Oh what Fun!

There is a new to me link on GALILEO for Book Collection : Non-Fiction by Ebsco.

The description by GALILEO tells us that "Book Collection : Non-Fiction is a cross-curricular research database that contains abstracts and searchable full text for more than 3,800 popular nonfiction books for youth on core subject areas, as well as information on careers, health, sports, adventure, technology, life skills, and more. It provides content representing a wide spectrum of works, including popular series from top book publishers such as Allosaurus Publishers, Bess Press, Inc., Branden Publishing, Capstone Press, Compass Point Books, Fulcrum Publishing, Lerner Publishing Group, Mason Crest Publishers, Morgan Reynolds, Inc., Morning Glory Press, Oliver Press, Rourke Publishing, LLC and Stackpole Books. "

Notice it says youth but what does that mean?

You already know I think the basic Ebsco interface is boring and this is the basic Ebsco interface- you don't have to learn anything new.

Yet, there is a different link noted for Books (instead of Publications). What is very intriguing is there is an RSS feed link next to each title.

You could do the RSS feed to your aggregator and read a bit of the book each time you check your aggregator! It puts your reading where you'll see it most!

That is so helpful.

Hints on using the Book Collection- it is not NetLibrary.

Each book is broken into chapters or sections with the chapters or sections being treated as an article in the book.

Find the book you're interested in - the Book Link has them alphabetized by title. You can search by keyword or subject or author.

Click on the title- a bibliographic card appears- telling you about the book. On the right is an All Issues link that you click - similar to searching for a magazine title in the publication link in the other Ebsco products with a link to the issues.

Click on the year and the sections appear. I've noticed some books are more complete than others- you might get only one section of the book.

There is a dictionary link- not as handy as NetLibrary because you need to leave the book, go to Dictionary then do another search to find the book again. NetLibrary has the dictionary in the same screen as the book.

A compare and contrast with NetLibrary might leave the Book Collection wanting but it does have that RSS feed. That is very intriguing!

What is art?

Creativity is allowing yourself to make mistakes.
Art is knowing which ones to keep.
::: Scott Adams ::: Art Quotes


Arts of the United States is described by GALILEO as "a joint project between the Lamar Dodd Art School, University of Georgia and the University of Georgia and Yale University Libraries, contains over 4000 images of works important to the study of the history of art in the United States. The pieces, dating from the 17th century through the 20th, include architecture, decorative arts, painting, sculpture, graphic arts, photography, and stage and costume design as well as Native American art and artifacts. Although the majority of artists represented in the database are American, significant works created by non-native artists while in the United States are included."

Look and see what is thought of as art!

You know where to get the password for home use of this database.....

700th post

Who would have thought there would be 700 things to say about the View from the Library?

Yet, here we are with our 700th posting with something new about searching in the First Search databases.

There are 9 First Search products in the NMTC portion of GALILEO:
1. ArticleFirst (magazines/journals)
2. ClasePeriodica (CLASE and PERIÓDICA)
3. GPO Monthly Catalog (U.S. government publications)
4. MEDLINE (medical and health sciences) (at FirstSearch)
5. PapersFirst (conference papers)
6. ProceedingsFirst (conference proceedings)
7. World Almanacs Full text of multiple editions including The World Almanac for Kids.
8. WorldCat Catalog of books and other materials held by libraries worldwide.
9. WorldCat Dissertations and Theses Catalog of disserations and theses indexed within the WorldCat database

Most of us don't want to go from database to database which is why GALILEO created the Quick Search box that will search through multiple databases.

First Search offers something similar:

• Open up any of the First Search products
• Select the tab Databases
• Click on up to three (it will only do three at a time) databases
• Select
• Enter your search term(s)
• The results will be in a tab for each database allowing you to go from place to place within the First Search product you selected

That was our 700th post!

Ch - Ch - Ch - Changes

From GALILEO.....

On Friday, August 10th, the following databases will be replaced on GALILEO menus:

Academic Search Premier
Business Source Premier
Business Source Premier Enhanced
Health Source Consumer Edition
Revistas de comercio (Spanish interface to Business Source Premier) Revistas de Investigacion (Spanish interface to Academic Search Premier)
Salud: Informacion para los Consumidores (Spanish interface to Health Source Consumer Edition)

These databases are replaced by these new databases:

Academic Search Complete
Business Source Complete
Business Source Complete: Business Searching Interface Consumer Health Complete

GALILEO announcements and status updates are available at: http://www.usg.edu/galileo/status/

All Roads Lead to Rome

"All paths or activities lead to the center of things. This was literally true in the days of the Roman Empire, when all the empire’s roads radiated out from the capital city, Rome." from Bartleby.com

How many ways can you access your library resources? Are there multiple paths to the information you seek?

Electronic full text books for North Metro can be accessed through our card catalog, through GALILEO jump to NetLibrary, through NetLibrary direct and now through World Cat in GALILEO!

You may search World Cat for a title that meets your information needs. If it is an electronic book in our collection- a note that the title is Full Text and a link directly to the book will be evident.

Many links do lead to the resources of the library!


Your Georgia librarian can give you the current password to use GALILEO at home.

Self serve

Do you like to do it yourself?

At the GOLD/GALILEO conference last Friday, there was a presentation on customizing WorldCat.

One of the customizations allows the user (you) to request materials from other libraries.

As you search for a title, you see what you would like to read. Before this customization, you'd have to print out that record or write down the information and contact your librarian to order the book. With this direct link you send a request right from WorldCat.

The item(s) will be delivered to NMTC (if the owning library is willing to loan it- sometimes they aren’t- material might be too new or out or lost or so very rare that they don’t let it out of their sight but if they are willing and can loan it they will send it to us….) We'll contact you to let you know if it's coming and contact you again when it arrives.

You access NMTC's link to WorldCat through GALILEO. Each library can customize their view of World Cat- not everyone has opened the direct link to borrowing.

Keeping up

It feels like a tsunami of information is barrelling down upon us. How does one keep track of their favorites without clicking on each site, every day? Yes, some sites have an RSS feed but what if they don't? Yesterday I noted the Librarian in Black's suggestion of Feedity.

Today let me share sites suggested by another librarian in Georgia:

Change Notes and Page Change deliver results via email.

Page 2 RSS delivers results to your aggregator like Feedity

The school year begins and now is the time to utilize resources to make information gathering easier! Pick the resource that suits your style using either your e-mail or an aggregator.

Everybody wants to be a News Director

• Do you check several news sites to get the latest stories?
• Do you check several blogs to read what they have to say?
• Do you create a Google search for the same topic several times a week? ( you can create an RSS feed for a Google search!)
• Do you feel overwhelmed checking all these sites?

What can you do? Common Craft has created a video, RSS in Plain English that explains in simple language (with pictures) what RSS is and why it might be helpful. (I blogged about this in mid-May)

But some web sites don't have an RSS feeder......so now what?
Just go back and keep checking the site in case the author puts up something new? Who has that kind of time?

Feedity was mentioned by the Librarian In Black as a tool to create RSS feeds for web sites that don't have the little orange block!

MySpace doesn't allow RSS feeds (or I haven't figured out how to add one) but you can create a Feedity link and VOILA- automatic RSS feed- if the profile changes....you get a message at your Feed Reader.

Be your own publisher- gather news stories and information that you want from sites you'd normally go to anyway by creating a Feed Reader of your own.