Monthly Archives: November 2011
Lexile Scores in GALILEO
Lexiles are standard scores that match a student’s reading ability to the difficulty of the reading material. Many GALILEO resources not only include Lexile scores, they also let students limit their search results to a particular Lexile range. Let’s take a look at GALILEO resources that include Lexiles.
NoveList and NoveList K-8 include a Lexile score in the information for many books as well as a link to a Lexile chart. To limit your search to a specific Lexile range, just click on Advanced Search and choose your range. Tip: In Advanced Search, you can leave the search box blank and just choose the Lexile range of your choice to see all books in that range.
SIRS Discoverer and SIRS Issues Researcher both include a Lexile score in articles. In either database, search for the topic and then choose to sort results by Lexile. To limit to a particular range in either database, click on the Advanced Search and type in the Lexile range.
Many EBSCO resources, such as Student Research Center, MAS Ultra, Middle Search Plus, Kids Search, and Searchasaurus, also include Lexile scores. Most resources let students limit their search to a Lexile range from the main search screen. In Kids Search, students can choose the Detailed Search to limit their search.
See this handout for more information.
Please Contact Us if you have questions or comments or if you need to report problems.
Courtney McGough
GALILEO Support Services
Board of Regents of the University System of Georgia
Screenshot from Advanced Search in NoveList
Some links may not work off site. Log in to GALILEO first for access.
Express Links for Databases Mentioned in this Post:
NoveList: http://www.galileo.usg.edu/express?link=zknl
NoveList K-8: http://www.galileo.usg.edu/express?link=zkne
SIRS Discoverer: http://www.galileo.usg.edu/express?link=zssd
SIRS Issues Researcher: http://www.galileo.usg.edu/express?link=zsks
Student Research Center: http://www.galileo.usg.edu/express?link=zbst
MAS Ultra: http://www.galileo.usg.edu/express?link=zbma
Middle Search Plus: http://www.galileo.usg.edu/express?link=zbms
Kids Search: http://www.galileo.usg.edu/express?link=zbks
Searchasaurus for Middle: http://www.galileo.usg.edu/express?link=zpms
Searchasaurus for Primary/Elementary: http://www.galileo.usg.edu/express?link=zpps
Find All Your Express Links (what’s this?)
Salem Press Launches The Library Grants Center
Salem Press via kwout
Today, Salem Press launched The Library Grants Center, a free, online directory of grants for libraries. Developed and Edited by Mirela Roncevic for Salem Press, the grants tool empowers librarians to locate library grant funding sources on the national, state, regional and local levels (US sources). The center is free, requires no login or authentication, and will be updated on a regular basis. It also contains a how-to area with a tutorial, FAQ, and lists of resources.
According to the Salem press release, the web site focuses on grants available to all types of libraries and from a range of sources—public and private— including professional organizations, large corporations, and family foundations. “Everyone’s aware of the financial pressures on libraries. They are enormous and growing,” said Peter Tobey, Salem Press’s Director of Sales & Marketing. “So we were motivated to try to relieve some of that pressure by developing self-help tools for librarians. The Library Grant Center is that tool.”
The Library Grants Center consists of three distinct sections:
- National Library Grants features a sophisticated search tool that lets grant seekers perform simple keyword searches or narrow their search options. A range of browsing options is also provided, including browsing by grant category, purpose, and deadline.
- State Library Grants is a state-by-state guide that points librarians to grant information specific to their state and to the foundations in their area that support libraries.
- Library Grants How-To provides in-depth information on the grant applications process, complete with extensive lists of resources for further research and pointing to grant writing tools available online at no cost.
“We hope librarians will help us add to the Center so that, as a community, we can keep it up-to-date and growing,” added Tobey. “We are committed to keeping it current and useful.”
According to Roncevic, “the proliferation of social media outlets has inundated the library and publishing industry with relentless dialog. While dialog is important, we shouldn’t forget the tools. The more free tools we build and share, the more we grow our community’s footprint. The bigger that footprint, the greater the benefit for all involved. The Library Grants Center is a free tool that addresses the needs of librarians looking for funding but also a practical reminder to publishers and vendors that their support still matters a great deal.”
Holidays, Festivals, and Celebrations in GALILEO
Looking for resources to support Georgia Performance Standards related to holidays, celebrations, and festivals? GALILEO has several resources with articles and book chapters to help students learn about these.
For information on holidays and festivals from all over the planet, Book Collection: Nonfiction offers book chapters for all grade levels, and History Reference Center includes articles for grades 5-12. From feasts and fiestas in Mexico to the Chinese New Year and from the history of Thanksgiving to May Day, students can find book chapters about the customs of a wide range of cultures.
Encyclopædia Britannica School Edition includes great background information on festivals and holidays around the world with articles about the origin of holidays current holidays celebrated in the United States and other countries.
Students can also search SIRS Discoverer (elementary and middle school) or SIRS Issues Researcher (high school) for a particular holiday or festival. The Spotlight feature in each of these resources also includes a spotlight on winter holidays as well as other celebrations. To see the Spotlights in SIRS Discoverer, just click on the Spotlight of the Month at the bottom of the screen. In SIRS Issues Researcher, click the Database Features tab at the top and then choose Spotlight On… to see the spotlights.
