Mango Languages Debuts at Library

Parlez vous Francaise? Sprechen zie Deutsch? ¿Hablas español?


Mango is a foreign language instruction database whose unique teaching method quickly engages you in real conversations between two native speakers. Learners move at their own pace. Your online instructor will take you through every step of the process! Each lesson revisits previously learned material, but you have complete control over your learning experience. Select from nine foreign language courses or three ESL couses to begin learning!

One very neat feature of the database is the translation function. How many times have patrons asked how to say something in a particular language--Merry Christmas, Happy New Year, Happy Birthday, Happy Anniversary? Now you can find the answer in a few keystrokes!

CultureGrams gets new look

• CultureGrams, a database in the PLYMC electronic resources collection, recently updated its home page interface and added to both audio and video materials available. The national anthem audio files are now available as MP3s and there are 60 additional video segments as well as more photographs and slideshows.
  
  Here is a list of other recent upgrades:
  


• World Leaders Table: Added to the World and Kids Editions.


• World Edition Addition (added Aug. 2008): Kosovo.


• New Kids Edition Reports: Seven in all: Cambodia, Costa Rica, Lithuania, Papua New Guinea, Paraguay, Portugal, and Sudan.


• 13 New Themed Slideshows + More Fresh Photos: Check the Slideshow and Photo galleries.


• Seasonal Climate Information: Added to each States and Provinces Edition report.


• Email Function: In response to customer feedback, we have added an email function that allows users to easily email information to themselves or others. In all four editions of CultureGrams (World, Kids, States, and Provinces), users may email a full report using the Email report link on the main page of a country/state/province. Or, they may email a specific section using the Email this section link next to Print this section. These links generate a window in which users can fill in the desired email address and other details.


• Outline Maps: In response to direct requests from educators, CultureGrams now offers outline maps of every country. These blank maps allow students to fill in cities and geographical features on their own, perfect for classroom use and assignments!
  


• Check out this short video (4:00) to see what is available through the CultureGrams database.
  
  

Ohio Career Information System (OCIS)

Ohio Career Information System (OCIS), is an online employment information resource that provides national, state & local data on occupations, training & education, and financial aid. OCIS includes assessment links that help users find occupations based on interest & aptitudes, a utility called “Occupation Match” that matches one’s work preferences and personal priorities to occupational requirements, then provides a list of occupations to explore, and videos of real people at work that show individuals in actual job situations. OCIS is made available to patrons of the Public Library of Youngstown and Mahoning County through the generosity of the Mahoning County Career and and Technical Center

OCIS began as a resource for students but it can be very helpful to adult patrons who are seeking employment or reemployment, planning to get additional education, or investigating a new career path. This resource may be helpful to patrons who come to the library to register for One Stop and SCOTI (Sharing Career Opportunities and Training Information) services.

PLYMC web site has links to OCIS on the Electronic Resources page, the Career & Education Database page, and the Careers Internet links page. A patron in the library who clicks on these links will be able to get into the database seamlessly. Patrons who navigate to OCIS by other methods, even on a library public access computer may be asked for a user name and password.

If students have been introduced to OCIS in class they may have a user name and password provided by their school, patrons who have used the resource before may have created a personal user name and password; library staff can share with patrons the user name and password* provided to us by the Mahoning County Career and and Technical Center. The user name and password information is also available in the list of Premium Databases located on the staff page.

*user name: YoLibrary
password: ohiocis03

School is back in session...

You don’t need a fortune teller to know that sometime in the next school year students will come in, call, or e-mail the library for information about science experiments and science projects. This year you can add online databases to the sources you recommend; check out the slideshow below (best viewed in full screen) to see how easy it can be to locate ideas and instructions for good science projects online.

Science Experiment And Science Fair Information

View SlideShare presentation or Upload your own.

New titles added to Gale Virtual Reference (GVRL)

Eleven new titles just joined the list of electronic reference sources available through PLYMC’s Gale Virtual Reference interface. Here is the complete list of virtual reference titles in GVRL, new items appear in green type.

African American Almanac, 10th ed., 2008
Bowling, Beatniks, and Bell-Bottoms: Pop Culture of 20th-Century America , 5v, 2002
CDs, Super Glue, and Salsa , 2v, 2003
Colonial America Reference Library, 6v, 2000
Encyclopedia of Business and Finance, 2nd ed., 2v, 2006
Encyclopedia of Clothing and Fashion, 3v, 2005
Encyclopedia of Genocide and Crimes Against Humanity , 3v, 2005
Encyclopedia of Global Industries, 4th ed., 2007
Encyclopedia of Religion, 2nd ed., 15v, 2005
Encyclopedia of Small Business, 3rd ed., 2v, 2007
Environmental Issues: Essential Primary Sources, 2006
Everyday Finance: Economics, Personal Money Management, and
Entrepreneurship, 2v, 2008
Fashion, Costume, and Culture: Clothing, Headwear, Body Decorations, and Footwear through the Ages , 5v, 2004
The Gale Encyclopedia of Diets: A Guide to Health and Nutrition, 2v, 2008
Gale Encyclopedia of Everyday Law, 2nd ed., 2v, 2006
International Encyclopedia of the Social Sciences , 2nd ed., 9v, 2008
International Encyclopedia of the Social Sciences , 17v, 1968
Junior Worldmark Encyclopedia of Foods and Recipes of the World , 4v, 2002
Notable Sports Figures , 4v, 2003
Real-Life Math, 2v, 2006
Social Trends and Indicators USA , 4v, 2003
U*X*L Encyclopedia of Native American Tribes, 2nd ed., 4v, 2008
U*X*L Encyclopedia of Weather and Natural Disasters, 5v, 2008
UXL American Decades, 11v, 2003
UXL Complete Life Science Resource, 3v, 2001
UXL Encyclopedia of Biomes, 3v, 2000
UXL Encyclopedia of Drugs and Addictive Substances, 5v, 2006
World War I Reference Library , 4v, 2002
World War II Reference Library , 5v, 2000
Worldmark Encyclopedia of the Nations, 12th ed., 5v, 2007
Worldmark Encyclopedia of the States, 7th ed., 2v, 2007

