Wednesday, December 10, 2008

The Many Features of World Book Advanced


World Book advanced, is tailored for the needs and skills of students in grades 8 and up, World Book Advanced integrates primary and secondary source databases in a single search. Resources include encyclopedia content, e-books, images and sounds, research tools, and a vast collection of primary source documents highlighting the accomplishments of the greatest minds throughout history.
World Book Advanced contains a wealth of fully integrated primary source material, including documents, lesson plans that utilize primary sources for classroom assignments, noteworthy speeches in United States History, more than 1,000 Supreme Court landmark cases, documents illustrating the campaigns of all major political parties for every presidential election year from 1840 through 2004, and the writings of important authors. World Book Advanced offers individual accounts for users to save their research, and an area for creating and saving timelines, citations, and pathfinders. The Citation Builder will give you examples of how to site various works in either MLA or APA styles. Go to World Book Advanced for all your Middle and High school research.

Need Answers? Try Power Search Plus!

Need Answers to indepth research queries? Try Gale's Power Search Plus. Power Search Plus is a type of federated search engine, but more of a discovery tool. What it really does is cross search particular databases (that we have chosen from other databases that we subscripe to) which are NOT Gale products, and then cluster your results by subject and by relevancy.



When you reach our Databases & Websites home page and search in the regular Power Search Box, you will be taken to a page in Gale with results and tabs across the top of the page. Each tab contains particular information in different formats as you will see. The last tab says "MORE RESULTS". If you click on this tab you will actually be going into the Power Search Plus mode, which might take a few minutes, but you will be pulling lots more results from 15 other databases outside of the Gale family. The list of "other" databases will be visable for a few seconds while the results are being gathered. These results from your search, can then be viewed, printed, e-mailed and even posted to a del.icio.us account, if you have one. Power Search Plus returns more information, which will be based and ranked on how relevant it is to your original search. When you get time look for yourself, and get a feel for this new search engine, which gathers vast information from many many sources. http://www.gale.cengage.com/powersearch/plus/index.htm

Proquest Newspapers Content Update


ProQuest is pleased to announce additional years of coverage have been added to several ProQuest Historical Newspaper titles.

The new dates of coverage are listed below:
Atlanta Constitution: 1868-1942
Boston Globe: 1872-1925
Christian Science Monitor: 1908-1995
The New York Times: 1851-2005
Washington Post: 1877-1992
Wall Street Journal: 1889-1991


If you enjoy ProQuest Historical Newspapers and find them helpful, check out these fun new tools that will aid you and your customers to get the most out of our subscription.

Retroview eNewsletter: an entertaining look into ProQuest Historical Newspapers

Facebook, ProQuest Historical Newspapers, The Guardian group: share research and fun finds from The Guardian and The Observer

Thursday, December 4, 2008

Getting the Most Out of Google


With the holidays coming fast upon us, wouldn't it be nice to track all of our packages from one place?

You can track packages by typing the tracking number for your UPS, Fedex or USPS package directly into the Google search box. They’ll return results that include quick links to easily track the status of your shipment.

Tuesday, November 18, 2008

Science Online adds new Features



Science Online has added three new feature to their site. First is the Today's Science Feature. When you visit the page you will find the new Today's Science feature box highlighting four articles on hot topics and recent discoveries and events in science. New articles will be added regularly to the feature box. Mouse over the article titles to see brief descriptions of and photos from the articles or click the article title or "More" link to read the complete article. Article contents menus appear at the top of each record. Today's Science articles also appear under the All and News Articles search results tabs. This month's featured content includes:
Water-Splitting to Store Solar Energy: Learn about the challenges of storing solar power efficiently and cheaply.
Insect Altruism-More Than a Family Matter?: Read E.O. Wilson's observations about insects such as worker bees, group selection, and evolution.
Explosion of Luck: Scientists Observe the Birth of a Supernova: Find out how scientists discovered the X-ray pattern that signals the birth of a supernova.
Mars Wet-Chemistry: Phoenix Finds Ice: Explore the question "Could life have existed on Mars?"


Next, more than 125 new videos on topics such as electricity and magnetism, genetics, and botany have been added to Science Online . The videos are clear, short, and easy-to-follow. They provide educators with a great way to engage users who learn more effectively by watching and listening as scientific concepts are demonstrated, instead of focusing purely on reading assignments. The video records include links to related content, such as other videos, experiments, diagrams, essays, terms, and more. Libraries and educators can link to the records on their subject and homework Web pages using the "record URLs" provided at the bottom of each page. Examples of new videos include:
Cellular Death: The Genetics of Mortality
Science of Ice and Snow: How Do You Photograph a Snowflake?
How Trees Get Water and Nutrients.


Lastly, Science Online has added more than 100 essays on a variety of topics, including core topics in chemistry and Earth science as well as hot topics such as renewable resources and climate change, which are new with this update. Essays exploring the environment and the fragility of our planet link science to current events and provide a helpful starting point not only to environmental science educators but also to those studying current events and participating in this year's National High School Debate on alternative energy incentives. Other essays on topics such as the quantum model cover essential content required by the science curriculum and incorporate helpful illustrations within the essays. Examples of new essays include:
Power from renewable resources
Effects of global warming on the polar regions
Mass extinctions and catastrophes.


Take a few moments to check out these new features.

Monday, November 3, 2008

Getting the Most Out of Google

To find a current stock quote or additional market data for a given company or fund, type the ticker symbol into the search box. On the results page, you can click the link to see more data from Google Finance, or other finance Web sites listed.



If you don't know the stock ticker symbol, you can go directly to Google Finance for detailed stock market and investing information.
 
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