Kids Search (elementary) and Student Research Center (middle and high) provide articles from newspapers, magazines, and encyclopedias as well as primary source documents and multimedia related to many aspects of celebrations. Search for a particular holiday or search for holidays in Kids Search or holidays in Student Research Center to see the breadth of what’s included.
Finally, for a peek at how Georgians have celebrated holidays and other special days over the years, check out the Digital Library of Georgia.
As always, if you have questions or comments, please Contact Us.
Courtney McGough
GALILEO Support Services
Board of Regents of the University System of Georgia
Some links may not work off site. Log in to GALILEO first for access.
Express Links for Databases Mentioned in this Post:
Book Collection: Nonfiction: http://www.galileo.usg.edu/express?link=zbnf
History Reference Center: http://www.galileo.usg.edu/express?link=zbhr
Encyclopædia Britannica School Edition: http://www.galileo.usg.edu/express?link=zebs
SIRS Discoverer: http://www.galileo.usg.edu/express?link=zssd
SIRS Issues Researcher: http://www.galileo.usg.edu/express?link=zsks
Kids Search: http://www.galileo.usg.edu/express?link=zbks
Student Research Center: http://www.galileo.usg.edu/express?link=zbst
Digital Library of Georgia: http://www.galileo.usg.edu/express?link=dlg1
The Kid Should See This
All the kids should, actually. All the kids from 9 months to 99. It’s just a blog collecting cool videos from around the interwebz, but it’s done better than most. When I came across it a couple of months ago it was one of those head-smacking moments. The blogger, Rion Nakaya, is doing what I should have done. I’m forever coming across funny, interesting and mind-blowing little videos online and sharing them with my daughter. Never thought to put them all into a blog to share with everyone. We’d actually seen many of the ones on the blog at first, but now she keeps on digging up fantastic stuff and it’s just an amazing resource of wonder.
Jason Kottke wrote, ”With obvious exceptions, media ‘made for kids’ is mindnumbingly dumb. Youtube, Flickr, and Vimeo are amazing resources of not-made-for-kids but totally-appropriate-for-kids-stuff like what Rion is posting here.”
She answered, ”This is the exact reason that I started this blog. So far, my guidelines have been that my kid(s) watch stuff that should also educate/entertain me, and that what I post here must be approved by my kid(s). My 3 year old co-creator has been a big help.”
Using the aforementioned youtube, Vimeo and other sources like Science Friday and TED talks, she is continuing to ”curate” videos about music, art, science, human tricks, robots and all manner of delightful things. Flying planets, exploding experiments, Jerry Lewis, Ella Fitzgerald, Legos, insects flying, robots flying, ”the greatest dance number ever filmed,” and more.
I have shared it with my art teacher, science lab teacher, music teacher and the other staff members and it’s becoming a favorite resource for us all.
As soon as you finish reading this post, do check it out. But make sure you don’t mind leaving a little vacuuming and laundry undone, because a couple of hours will go by before you know it. Amazing, wonderful, delightful hours.
Enjoy!
Jim Randolph
Partee Elementary
Snellville, GA
Free Webinars: Carterette Series Webinars for November 2011
The Georgia Library Association is pleased to announce the November 2011 session of the Carterette Series Webinars (http://gla.georgialibraries.org/mediawiki/index.php/Carterette_Series_Webinars).
As of the upcoming session, the Carterette Series Webinars will be expanding in scope to include notable national speakers in addition to homegrown Georgia talent. As always, the series will continue to highlight trends, innovation, and best practices in libraries. Registration remains free and open to anyone, anywhere. Topics are chosen to be of interest to employees of all library types and each session is approved for one Georgia Continuing Education (CE) contact hour.
Can’t make it to the live show? That’s okay! The sessions will be recorded and available on the CSW site for later viewing. (http://gla.georgialibraries.org/mediawiki/index.php/Carterette_Series_Webinars)
Google+
Presented by Michael Sauers
Wednesday, November 16, 2011
3:15 p.m. – 4:15 p.m. EASTERN STANDARD TIME
In this session Michael Sauers, the Nebraska Library Commission’s Technology Innovation Librarian, takes you on a tour of Google+, Google’s latest attempt at creating a social network. At only a few months old it already has more than 50 million users and was designed with privacy in mind from the beginning. Is Google+ a Facebook killer? Is it something you should be paying attention to? Should your library be there? Michael will give his answers to these questions and more.
Michael Sauers is currently the Technology Innovation Librarian for the Nebraska Library Commission in Lincoln, Nebraska and has been training librarians in technology for more than 15 years. He has also been a public library trustee, a bookstore manager for a library friends group, a reference librarian, serials cataloger, technology consultant, and bookseller. He earned his MLS in 1995 from the University at Albany’s School of Information Science and Policy. Michael’s tenth book, Blogging & RSS: A Librarian’s Guide, Second Edition was published in October 2010. He has also written dozens of articles for various journals and magazines. In his spare time he blogs at http://travelinlibrarian.info, runs Web sites for authors and historical societies, is past-chair of the Nebraska Library Association’s Information Technology and Access Round Table, takes many, many photos, and reads more than 100 books per year.
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Please contact a member of the Carterette Series Planning Team with questions or suggestions.
Karen Viars: karen.viars@gpc.edu
Tessa Minchew: tessa.minchew@gpc.edu
Sarah Steiner: ssteiner@gsu.edu
