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THE ICONN TIMES iCONN OneSearch Video Tutorial
INSIDE THIS ISSUE:
iCONN OneSearch Video Tutorial
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Why Not Just Google It?
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Statewide eBook Platform
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The Heartbleed Bug
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CEN Conference
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eBook Symposium
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EBSCO and CCSS
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Access to OneClickdigital
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iCONN Training
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CEN Conference May 22 at the Connecticut Conference Center Come visit iCONN staff at the Connecticut Education Network (CEN) Annual Member Conference on May 22. Click here for conference details and registration.
iCONN is a service of the Connecticut State Library’s Division of Library Development.
iCONN and EBSCO, in close consultation with the iCONN Database Committee, have completed an introductory streaming video tutorial (4:37) on iCONN OneSearch – the tutorial is embedded at http://bit.ly/Pu7U3c. Soon, EBSCO will add a prominent link to this video from the OneSearch basic search screen as well as from every OneSearch search results page.
Why Not Just Google It? During March and April, four training sessions were conducted by EBSCO staff on comparing iCONN OneSearch with free web search engines. Archived recordings of these sessions will be available soon at: http://bit.ly/1iMClgx. The training compares iCONN with popular search engines and reviews ways that OneSearch brings reliable, vetted content to the users of these resources. A concise enumeration of the advantages of iCONN over free web search engines—which informed the training—can be found at: http://www.cslib.org/iconnsitemap/staff/iCONNsAdvantages.aspx.
Statewide eBook Platform Possibility H.B 5477 is “An Act Concerning A State-wide Platform for the Distribution of Electronic Books.” The bill was raised to give the State Library authority to establish a statewide platform for the distribution of eBooks. The current status of the bill is posted at http://1.usa.gov/Qy3XLS. Kendall Wiggin, State Librarian, requested $2.2 million in bonding funds to develop and "stock" a state-owned and operated statewide eBook platform in lieu of using a third party vendor. The Advisory Council for Library Planning and Development and the E-Book Task Force will be among several committees advising on the development of the platform.
The Heartbleed Bug—Status Report The Heartbleed Bug is described at http://heartbleed.com/. We have queried all vendors who are supplying services to iCONN.org and posted their encouraging responses at: http://www.cslib.org/iconnsitemap/staff/HeartbleedStatus.html
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Free iCONN Training eReaders and OneClickdigital Workshops iCONN Electronic Resources Coordinator, Eric Hansen describes and demonstrates OneClickdigital, iCONN’s eAudio and eBook service. After a brief discussion of the history of the service, Eric will demonstrate browsing, searching, account creation, placing holds, adding to a wish list, and checking out titles. Bring your iPhone or iPad, Android phone or tablet, or Kindle Fire for some hands-on exploration of your own. You will also be able to practice with our Kindle and Nook eReaders to see how they work with the OneClick platform. You will need a valid email address and Connecticut public library card number to create an account and to place holds and check out titles. To register, click on one of the following dates/locations of your choice: May 14 at the Middletown Library Service Center June 11 at the Middlebury Public Library The iCONN Times is a quarterly publication of iCONN— Connecticut’s re-search engine. Find it on the site index at: http://bit.ly/qLlmwu. iCONN 786 South Main Street Middletown, CT 06457 (860) 704-2220 or toll free (888) 256-1222
eBook Symposium iCONN's Electronic Resources Coordinator Eric Hansen organized a statewide eBook symposium that took place at the University of Hartford on February 28, with help from ACLPD eBook Task Force members Ernie DiMattia, Mary Anne Mendola Franco and Kate Sheehan. iCONN ILL Coordinator Steve Cauffman assisted with setup and registration. The symposium, attended by 104, featured a keynote address by Alan Inouye of the ALA, and a lively panel discussion moderated by Silverman, Seagull, Rep. Sear, Dye, DiMattia Kate Sheehan that included Skip Dye, Vice President of Library and Academic Sales, Random House, and Adam Silverman, Director of Digital Business Development, Harper Collins. Deputy Commissioner for Consumer Protection Michelle Seagull presented her report on eBooks, Connecticut libraries and the publishing industry. Mary Anne Mendola Franco presented the results of her statewide survey of eBooks in Connecticut libraries, and Eric Hansen presented results of his surveys of eBook costs to libraries and book sales as a source of revenue to Friends of Libraries. In all, the symposium served to lay the groundwork for a successful dialogue between Connecticut libraries and eBook vendors, with the eventual goal of a statewide eBook platform. PowerPoint presentations from the symposium are available on SlideShare at http://www.slideshare.net/csldld.
Update - EBSCO and Common Core State Standards Working in close coordination with the iCONN Database Committee, we provided a number of specific recommendations to EBSCO on how its K-12 content and search interface can best support Common Core State Standards (CCSS). We expect many of these recommendations will be incorporated in a new K-12 platform which will be released in stages later this year. Until then, we have asked EBSCO to provide training for library media specialists on how EBSCO’s current platform supports the Common Core State Standards. To support that training, iCONN has posted a page that explains how search results can be limited by Lexile level (the only quantitative measure of text complexity referenced by the CCSS) and by number of pages today: http://bit.ly/1hrnROc. The page provides the command syntax needed to execute these searches in resources where these functions are not available in advanced search.
Access to OneClickdigital by K-12 Students From the beginning, iCONN's downloadable eAudio and eBook service, called OneClickdigital, has required a valid Connecticut public library card number to create an account for placing holds and checking out titles. iCONN has come to find that student use of the service is low because many students lack the necessary public library cards. iCONN presently is testing account creation within the building for a few volunteer K12 schools whose IP addresses iCONN furnished to OneClickdigital. This method renders public library card numbers unnecessary for registration, and once an account is created, the student can access that account with their username and password from anywhere at any time. If the test schools are successful with this approach, iCONN and OneClickdigital will roll it out to all K12 schools statewide.