LISNews: Librarian News

Social Work Reference Center is a new evidence-based point-of-care resource available from EBSCO. It is geared for a wide-range of health professionals and is designed to provide the most current evidence for patient care.

EBSCO Releases Social Work Reference Center™ Bringing Evidence-Based Information to Social Workers
~ Latest Evidence-Based Information for Clinical Practice,
Education and Research at the Point-of-Care ~

IPSWICH, Mass. / BIRMINGHAM, Ala. — May 2, 2013 — Social Work Reference Center™ (SWRC), a resource designed specifically for clinical practice, education and research, is the latest addition to the point-of-care product line from EBSCO. Social Work Reference Center is a comprehensive reference tool that provides evidence-based information to social workers and other mental health professionals directly at the point-of-care.

Designed to increase the speed and accuracy of decisions and provide the most current evidence for patient care, Social Work Reference Center, will appeal to hospital and healthcare providers, corporate provider networks, religious and nonprofit organizations, government agencies, school agencies and institutions that provide social services education programs.

Social Work Reference Center provides the latest evidence-based information through a variety of content types including evidence-based care sheets, quick lessons and skill competency checklists. The resource also includes clinical assessment tools, practice guidelines, drug information, continuing education modules and patient education information.

The evidence-based information provided by Social Work Reference Center stems from a seven-step evidence-based methodology to systematically identify and critically appraise all clinical content. Literature surveillance occurs daily and topics are updated as evidence changes.

For more information about Social Work Reference Center and EBSCO’s other point-of-care resources please go to: http://www.ebscohost.com/pointOfCare/point-of-care-resources.

About EBSCO
EBSCO is the leading provider of resources for libraries including EBSCONET®, EBSCO’s total e-resource management system, and EBSCOhost®, the world's premier for-fee online research service, including full-text databases, subject indexes, point-of-care medical reference, historical digital archives and e-books. EBSCO serves the content needs of all medical professionals (doctors, nurses, medical librarians, social workers, hospital administrators, etc.). The company’s product lines include proprietary databases such as CINAHL®, DynaMed™, Nursing Reference Center™, Patient Education Reference Center™, Rehabilitation Reference Center™, Rehabilitation & Sports Medicine Source™ and SocINDEX™ as well as dozens of leading licensed databases such as MEDLINE®, PsycARTICLES® and PsycINFO®. Databases are powered by EBSCOhost®, the most-used for-fee electronic resource in libraries around the world. For more information, visit the EBSCO Web site at: www.ebsco.com. EBSCO is a division of EBSCO Industries Inc., one of the largest privately held companies in the United States.

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For more information, please contact:
Kathleen McEvoy
Public Relations Director
(800) 653-2726 ext. 2594
kmcevoy@ebsco.com

North Bethesda, MD, May 1, 2013- The La Veta Public Library, located in La Veta, Colorado and a member of the Colorado Library Consortium (CLiC), is now live in the AspenCat LibLime Koha Union Catalog for all collection and patron management services.

The La Veta Public Library staff worked with LibLime Project Managers to migrate bibliographic, item, and patron data from their legacy ILS system. With the addition of the La Veta Public Library to CLiC, there are now over 627,000 items and over 368,000 bibliographic records in the CLiC LibLime Koha Union Catalog.

About the La Veta Public Library
La Veta Public Library District’s goal is to assemble and organize services, collections of materials, and other resources to meet the information needs and interests of the people it serves and to provide free access to diverse ideas in a variety of formats. In its efforts to fulfill the mission statement, the La Veta Public Library hosts various events for the La Veta community every month including: yoga, adult and teen programs, and Brown Bag Books, a series of book discussions held over lunch. The library has been serving their community since it was first started in 1974.

About the Pioneer Consortium
CLiC, headquartered in Centennial, Colorado, serves over 400 libraries throughout the state. 35 of these libraries are part of the AspenCat LibLime Koha Union Catalog. Currently the database includes over 627,000 items. Resource sharing is one of the key components of the system with libraries requesting over 1,200 items from each other every month. Requests are growing as more patrons discover how easy it is to request an item not held at his or her home library. CLiC is committed to maintaining AspenCat as a fully featured, patron-focused system. In partnership with the Colorado State Library, they have added links to external databases using EzProxy, Plinket-hosted website access, and SWIFT interconnectivity. They are also currently offering a cooperative purchase for downloadable audio books from Recorded Books, and ebooks from the 3M Library Cloud system. For more information, please contact Shannon O'Grady at 303-422-1150 or SOGrady@clicweb.org.

