How to Help Anyone Use Licensed Databases

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How to Help Anyone Use Licensed Databases

• Instructor
• Glenn Johnson-Grau
• gjohnson_at_lmu.edu
• An Infopeople Workshop
• Summer/Fall 2006

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This Workshop Is Brought to You By the Infopeople
Project
Infopeople is a federally-funded grant project
supported by the California State Library. It
provides a wide variety of training to California
libraries. Infopeople workshops are offered
around the state and are open registration on a
first-come, first-served basis. For a complete
list of workshops, and for other information
about the project, go to the Infopeople website
at infopeople.org.
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Introductions

• Introduce yourself to your neighbors
• Name
• Library
• Position
• Name a database you use and why you like it

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Workshop Overview

• Library subscription databases
• hands-on practice, but
• focus on teaching users
• How to talk to users about databases
• Getting the material in a format useful to the
  user
• Acrobat, printing, saving, etc.
• New and forthcoming developments
• federated searching and more

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Using Bookmarks in Class

• Go to bookmarks.infopeople.org
• Look for the licensed_databases_bkmk.html file
• Click on it so it shows on the screen
• With the class bookmark file showing in Internet
  Explorer, click the Favorites menu, choose Add to
  Favorites
• Notice the name in the Name box so that you can
  use the Favorites list to get back to the class
  bookmarks for the rest of the day.

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Question for the Group

• When helping a user with a database, are you
  giving them a fish or teaching them how to fish?

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What Users Think of Us (If At All)

• OCLCs Perceptions of Libraries and Information
  Resources
• see bookmarks for full report
• Awareness of library resources low
• 55 know of online reference works
• 34 know of online periodicals
• Usage is lower still
• 27 use online databases annually
• 84 begin with a web search engine

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Database Usage in Libraries
The good news

• Libraries are viewed favorably
• both physical and online presences
• Our online resources are worthwhile
• Awareness and usage higher for 14-17 18 to
  24-year-olds
• 41 of 18 to 24-year-olds use online periodicals
  annually
• 13 of over 65-year-old use them

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People want a usable answer - not the best -
not the most reliable They are satisficing
working for a minimally acceptable result
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What is a Database?

• Database
• organized collection of information made
  searchable by computer
• Licensed Database
• database paid for by the library, made available
  to users
• not free web resources

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How do you learn a new database?What do you
need to know?
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Talking About Databases

• Users may not understand
• Library jargon
• periodical? serial? abstract?
• Free web vs. licensed databases
• Which resources to use
• why isnt there just one database for everything?

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Feel the Pain of the User

• Most users do not care where the information
  they need comes from, or who provides itnor
  should they have to Roy Tennant
• And yet we expect users to
• ? Know what type of information they want
• ? Navigate library websites and jargon
• ? Deal with the vendors brand names
• ? Choose from many databases
• ? Negotiate the un-Google-like interface
• http//infopeople.org/training/webcasts/02-08-05_
  metasearch.html

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Ready for Reference

• Friendly, approachable demeanor
• Active listening
• Open and neutral questioning
• Self-verbalization
• i.e., thinking out loud
• Follow-up
• Does this answer your question?

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Reference Using a PC

• Assess users computer skills
• make no assumptions
• Best at users workstation
• get out from behind the desk and let the user
  drive
• Behind the desk co-browsing
• rotate screen to user, or
• bring user behind desk
• Self-verbalize
• explain what you are doing, where you are going,
  and why

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Article Databases

• What is your librarys main general database?
• EBSCOhost MasterFile
• most widely used in public libraries
• EBSCOhost platform for databases
• links between EBSCOhost products
• Gale
• InfoTrac or OneFile or PowerSearch?

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Database Features

• How do you explain
• Its Not Google
• boolean operators required
• Limit by
• date
• publication title
• full text only

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Database FeaturesPrinting Emailing Results

• How do you explain
• Print preview?
• Framed pages?
• Copying and pasting into Word?

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Dealing with Acrobat

• Navigation
• page by page scrolling
• jumping to a page
• thumbnail pages as navigation tool
• searching in documents
• Zooming in and out
• does not change print size
• tinyurl.com/jh79y

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Acrobat Considerations

• Printing
• always use Acrobats print button
• very important in database interfaces
• Ex. EBSCOhost Gale
• Saving
• large file sizes, particularly color docs
• usually will not fit on floppy drive
• some email systems may block large files

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Reference Databases

• This is where it gets tricky
• greater range of products with greater number of
  interfaces
• specialized tools
• more products more interfaces more interface
  updates
• Example
• Biography Resource Center
• Gale database with custom interface

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E-book Collections

• What are e-books?
• Does your library have e-book collections?
• Have you helped patrons use e-books?

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E-book CollectionsLibrary Issues

• Tradeoffs convenient but clunky
• 24/7 anywhere access / awkward interfaces
• Critical mass of titles necessary
• 80/20 rule 20 of titles get 80 of use
• Best when integrated into catalog
• rather than another database to search
• Collections get stale
• require weeding

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E-book CollectionsUser Issues

• E-books are an alien concept for users.
• They require
• Practice on the interface level
• with ebook reader
• Explanation of Digital Rights Management (DRM)
• Printing, saving, emailing
• i.e. Why cant I print the whole book?
• Often require an individual user account
• personal email account

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Federated Searching

• AKA Meta or Cross-Database Searching
• Search multiple sources simultaneously
• Simplified search interface
• Results ranked and (usually) deduped
• Not meant to replace searching specific databases
  when appropriate

Next two slides adapted from Roy Tennant webcast
See bookmarks
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Why Federated Searching?

• Most users do not care where the information
  they need comes from, or who provides itnor
  should they have to
• An interface that minimizes what the user needs
  to know to get what they want
• Examples
• WebFeat MuseGlobal
• Serials Solutions CentralSearch
• Innovative Interfaces MetaFind

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• How easy can we make it?
• Ex. LAPL defaults to cross search

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Group Discussion

• How do you or how could you describe federated
  searching to the public?

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New Database Features

• Grouping results by subject, type of publication
• ex. subject terms pulled from results
• EBSCO calls it clustering
• Gale OneFile has similar feature
• EBSCO Visual Search
• interactive visual map of results by topic
• Grokker software

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Tell us one thing from today that you would share
with staff at your library.