A patron preparing for travel to Asia is interested in foods and holidays of the region. What does your library offer?
A student needs literary criticism of The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. He’s getting a late start on his project, and all the usual materials are already checked out. You go to a reference book only to discover that the desired pages have been torn out. Plus, kids really prefer online information. Where do you look?
Gale Virtual Reference Library (GVRL) solves these needs quickly. GVRL provides all South Dakota libraries and schools with a core reference collection that's accessible 24/7 to an unlimited number of users. GVRL contains selected multi-volume reference titles in many subject areas, including medicine, education, history, science and literature. Users can also search across the entire collection at once, frequently finding information in areas they wouldn't ordinarily look. GVRL articles have "read speaker" technology, which allows every article to be read aloud or downloaded in MP3 format.
The South Dakota State Library provides a 2-page tutorial. Gale offers this brief tutorial on on searching and browsing, however the examples used in Gale's recording show titles that aren't included in the State Library collection. (Please note these training tools may take a few minutes to load.) More help is available by clicking the "Help Guide" on the GVRL homepage.
Discovery Exercise assignment for Institute participants, please choose, explore and report on both questions under Basic and 1 question under Advanced. Email your responses to Jane Healy.
Basic Discovery Exercise
Discuss and report answers to the following questions and other observations you have about Gale Virtual Reference Library. All resources can be accessed via this alphabetical list.
1. Getting to know the titles in GVRL is similar to getting to know the titles of your library's reference collection. Click "More" in the upper right, then "Title List" to view all the titles available in the collection. Click a book title of interest to you and access an article via the table of contents. Notice with the multi-volume titles, you can select a particular volume. Discuss the title you selected and how you may use it.
2. At the top of the home page, type a search term in the search box. Search for answers to the questions posed at the beginning of the post: zinc, Asian foods and holidays, or The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn if you can't think of something else. Review the results, selecting an article to see what kind of information you can find. Test the "Listen" feature. Discuss your results.
Advanced Discovery Exercise
1. Your civic organization is sponsoring a community event with the theme, “Spring Holidays Around the World.” The organization needs your help in finding the following: a. Spring festival traditions from a variety of countries b. Traditional spring festival foods and their recipes c. Spring festival games or pastimes Report your findings and how you found them in GVRL.
2. Use Advanced Search to find titles with copyright 2012 and newer. Then explore a couple of titles and report your findings.
3. A researcher is looking for primary source material about the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire that took place in New York in 1911. How can you help him?
