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THE ICONN TIMES iCONN Budget, Bid Process and Development Priorities
INSIDE THIS ISSUE:
iCONN Budget, Bid, and Priorities
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iCONN’s Advantages
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Did you know?
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New Hot Topics Page
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iCONN Resources A-Z
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Search Tip: Lexile Level
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HeritageQuest Training
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Digital Learning Day
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Did you know? 26% (48 libraries) of 183 public libraries rely exclusively on iCONN to provide licensed electronic information resources to their
communities.
Source: Connecticut Public Libraries: A Statistical Profile
The deficit mitigation plan passed by the legislature on December 19, 2012 designated a 5% cut ($104,730) to iCONN’s budget, on top of the previous 5% cut that was sustained at the beginning of this fiscal year, which resulted in the loss of cover art and reviews in the statewide library catalog and Cengage Gale’s Books & Authors, however the State Librarian indicated that he is committed to maintaining the current iCONN offerings for the balance of this fiscal year. The legislature has not yet begun deliberations on the state’s next biennial budget iCONN Document Views: FY 2011 & 12 which begins July 1, 2013. The first step in 9,041,297 that process will be the Governor’s proposed 7,567,938 budget expected on February 9, 2013. Despite our inability to add new resources due to budget restrictions, iCONN usage based on document views increased by nearly 20% from FY 2011 to FY 2012:
FY 2011
FY 2012
Pursuant to a recommendation by the iCONN Database Committee supported by the CT Digital Library Advisory Board, the State Library issued a bid that is intended to provide statewide access for all authorized users to a general periodicals database, a history database, a science database, a biographies database and, optionally, access to the Connecticut Digital Collections through iCONN.org, starting July 1, 2013. We will report on the results of the bid in the April issue. The iCONN Database Committee also established priorities for new categories of licensed resources to meet the needs of public, school and academic libraries: Business directory Pro-con issues database The Hartford Courant, 1923-1984 Streaming video Children’s encyclopedia These priorities will guide our content selection process if and when we have a budget that can support it, or if we can secure alternative funding sources.
iCONN’s Advantages Relative to Google/Bing/Yahoo/etc. iCONN is a service of the Connecticut State Library’s Division of Library Development.
Libraries are often called upon to differentiate between the online services they make freely available to their patrons and other online services, such as Google, that are freely available over the Web. We created a page to address that question as it relates to iCONN.org and hope that you find it useful: http://www.cslib.org/iconnsitemap/staff/ iCONNsAdvantages.aspx.
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Free Heritage Quest Online Training— Mon. Feb. 4 Beth Reiten, Customer Education & Training Specialist for ProQuest will conduct a 1-hour webinar on the U.S. Census module of HeritageQuest Online. To register access the Continuing Education Calendar of Events @ http://evanced.info/cslib/ evanced/eventcalendar.asp
Digital Learning Day Wed. Feb. 6 Digital Learning Day is a campaign that highlights best practices in instruction and use of technology in schools. iCONN has posted a set of digital literacy resources on the Hot Topics page for libraries and schools that include: Digital Learning Day Digital Learning Day: Resource Roundup DigitalLiteracy.gov Digital Literacy Resources FCC Broadband Speed Test Google Digital Literacy Tour Learning How to Use iCONN’s Resources Microsoft Digital Literacy Curriculum Power Searching with Google
New: “Hot Topics” Page Added to iCONN iCONN created a Hot Topics page for librarians that includes resources such as webinars, studies, and tools for the broad categories listed to the right. Hot Topics is accessible from the Site Map in iCONN. Topics and resources supporting these topics are added on an ongoing basis. We welcome suggestions.
Advocacy Digital Literacy Financial Literacy Helping Children Cope with Tragedy Infographics Library Impact Studies MakerSpace
iCONN Resources A-Z iCONN now has a web page that lists its resources by title in an A-to-Z list. The titles are clickable links, some of which have text that indicates whether they are for access by academic libraries only. The links include all iCONN licensed databases and some resources freely available on the Web that we have collected for your convenience, such as E-Books on the Web. This A-to-Z page can be bookmarked in your web browser or on your desktop at: http://www.cslib.org/iconnsitemap/staff/iCONNDatabasesAtoZ.htm
Search Tip: Lexile Level Gale resources in the Power Search platform permit searchers to limit search results to the Lexile level(s) of their choice. To do so, click on Advanced Search, key in your search terms, then scroll to the bottom of the screen. You will see a text box labeled “Lexile score.” Key in the Lexile level of your choice, then click the Search button.
These resources are in the PowerSearch platform: Junior Edition, Student Edition, Academic OneFile, General Reference Center Gold, Informé, Busca en Español, Educator’s Reference Complete, LegalTrac and PowerSearch. Resources in the “In Context” platform permit searchers to limit search results to the Lexile range of their choice, using Advanced Search:
The iCONN Times is a quarterly publication of iCONN— Connecticut’s research engine. Find it on the site index at:
www.iconn.org/siteindex.aspx under “General Information” iCONN 786 South Main Street Middletown, CT 06457 (860) 704-2220 or toll free (888) 256-1222
These In Context platform resources are: Biography In Context, Science In Context, U.S. History In Context, and World History In Context.