About LibLime - PTFS
LibLime – PTFS is the global leader in providing support for the Koha open source ILS. Rather than sell software licenses for static, hard-to-customize software products, the PTFS LibLime Division educates libraries about the benefits of open source, enabling them to make choices about how best to provide their communities and staff with better technology services. The PTFS LibLime Division then facilitates deployment of Koha in libraries by providing outstanding consulting, development, implementation, and support/hosting for libraries of all types and sizes. PTFS is also the developer of the world’s leading content management software, ArchivalWare, and specializes in meeting library personnel staffing requirements, digitization, and metadata keying services. For more information, see http://liblime.com or http://ptfs.com or http://archivalware.net.

4/30/2013
CONTACT:
Nathan Curulla
(888) 900-8944
sales@bywatersolutions.com

Griffin Free Public Library Chooses ByWater Solutions’ Koha Support

ByWater Solutions, an open source community supporter and the U.S.’ forefront provider of Koha support, announced today that Griffin Free Public Library in New Hampshire is now live on their installation of the Koha integrated library system.

ByWater Solutions completed the migration for the Griffin Free Public Library at the end of February and will be providing ongoing Koha support and hosting services for their nearly 20,000 items and 2,000 patrons.

Ricky Sirois, Director at the Griffin Free Public Library spoke about the library’s decision to migrate to an open source ILS:

“I was particularly pleased with ByWater Solutions’ responsiveness to our needs throughout the transition. The training was a particular highlight for us, as it met our small library’s particular areas of concern while remaining within our budget. I am excited about joining the Koha community and the open source movement. The community and ByWater will provide our library with constant improvements and support from a worldwide network of users. Along with all of that our patrons have online access to their accounts for the first time in our history.”

“Bringing on new partners is always exciting for us at ByWater,” started CEO, Brendan Gallagher, “but it’s especially pleasing when we can offer services to libraries like Griffin Free who were previously unable to offer cutting edge automation services to their patrons within their budget. We look forward to working with Ricky and Griffin Free Public Library on continuing the services offered by Koha.”

About Griffin Free Public Library:

Griffin Free Public Library in Auburn, New Hampshire, offers a variety of resources and services to library patrons. The library offers access to nearly 20,000 items and serves nearly 2,000 patrons. For more information about Griffin Free Public Library, please visit: http://griffinfree.com

About Koha:

Koha is the first open-source Integrated Library System (ILS). In use worldwide, its development is steered by a growing community of libraries collaborating to achieve their technology goals. Koha’s impressive feature set continues to evolve and expand to meet the needs of its user base. It includes modules for circulation, cataloging, acquisitions, serials, reserves, patron management, branch relationships, and more.

Koha’s OPAC, circulation, management and self-checkout interfaces are all based on standards-compliant World Wide Web technologies–XHTML, CSS and Javascript–making Koha a truly platform-independent solution. Koha is distributed under the open-source General Public License (GPL). For more information about Koha, please visit: http://koha-community.org/

About ByWater Solutions:

ByWater Solutions is a full service, high quality support and implementation company dedicated to providing libraries with a lower cost, more advanced level of support for their ILS than a traditional proprietary solution can offer. ByWater Solutions has a proven track record in first rate Koha implementation and support with library systems of all sizes. Our highly ranked, comprehensive support is what sets our company apart from any other vendor in the industry. Partnering with ByWater Solutions to support Koha not only lowers the cost of implementing and maintaining an ILS, but more importantly empowers libraries by giving them the flexibility and freedom they deserve. For more information please visit: http://bywatersolutions.com/

North Bethesda, MD, April 29, 2013- The Lester Public Library of Arpin, located in Arpin, WI, has joined the South Central Library System (SCLS) LibLime Koha union catalog for all collection and patron management services.

The Lester Public Library staff worked with LibLime Project Managers to migrate bibliographic, item, and patron data from their legacy ILS system. With the addition of the Lester Public Library to the South Central Library System, there are now over 836,200 bibliographic records and nearly 3.2 million items in the entire SCLS catalog.