The accessibility of these reference works online will be helpful in responding to questions like:

1. What can you tell me about the Pequot War of 1637?
2. Where am I going to get primary sources about smog?
3. I need information about toy manufacturers and the world market but I don’t know where to find out about companies in other countries.
4. My child is going to be studying fractions in school this year and I need a quick refresher so I’ll be able to help with math homework.
5. How do hurricanes form and are there more of them because of global warming?
6. How many people in New Jersey speak Hindi?
7. I need to know how people in Ohio have voted in Presidential elections since 1980.
8. Why is the position of Secretary-General of the UN important? How many people have held that post and what countries did they come from?
9. What are phytonutrients?
10. Where can I find out something about the Kyoto Protocol and what countries signed it?
11. I need a timeline for the Iroquois Indians and a map that shows the Iroquois nation today.
12. How is math used in sports?
13. What is the Hilton Head Metabolism Diet?
14. I want to find out more about inflation, recession, and the Consumer Price Index.
15. I need to know if the country of Djibouti has an army. I already looked in CultureGrams.

Hello OHIO WEB LIBRARY

Today marks the end of an era. As of 8:00 a.m. tomorrow public access to online databases and other information provided by OPLIN will appear at the Ohio Web Library site: http://ohioweblibrary.org/. The website http://www.oplin.org/ will morph into a support site for librarians with "information you will need about OPLIN products, services and support...where a new layout and design and a very handy search box to help you find exactly what you need."

Here is a screen shot of the new public page:

At this new site will be most of the databases we've come to rely on with the following changes:

While the relevant links on the PLYMC web site have been updated, many of the new links don't go live until tomorrow so they have not all been tested. If any links do not take you to the source you expect please send an e-mail explaining the problem to lberger@libraryvisit.org.

Database Changes Coming

In the Ohio library world July marks the season of change. OPLIN is introducing some new databases and one of our longtime databases, EBSCOhost, is getting a makeover.

The links to the new OPLIN resources are not yet available, but EBSCO has a beta preview available on their website that will allow us to become familiar with the new interface before it goes “public” to our patrons. To get a head start on how to use the new design click on the Test Drive link on your EBSCOhost New Features page from its link in the upper right corner of your EBSCOhost screen.

The new search interface is cleaner and more streamlined

By clicking on the Advance Search option, however, you get access to limiting options that permit you to refine a searrch and locate the most appropriate materials for a particular inquiry

The interface is not the only new feature with EBSCOhost 2.0. To be prepared when the update goes live learn more about the upcoming changes to the EBSCO interface by visiting the EBSCOhost 2.0 Preview Page for details and screen shots on the functionality of the redesign, and the EBSCOhost 2.0 Support Center to see the new user guide and relevant FAQs.

New look and functionality for Biography Reference Bank on WilsonWeb

Biography Reference Bank has a bright new search interface and now provides links to articles from all Wilson sources with biographical information as well as data licensed from other publishers.





Information from the important reference works Facts About the Presidents and Speeches of the American Presidents is incorporated into the appropriate biographical entries as downloadable PDF files. There are more images in the database with a nifty new image viewer that frequently offers several image options for an individual as in the case of Teddy Roosevelt:

Investigate the new interface - here is a link to a handy one-page summary of the enhanced site.

Remote access available to DemographicsNow

• One of the newer online databases available to patrons of PLYMC is DemographicsNow, a resource that offers a variety of ready-to-use reports and maps based on U.S. Census data for the state of Ohio, including current year and five-year projections. Information organized by DemographicsNow can be used to help individuals, organizations, and businesses evaluate the risks and opportunities of a particular location before undertaking any variety of projects or endeavors.
  
  Some categories of information that can be incorporated into DemographicsNow maps and reports include:
  Age
  Businesses
  Consumer expenditures
  Education
  Employment
  Housing
  Income
  Population
  Race and ethnicity
  Retail sales
  
  DemographicsNow reports are formatted in html, but can be saved from within the program as a PDF, Excel or Word document; reports and maps can also be printed or e-mailed from within the program.
  
  PLYMC cardholders outside the library can access DemographicsNow, but there is currently no provision for remote authentication through the library’s web site. This means that a PLYMC staff member must provide the patron with the username and password. The username and password is available in the Premium Databases link on the Staff Page.

Magill's Medical Guide Goes Digital

The 4th edition of Magill's Medical Guide has arrived in the Information Services Department and is also accessible online from all computers, staff and public, in our library system. Magill's Medical Guide covers diseases, disorders, treatments, procedures, specialties, anatomy, biology, and issues in an A-Z format, with sidebars addressing recent developments in medicine and concise information boxes for all diseases and disorders.

• Virtually all of the content in Magill’s Medical Guide is available, including illustrations and sidebars, indexes, appendixes and other back matter.


• Cross-references in the form of “See Also” boxes link directly to appropriate articles.


• Key terms, used in the body of articles, link to a complete “Glossary.”


• Citation information is included for each article.


• Content can be e-mailed using the send feature from staff computers only; patrons can print from public access computers or can save articles and searches to personalized logon areas for later retrieval.

The direct link to this new resource is http://www.health.salempress.com/ There are links on the Electronic Resources page, the Health and Medical Databases page, and there should be a link from Millennium soon.