InfoTech Briefs: TLC, ebrary, EBSCO
RSSTLC powering BEACON project, ebary H1N1 freebie, EBSCOhost phones it in
Michael Rogers -- Library Journal, 12/02/2009
- North Iowa’s BEACON project chooses The Library Corporation
- Ebrary offering free access to H1N1 (Influenza) Searchable Information Center
- EBSCOhost access available through smartphones
The North Iowa Libraries Collaborating Board is uniting a score of public and school libraries for what the group has dubbed the BEACON project. The new library consortium will utilize The Library Corporation’s Library•Solution and Library•Solution for Schools, along with the accompanying LS2 PAC, for a web-based automation solution that provides cataloging, circulation, and database management to every BEACON partnership member. Computer servers will be housed in Fort Dodge and centrally managed by the Prairie Lakes Area Education Agency in Pocahontas, eliminating the need for smaller libraries to employ their own technicians.
Joining Gale and EBSCO, ebrary has created H1N1 (Influenza) Searchable Information Center, a publicly available research center featuring a highly interactive, searchable database of documents pertaining to the H1N1 influenza pandemic. The new site (h1n1.ebrary.com) contains a growing selection of reports, papers, newsletters, posters, and other important materials from government agencies and other trusted sources. It provides extensive research capabilities including multiple options for searching, navigating, and browsing; ebrary InfoTools that turn every word into a portal to additional information on the web; notes and highlights, the ability to copy/paste and print text with automatic citations and URL hyperlinks back to the source; and personal bookshelves with moveable folders that can be emailed to others.
EBSCO Publishing has released EBSCOhost® Mobile™ allowing researchers to access their EBSCOhost® databases via smartphones and other handheld devices. All databases and services currently available on the EBSCOhost platform will be available via EBSCOhost Mobile. The main EBSCOhost Mobile screen offers a number of options, including choosing which EBSCOhost database(s) to search plus setting search options, accessing field codes, and specifying preferences. Many of the existing EBSCOhost features such as search modes, limiting to full text, date ranges, peer-reviewed content, or by publication are available. Users will also be able to search images from their mobile devices. The result list is scrollable and available data includes citations, Image Quick View™, and access to full text articles. The result list also features a relevancy indicator and users are able to email results. For increased speed and user convenience, the interface has a lower resolution and has been simplified by removing folders and some other more advanced features. In addition to providing access to smartphone users, EBSCOhost Mobile will also work on desktops helping libraries with low bandwidths since it uses only a fraction of the bytes compared to a traditional EBSCOhost search.
