Comments on: Free information for the taking

There's a wealth of free resources out there--online databases, audiobooks, museum passes. You just need to know where to look.
Steal this book? Don't bother

[marcgr]

Our local council provides loads of free information online too

We have access to company information, Oxford English Dictionary, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford Reference Online, Grove Art Online, Grove Music Online, NewsUK and World Book all by just quoting our library card number.

[avatar145]

Missed major resource - WorldCat.org

A little surprizing that a key resource was overlooked -- WorldCat.org is the world's largest catalog of library resources; it's freely accessible, and WorldCat.org can help anyone identify what resources are available at their local library.

[maestrogps]

Comment:

Another useful add-on software package, the Garmin Travel Guide, is loaded with information provided by Marco Polo. These guides put in-depth travel information such as reviews and recommendations for restaurants, tourist attractions, and more at your fingertips. The software allows you to navigate to an address or search points of interest-- places like hotels, restaurants, shopping, and tourist attractions. The nüvi 350 http://www.highspeedsat.com/nuvi350.htm automatically calculates the fastest route and provides voice-prompted turn-by-turn directions along the way. The unit also audibly announces the name of upcoming streets-- letting you keep your eyes on the road while navigating through busy traffic and tricky roadways. http://www.highspeedsat.com/nuvi200.htm And if you stray off course, the nüvi 350 automatically calculates the quickest way to get back on track.

[jordan357]

Re: Free information for the taking

In addition to the included travel tools, additional software add-ons are available, such as the Garmin Language Guide, with data provided by Oxford University Press. This software suite contains a multilingual word bank, phrase bank, and five bilingual dictionaries. The multilingual word bank and phrase bank supports nine languages and dialects, including American English, British English, French, German, Italian, Brazilian Portuguese, European Portuguese, European Spanish, and Latin American Spanish. http://www.highspeedsat.com/nuvi350.htm Now you can look up and translate more than 17,000 words or 20,000 phrases per language -- right in the palm of your hand. Through the unit's text-to-speech interface, users can get a spoken pronunciation of each entry in the word bank, along with gender and part of speech information.

[leslielarocque]

Steal this book? So where are all the patrons?

Do a better job of promoting ourselves?! And where will the money come from?

[angetombee]

Promoting Library Online Services

Great article, but it should have listed a way for patrons to connect to these services. Publiclibraries.com will take you to your library's website.

As many of us have pointed out before, the vendors' websites do NOT show people how to connect through their libraries, and usually don't even mention this as a possiblity. Ebsco is the worst in this regard, but except for Gale and Proquest, none of the vendors are doing much to clue patrons in.

The only way we'll ever get lots of people using library online services is through a major national promotion, preferably tby the American Library Association. Our penny-ante local efforts, bookmarks and flyers etc., do almost nothing; they are a major waste of time. States like Indiana and Connecticut that do major statewide marketing campaigns, and have a single, simple website everyone in the state can use, (preferably by IP address) are the only ones that get major usage.

Why not a nationwide library website listing all the major services: Ebsco, Gale, Newsbank, ReferenceUSA, Proquest, JSTOR, with links to the individual libraries that subscribe? Get Webfeast to set up a federated search for it, and ge the vendors to help pay for it. This would be a truly beneficial project for ALA to take on.

[drmichaelbell]

How to be confident your information source is valid

Any information you find on the Internet is no better than the
validity of the source from which it comes. The Virtual Learning
Resources Center, http://www.virtuallrc.com , is a search engine
that indexes only information sites recommended by teachers,
librarians, and educational and library consortia.