Tutor.com to Offer Services for Job Hunt

This article appeared in Library Journal on 4/1/2009:

As the economic downturn persists and layoffs continue nationwide, patrons are flocking to their local libraries, seeking help with the job search. To serve those needs, Tutor.com will go beyond its traditional role of serving mostly high school and college students by debuting Adult Learning Center.
According to the company, the service, scheduled for release in summer 2009, will include one-on-one tutoring with patrons to help them come up with "résumé strategies" and write cover letters. There will also be a proofreading component called ProofPoint, modeled after an existing Tutor.com service offered to high school students, as well as a SkillsCenter Resource Library to help users identify "vetted resources that provide résumé guidelines, job search guidance, and networking tips including how to use online resources and social media."

Mango Languages Has a New Look

If you have not noticed already Mango Languages has changed the look of their page. It has been customized for our library and it makes it very clear what languages are offered. Each language has a blurb about the country as well as a picture of their country flag. The orange/yellow dot indicates that there are 100 lessons for that language.
Also remember the really great feature of the translator. This is very helpful when trying to translate a word from one language to another.

New Features and Content for Science Online

Science Online has recently added new features and content to their database. These updates includes many exciting new features that make Science Online even more accessible and user-friendly for students and researchers. Check out their useful new "Did You Mean...?" feature and other search enhancements. The new easy-to-use conversion calculator, the handy new site map, more than 150 new or newly colored illustrations, and more than 500 new entries on a variety of topics, from artificial intelligence and robotics to hot issues such as climate change will help in all areas of science and nature.

Science Online has been enhanced with several powerful search features that help users navigate the extensive range of material in the database. For example their new "Did You Mean...?" feature suggests another search term ("did you mean...?") when a user's search does not yield results. In addition, users are now able to sort the search results for news articles and Today's Science articles by either relevancy or date from the Science in the News page or the Advanced Search page. Search results for videos can now be filtered for those with closed-captioning only. The new site map easily accessible at the top of the page offers quick navigation to the key browse pages in the database, and the Science Standards link--which allows users to search for science education standards and then find entries in Science Online related to those standards.

Click here to enter Science Online and view these new features.

MP3 Titles from Overdrive now Easy to Find

Want to find only iPod compatible titles from Overdrive. Now you can! Take a look at the ebooks and Audiobooks page off our Databases and Websites page and you will see this icon:

All the titles that are MP3 compatible have all been grouped together under one umbrella and when you click on this link you will be able to see all 96 titles that we currently have access to. More titles will be added in the future so look for them. Each title has a graphical list of compatible devices to make it easy to determine if you have the right device to download that titles. Happy Reading, or Listening as the case may be!

Gale Ready Reference Shelf - Cancelled

The Gale Ready Reference Shelf, electronic product has been removed from our Databases and Websites page. Gale's Ready Reference Shelf , as you may or may not know, is an amalgam of classic Gale print directories such as Encyclopedia of Associations, Directories in Print, Directory of Publications and Broadcast Media, etc. in database form. The interface for the product was clunky at best (its been around for ages) but Ready Reference is still highly valued by reference librarians around the country, and perhaps that is the problem. It was not particularly patron friendly and customers had a hard time using it. As a result we have opted to cancel the electronic product and only retain 4 of the basic titles in print. Those titles are :
Encyclopedia of Associations - National
Encyclopedia of Associations - International
Encyclopedia of Associations - Regional, State, and Local
Gale Directory of Publications and Broadcast Media