August 26, 2022

        Please pardon the cross posting. See the end of the email for some documents that help educators understand which Gale K-12 databases we have access to and which one to use when. 

Welcome to a new school year! 

As most of you know, the Oregon K-12 community has access to a suite of Gale databases (digital resources) thanks to the State Library of Oregon’s Statewide Database Licensing Program, made possible in part by the Institute of Museum and Library Services through the Library Services and Technology Act. Central K-12 access to the statewide databases is through the elementary and secondary Find Information pages on OSLIS. National Geographic Kids is one of the available databases, and its content is aimed at K-8 students. It offers the entire run of National Geographic Kids magazine, 600+ ebooks, 200+ videos, and 1,000 images. In early August, the NGK interface was updated to be more accessible and to align better with the standard interface for other Gale databases.

          

Accessibility Features | The new National Geographic Kids improves user experience and accessibility, including text-to-speech for magazine and book content, text-to-speech on hover, and easy-to-use document tools.  

Ebook Reader & Tools | A new ebook reader ensures that all National Geographic Kids book and magazine content is displayed in a 2-page spread that is easy to read and navigate. Due to restrictions from National Geographic, Gale is still not able to offer some tools and features, such as the ability to translate text into different languages and the ability to download content or save it outside of the interface.  

Tip Sheet | Be sure to review page 2 of the helpful tip sheet to learn about navigation basics. You can share the tip sheet with teachers, too. The document lives on the Gale product page for NGK. Note that video tutorials and recorded webinars will be updated to reflect the new interface in about a month.

Webinar about New Interface | Gale is offering a webinar on Tuesday, August 30^th, from 11:00 to 11:30 am Pacific to review the NGK’s new interface. As always, it is free, and any interested school or library staffers are welcome to register. Can’t make it? The recording will be posted on the NGK product page and on Gale’s page for recorded webinars.

     

Ebooks & MARC Records | If you haven’t explored National Geographic Kids in a while, I encourage you to check it out. The ebooks alone are worth sharing. Through the Gale support site for Oregon library staff, there’s an option to download the MARC records for many of the NGK ebooks. The most recent batch was added to the support site in November 2021. I checked with Gale staff, and there is not a newer batch right now. 

Gale Database Comparisons and Flyer | On a related topic, at the bottom of the elementary and secondary educator Find Information pages, you will find links to a Gale promotional flyer plus a comparison document aimed at helping educators understand which Gale K-12 database to use when.

If you have questions, please ask. 

Thanks,
Jen

Jen Maurer
School Library Consultant
State Library of Oregon