Today’s students often combine education with ongoing employment and other responsibilities. They need quickly accessible, reliable learning resources that are available to them anytime, from anywhere. Online resources.
Unfortunately, many turn to general Internet search engines to obtain the information they need. Such information is rarely current and often erroneous. Moreover, the person conducting the search often is forced to wade through page after page of unvetted search results, and may be directed to websites that are little more than vehicles to push a particular viewpoint or commercial product/service.
For education providers, developing and maintaining a relevant, resource-rich on-site library for their students often proves cost prohibitive.
The solution? A high-quality, virtual library.
A well-designed virtual library can:
- Deliver information resources to students that are current, authoritative, appropriate to their studies, and easily accessible;
- Reinforce the library’s role in the learning process by providing faculty with resources and content to develop and enrich class assignments;
- Help students become adept and confident in their use of information in a variety of formats, making them truly information literate; and
- Provide library resources and services to students in a cost-effective, scalable manner that allows for the easy introduction of new resources, as well as the prompt removal of those that are outdated.
What is the core set of resources and services provided by on-campus libraries?
Regardless of size, almost all traditional, on-campus libraries provide a core set of services and resources to their students.
- Bibliographic Instruction: Librarians teaching students how to use the library resources;
- Research Assistance: Librarians helping students determine how to get started on course assignments;
- Core Collection of Books: A collection of books that supports the school’s curriculum and faculty research;
- Research Databases: A collection of general and topic-specific databases that provide abstracts and/or full-text of journal and magazine articles;
- Reference Assistance: Librarians answering student questions of a general nature or pointing students to the best resources on a given topic; and
- General Reference: Encyclopedias, dictionaries, almanacs, maps, and other reference works.
Why Jones e-global library®?
Not only do we mirror the core resources and services of a traditional library, but we deliver so much more:
Online Tutorials (Bibliographic Instruction)
Online tutorials give students the coaching and guidance they need to most effectively use libraries, use the Internet for research, conduct business research on the Internet, and write research papers (with emphasis on properly using Internet-based resources).
Program Resources (Research Assistance)
More than 125 topic-specific research guides introduce students to each topic, explain research strategies, alternative search terms, and Library of Congress subject headings, and then identify and describe the best information resources.
Students who once considered only the tried-and-true books and print journals are encouraged to explore a broader range of information resources: association materials, online journals, government documents, research institute reports, and Internet-based white papers, surveys, statistics, and similar materials. As a result, students are provided both the best resources on given topics and an expanded understanding and mastery of the broad range of information available to them.
Online Books (Core Collection of Books)
Online books allow students to highlight, annotate, and comment “in the margins.” In addition, multiple students can view and make notes in one book simultaneously, which means all of the books are always available; no need to worry about "due dates."
Our relationship with ebrary® gives students access to ebrary’s Academic Complete collection: more than 33,000 full-text, digital books and other authoritative content from more than 220 leading publishers.
We also make available ebrary’s Academic Standard, a collection of more than 18,000 titles, which covers all of the topics addressed in the Academic Complete Collection.
Another smaller collection of titles are the Subject Databases, aggregated in single genres to fit your specific needs, such as Business & Economics; Career & General Education; Computers, Engineering & Applied Sciences; Humanities; Science, Medicine & Allied Health; and Social & Behavioral Sciences.
As the leading provider of eBooks, NetLibrary offers a growing catalog of more than 140,000 titles. The NetLibrary catalog offers easy access to information about the latest content from the world's leading scholarly, trade, STM and reference publishers across hundreds of subject areas. Pick and choose specific titles to create your own ebook library collection or choose from its Subject Sets.
Thomson Gale Databases (Research Databases)
Updated daily, the InfoTrac OneFile database is a comprehensive periodical resource that encompasses 39 million database records, with an intuitive search interface. This dynamic source for practically every popular, business, and professional topic contains five newspaper indices (9,200 titles); backfile coverage from 1980; and 89 wire services.
The Business & Company Resource Center provides company and industry intelligence for thousands of companies. Its coverage includes millions of records, such as company profiles, including corporate parent/sibling relationships; industry rankings; products and brands; performance ratings; investment reports; industry statistics; current investment ratings; comprehensive financial overviews; pricing momentum and key ratio measures; financial ratios; and more.
The Health & Wellness Resource Center gives users much more than the Web typically offers. This revolutionary database answers the need for a fully integrated, ever growing electronic resource center for all levels of health research. It features more than 900 health/medical journals, newsletters and hundreds of pamphlets, as well as health-related articles from 2,200 general interest publications. Also online: A broad collection of Thomson Gale™ reference titles, including The Gale Encyclopedia of Medicine, The Gale Encyclopedia of Childhood & Adolescence, The Gale Encyclopedia of Cancer, and The Gale Encyclopedia of Genetic Disorders. Add-on modules are available to address your specific needs for alternative health information or health statistics.
Ask an Online Librarian (Reference Assistance)
With an on-campus library, students ask a reference librarian for assistance, assuming the library is open. With e-global library, a team of on-call reference librarians helps students with their questions 24/7, using “chat” and “co-browsing” software to guide students to appropriate resources and to walk them through their research questions. A transcript of the session is then provided, in case the student forgets a specific search tip.
General Reference (General Reference)
Occasionally, a student will need a dictionary, almanac, encyclopedia, or biography to help them with their studies. We have compiled more than 125 sources, organized into 15 categories, to help students locate just about anything they could find in a library’s reference area.
Special Collections: Government Resources, Financial Aid Resources, and Career Development Resources
In addition to the resources described above, e-global library also provides four additional “Special Collections” for students:
- Links to an often-overlooked resource: government documents. The library’s Government Resource collection includes materials from more than 325 government sites that provide access to more than 150,000 full-text documents, including laws, regulations, statistics, technical reports, technical specifications and standards, consumer guides, business resources, and educational materials.
- An overview of financial aid options that coaches students on how to approach financial aid opportunities and where to look for possible sources of funds, including links to more than 30 grant and scholarship resources.
- An extensive collection of career development resources, including materials on résumé-writing, job hunting, salary surveys, locating potential employers and company information, job sites, negotiating, and other valuable topics.
The e-global library Advantage
The major accrediting agencies in the U.S. require institutions to provide library resources that are current, relevant to their programs, and accessible to students. Well organized and intuitive, e-global reduces research time so students can devote their energy to their studies. With e-global library, your institution can cost effectively improve the quality, scope, and availability of its library resources.
Creating and maintaining a state-of-the-art online library is a difficult and expensive proposition. All of our resources are regularly updated, we host the library on our own servers, and we provide 24/7 technical support via telephone and email to all of our end users—students, faculty, and administrators.
In addition, e-global library can be customized to best meet your specific needs. Whether you have an existing library in place, or are looking for a new one, we give you the freedom to quickly and affordably build just the library you’re looking for. Add, subtract, or include your own content, until you have exactly what your students, faculty, and staff need. If you offer online courses, we would be happy to work with your courseware provider to include e-global library as a link from your secured, online learning portal.
Finally, e-global library can be branded with your own look and feel and be seamlessly accessed from your website.
