Lesson 6 Challenge

The latest selection for the North East Senior Center Book Group is Sara Gruen’s Water for Elephants, so I used this book for this challenge.

For appeal factors, I selected Books to Movies, Romantic, and Love Triangles.

This gave me a list of 12 titles with these factors. I like that I’m able to further refine the search with the optional filters on the left.

I don’t usually like historical fiction, but I think I might try Corelli’s Mandolin, by Louis DeBernieres. I like how you get further recommendations when you select a book, listed there on the right.

I can see this being useful for that bookaholic patron who has read all your suggestions and wants something new!

 

Exercise 5: LearningExpress Library

Since I have children in middle school, I thought I would review some middle school math on LearningExpress.

I know it’s been a while, but I don’t remember math being this difficult! 🙂 I’ll admit, I had to look up how to multiply fractions…

There is so much info in this database, I was very grateful for the Video Guides that cover how to do just about everything.

Looks like I could use some more practice with math…

 

Lesson 4: Databases – EBSCO

In regular, day-to-day work, I rarely use the databases, but it’s good to know how to use them, for when you get that student who needs sources but you have no books on the shelf for his chosen subject.

I love that we can access Consumer Reports thru our databases! It’s one of the titles that seems to walk out, so it’s good to have several years worth of articles available. I especially like that the articles are available in PDF – it’s just like making a copy of the actual magazine page.

The June 2014 issue alone has 36 articles on subjects ranging from food processors, humidifiers, insect repellent, and ice cream.

May 2001 lists 29 articles. I’m not sure how useful 15 year old reviews are, but there is a wonderfully thorough article on summer flowering shrubs that is still useful for home gardeners.

Volume 80, issue 9 – or September 2015 – has 26 articles. It includes several articles on customer service, which may be worth reading thru.

Lesson 9, part 2

Zinio doesn’t have a ton of magazines available, but I was surprised at some of the popular titles that are available. Martha Stewart Living, Runner’s World, Shape – these are all titles I would subscribe to, if they didn’t cost so much and if I had time to read one before the next arrived. But with the app on my phone, I can read it while waiting for the kids or standing in line at HEB. And I don’t have to worry about cost, I’ve got my library card!

It’s easy to find titles, both because there aren’t many and also with the filter at the top of the page. Scroll to the bottom of any page and you’ll find that you can use the Zinio app on iPhone, iPad, Android, Win 8, Mac, PC, and Kindle Fire/HD/HDX devices. That covers just about everyone, right?

Lesson 9, part 1

My device is a Samsung Galaxy S4 phone. It’s an Android device and I already had the Hoopla app on it.

Three titles in the Top Titles section are: Throw Out Fifty Things by Gail Blanke, Don’t Let the Pigeon Stay Up Late! by Mo Willems, and One Hundred Years of Solitude, by Gabriel Garcia Marquez. (I think I might check out that first title.)

Services like Hoopla are changing libraries in countless ways. Digital services expand our user base, increase our materials (without having to increase physical spaces!), challenge staff to keep their skills up to date, and essentially, they keep the public library relevant.

People may not have time to visit the library in person, but lots of people have smart phones or tablets with them at all times. Services like Hoopla make it really easy to listen to music and audiobooks on a device that you already carry with you everywhere you go.

Lesson 8, Part 2

Electronic Audiobooks are not something I use often, because I prefer audio books in the car and it’s just too many cords to plug the phone or tablet into the AUX outlet to hear it thru the car speakers. I do occasionally download an eAudio to listen to while I crochet, but the few that I have done on my phone concern me with how much data there is to download. Since Hoopla offers streaming, I may give that service a shot.

Searching for eAudios was fairly easy – but I may have cheated. Since I didn’t have a particular title in mind, I simply used a filter to show me just the eAudios for each service.

Hoopla had a lot of scrolling, but I like how it put Popular and Recently Added at the top of the page. Being October, there were terror, paranormal, and mystery titles right at the top.

I sure missed those categories in OneClick! Filtering just by format (eAudio) gave me a mix of juvenile, ya, and adult fiction and non fiction. Fine for browsing, but I’d have to add more filters to find something I’d want to download.

Overdrive is of course, the familiar favorite. I like that it has the headphone icon on each title, just in case you forget you’re looking at audios. It doesn’t seem as much of a jumble of results, since I didn’t see any juvenile titles in the first screen. I also like how it had read-alike titles for popular releases. Built in readers advisory is always helpful!

Lesson 8, part 1: Overdrive!

It feels I’m having to explain Overdrive to patrons less and less these days. I’d like to think it’s because it’s getting easier to use!

I use Overdrive on my Kindle, for ebooks and eaudiobooks. Although I have it on my phone, I find the screen too small to read comfortably. I usually have a couple of the free Project Gutenburg books on the app, so that I always have something to read.

For this lesson, I looked up Revenge of the Witch and Grain Brain. I’ve seen Grain Brain coming in router often, going to have to remember to offer it in the electronic version!

Revenge of the Witch is available in two formats, OverDrive Read and Adobe EPUB eBook. There are two copies and both are available. Grain Brain is available in three formats: Kindle Book, OverDrive Read, and Adobe EPUB eBook. There are fourteen copies, with six available.

I like that OverDrive recommends other similar titles. I can see this being very helpful, should a patron find their title unavailable, kind of a built in Readers Advisory.

 

Hobbies and Crafts Reference Center

As a crochet enthusiast, I was so excited to see the Hobbies and Crafts Reference Center added to our database collection. Full text PDF scans of entire crochet books by Margaret Huber, Kim Werker and Edie Eckman? Yes, please! Not to mention patterns and articles from Interweave Crochet and other mags, this database is a treasure just waiting to be explored.

I also found articles on crochet in the Health Reference Center, covering crochet as therapy and crochet projects for patients. There were also plenty of images of high fashion crochet, granny square projects, and people holding yarn and hook in EBSCOHost’s Image Collection.

These would all make great sources for a student doing a research project and goes to show the range of coverage offered by our database collection.