots of options for audiobook language learning.

And it’s not just Hoopla. And it’s not just Greek! You can find similar content in our Libby collection. 

You can also head over to Udemy for language instruction!  

Whether you want to brush up on a new language in time for an upcoming vacation, or you have new neighbors who speak a language new to you, there are so many ways our eResources can support your language learning goals.  

-Mary, Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh 

Continue ReadingBeyond Mango