TGIF Tips – 12/12/08, Issue 9
December 17, 2008 by Traci Filed under Tips and Tricks
As many of you know, Ask a Librarian is funded as part of the Florida Electronic Library (FEL). Both Ask a Librarian and the Florida Electronic Library share a common goal of providing reference and information services to residents of Florida. Through the FEL, Florida patrons have access to a number of electronic resources, including magazine & newspaper articles, almanacs, encyclopedias, books, and more – just by having a public library card. What does this mean to you? This means that you can visit the Florida Electronic Library Website and enter the patron’s card number from any public library in Florida to gain instant access to a number of electronic resources, including several Gale databases. Knowing that you & your patrons (as Florida residents) have access to these resources is essential, and will prove especially helpful in assisting those patrons whose access to proprietary databases is otherwise limited.
To give you a brief idea of the information available, a few non-subscription-based FEL resources are noted below. However, there are many more where these came from, so please visit the Florida Electronic Library Website to familiarize yourself with the wealth of information at your fingertips. Also, you can view a complete list of FEL’s licensed databases here.
Homework Resources at the FEL (non-proprietary)
Florida Facts for Kids
This portion of Florida’s Division of Historical Resources web site offers age-appropriate information on Florida – a great homework helper.
PALMM Literature for Children
Search and browse more than 2,600 digitized children’s books from Florida universities. This open-web resource includes books from the 17th through the 20th centuries.
SUNLINK
SUNLINK is Florida’s electronic catalog of K-12 public school media center holdings. Freely accessible on the open Web, SUNLINK promotes the sharing of resources among Florida’s public schools by providing availability information on items and by using an established interlibrary loan process for use by teachers and students. You can search for materials that correlate with your patron’s specific Reading Program (such as Accelerated Reader or Reading Counts), Interest Level (such as K-3), and Lexile range.
Florida Resources at the FEL (non-proprietary)
Florida Heritage
Florida’s Division of Historical Resources web site offers a vast amount of information, but the Florida Facts page is an especially helpful ready reference source.
Florida Memory Project
Easy to navigate and fun to browse, the Florida Memory Project contains documents, photographs, and a variety of other media taken from the Florida Collection of the State Library of Florida. This would be a great place for those patrons needing primary sources on Florida history.
Florida on Florida
Florida On Florida is a catalog of digital materials held by Florida museums and historical societies. It includes various items such as manuscripts, maps, photographs, and postcards, and all record-attached descriptions are completely full-text searchable.
Password-embedded Gale Links
Did you know that the Agent Console contains password-embedded links to the Gale databases subscribed to by the Florida Electronic Library? This means that you can view and push the basic search pages, and sometimes more, without ever having to enter a library card number. In fact, in resources such as Academic OneFile, Gale Virtual Reference Library, and LitFinder, you can use the BOOKMARK feature [top, left hand corner under the database title] to create a URL that the patron will be able to open on their end. The BOOKMARK feature allows you to push both results lists and individual articles to the patron that will display consistently and without need for authentication. Check out all the available links in the Gale Resources folder under the URLs tab.
Important Schedule Reminders
- Because the Academic Desk is closed during the month of December, all those scheduled to cover Academic during December should log in to the Collaborative Desk instead. The Academic Desk will reopen on January 5.
- Ask a Librarian will be closed from Tuesday, December 23 thru Sunday, January 4.
Ask a Librarian Monitored Practice Sessions
Please join your colleagues in the Practice/Training Room every Tuesday from 9 – 10 am for statewide monitored practice. To join the practice session as a librarian, please log in to the toolbox, click on the “Practice/Training” link on the left, and follow the instructions to login as a librarian or patron. Feel free to pick up any patrons that come into the training room.
Happy holidays!
Traci
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