About the Lester Public Library
Located in the village of Arpin, WI, the Lester Public Library provides a variety of children, teenager, and adult programming. The Lester Public Library offers plenty of services ranging from reference and community information to a summer library program for children and teenagers of all ages.

About the South Central Library System
The South Central Library System strives to help its member libraries provide the best possible service to the public. SCLS maintains a 42-member LibLime Koha union catalog with over 835,000 bibliographic records, more than 2.3 million item records, and three circulation transactions per second during peak production. SCLS enables and promotes research sharing among its member libraries by providing access to shared digital content, contracts for library resources, cooperative management services, circulation/interlibrary loan services, technology service, and a world-class delivery service.

About LibLime - PTFS
LibLime – PTFS is the global leader in providing support for the Koha open source ILS. Rather than sell software licenses for static, hard-to-customize software products, the PTFS LibLime Division educates libraries about the benefits of open source, enabling them to make choices about how best to provide their communities and staff with better technology services. The PTFS LibLime Division then facilitates deployment of Koha in libraries by providing outstanding consulting, development, implementation, and support/hosting for libraries of all types and sizes. PTFS is also the developer of the world’s leading content management software, ArchivalWare, and specializes in meeting library personnel staffing requirements, digitization, and metadata keying services. For more information, see http://liblime.com or http://ptfs.com or http://archivalware.net.

First Resource Focused on Younger Audiences Joins National Geographic Virtual Library

Farmington Hills, Mich., April 23, 2013 — Gale, part of Cengage Learning and a leading publisher of research and reference resources for libraries, schools and businesses, today announced the launch of National Geographic Kids, the fourth resource in the National Geographic Virtual Library product line. This new resource contains material appropriate for younger audiences, and boasts unique content that is not duplicated in other available National Geographic Virtual Library products.

“National Geographic magazine is loved and recognized by all audiences and ages, even though the content is often more accessible for advanced learners,” said Frank Menchaca, senior vice president, global product management, research, school & professional, Cengage Learning. “With the launch of National Geographic Kids, we’re able to offer content and navigation that is age appropriate and is supportive of curriculum and learning standards adopted by many states nationwide.”

National Geographic Kids includes the complete issues of National Geographic Kids magazine from 2009-present, 500 downloadable images, and 200 National Geographic Kids books, including reference books as well as nonfiction books on history, biography, science and technology and the National Geographic Readers, which cover wildlife, pets, nature and other topics. The interface also contains user-friendly design elements, which makes finding content more intuitive for younger audiences. National Geographic Kids is also accessible via the National Geographic Virtual Library interface, allowing for easy access and reference with the other resources in the product line.

The content in National Geographic Kids supports the Common Core State Standards (CCSS). The books included in National Geographic Kids provide elementary and middle school students with opportunities to practice the foundational reading skills required to achieve fluency and comprehension. The CCSS also encourage students to gain an understanding of other cultures, and the National Geographic series Countries of the World and Holidays Around the World assist with that. National Geographic Kids also offers students an opportunity to engage with complex text – the English Language Arts CCSS emphasize the need to provide all students with consistent opportunities to confront and comprehend grade?level complex text. In addition, National Geographic Kids provides high-quality informational texts suitable for primary, upper elementary and middle school English language arts, social studies and science classrooms.

“We’re excited to have this content digital and searchable for students to help support them in their learning endeavors,” said Julie Agnone, vice president, editorial operations, National Geographic Kids Publishing and Media. “Additionally, we’re interested to see how teachers, including students working toward their teaching certification, use National Geographic Kids with their curriculum development.”

Customers have the option to purchase or subscribe to National Geographic Kids as a stand-alone product or coupled with the full National Geographic Virtual Library line. For more information on National Geographic Virtual Library or to request a trial, please visit http://www.gale.cengage.com/ngvl/ or contact Kristina Massari at kristina.massari@cengage.com.

About Cengage Learning and Gale
Cengage Learning is a leading educational content, software and services company, empowering educators and driving learner engagement through personalized services and course-driven digital solutions that bridge from the library to the classroom. Gale, part of Cengage Learning, serves the world's information and education needs through its vast and dynamic content pools, which are used by students and consumers in their libraries, schools and on the Internet. It is best known for the accuracy, breadth and convenience of its data, addressing all types of information needs – from homework help to health questions to business profiles – in a variety of formats. For more information, visit www.cengage.com or www.gale.cengage.com.

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