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Here's a continuation of my look back at Reference Books Bulletin's Encyclopedia Update. Previous posts are here and here.  By 1997, the year I started as editor of Reference Books Bulletin, many of the general encyclopedias were available in both print and CD-ROM versions. In addition, the full text (and it would have been text only) [...]

Credo Reference is adding a Publisher Collection from Ashgate. Fifteen comprehensive, specialty titles will soon be available on the Credo Reference platform. Ashgate publishes over 60 reference titles annually in humanities and social sciences. The titles to be available through Credo Reference are representative of the cutting edge research for which the company is known. [...]

Gale  announced yesterday the availability of Biography in Context, a new next-gen resource evolving from, and soon replacing, the Biography Resource Center database. Biography in Context includes the following: Read Speaker text-to-speech technology, available on every page, is an ideal option for struggling readers and the visually impaired Document translator allows students to translate any [...]

Serials Solutions, a business unit of ProQuest LLC, today announced the integration of content from the Thomson Reuters subscription-based Web of Science service with its Summon web-scale discovery service. This integration enables display of cited-by counts in Summon search results for ISI Web of Knowledge SM subscribers to highlight the highest impact articles for researchers. [...]

One of the challenges of reviewing reference databases is that there's really no point in time when the database is "done." A case in point is Oxford's superlative Oxford Dictionaries Online, which is reviewed in the September 1 of issue of Booklist. Although the reviewer loved it, and we gave it a star, there were a few problems [...]

EBSCO announced this week the launch of two new bibliographic databases, Alternative Press Index (API) and Alternative Press Archive. Alternative Press Index contains extensive and up-to-date guides to alternative sources of information available today and Alternative Press Index: Archive delivers archives of the alternative sources dating back to 1969. From their press release: Alternative Press Index is a bibliographic database of [...]

EBSCO Publishing recently announced the added feature of text-to-speech support for all EBSCOhost® databases. The read aloud function is available at no cost through technology from Texthelp Systems. The functionality allows users to read along while a human-sounding voice speaks the text on the screen. Users have the ability to read-aloud by selected text, sentence, [...]

Rosen spent much of Spring and Summer updating their award winning Teen Health & Wellness resource with an abundance of new features.  The first interface was already a great one, so I'm glad to see even more features added. Here's a summary of what's NEW with Teen Health & Wellness for Fall 2010: Instant translation [...]

I had a great time testing out the new Rosen Online Publishing interface, Rosen Learning Center.  This center currently features 12 titles that spotlight Texas.  History, government, land, resources, and missions are just a few of the topics covered in the 12 titles, which are designed for 3rd grade reading levels.  The books meet the [...]

During the RBB webinar on June 1st, Power to the User, we discussed and demonstrated a variety of interactive features available in online reference products.  At the end of the webinar, everyone had the opportunity to take a survey on these features.  The survey listed over 30 interactive features and provided responses of no value, [...]

I learned about the JISC eBook comparison chart at the ALA conference this week. It is available on the JISC site at http://www.jisc-adat.com/adat/adat_ebooks.pl and offers a comparison of up to 7 different eBook platforms including:  Credo Reference, NetLibrary, ebrary, EBL, MyiLibrary, Dawsonera, and Taylor and Francis eBookstore.  Over 50 functional features are compared with basic Y/N [...]

At the just-concluded ALA Annual Conference Gale announced that it is launching In Context, a new portfolio of online products, this fall. Replacing several of the familiar Resource Center databases such as Biography Resource Center, Opposing Viewpoints Resource Center, and Science Resource Center, these new products will offer portal pages, ReadSpeaker text-to-speech technology, Web 2.0 share tools, and other [...]

Oxford has announced that Oxford English Dictionary Online is being relaunched in December. In addition to a fresh look and design and added functionality, the new version will incorporate Historical Thesaurus of the Oxford English Dictionary, which was published last year. This is OED's first makeover since it first launched more than 10 years ago.  Click here to [...]

Oxford University Press recently released its product, Oxford Dictionaries Online (ODO).  This collection of dictionaries, thesauri, and usage guides contains 350,000+ entries and definitions, 600,000+ synonyms and antonyms, and audio pronunciations.  The collection will be regularly updated.

Great news for libraries wanting their major reference content in one interface.  If you are a GVRL user, you now have access to 250 ABC-CLIO titles.  The titles range from history to humanities and current events to general interest.  GVRL now contains nearly 4,500 titles from 70 publishers.

Today during the Booklist webinar, "Power to the User: Interactive Online Reference," we discussed a survey about interactive reference features.  We welcome you to participate in this survey.   It's available now on survey monkey.  After a couple of quick demographic questions, you'll be presented with about34 interactive reference features and asked to rate the value [...]

The National Library of China is now a member of the WorldCat Resource Sharing Service.  Since November of 2009, they have added over 2.4 million resources to WorldCat, many available for interlibrary lending.  The library materials are also part of Worldcat.org.

Last December Gale release an iPhone app for the public library market based on their AccessMyLibrary service.  They are now releasing this same iPhone app for the school library market called, AccessMyLibrary School Edition.   The new K-12 version allows students to find their local school library – (grade schools, middle schools and high schools) and [...]

Last week I participated in a webinar about the discovery of reference content.  We identified several of the challenges to locating reference content - print only, reference indexed in only one place (Reference Universe), changing research habits of students (only using search engines/Wikipedia), online reference content in multiple vendor interfaces, and content not available in [...]

With the growth of e-materials, or digital-native materials, do you find the amount of printing rising?  I have seen more emphasis put on the purchasing and subscribing to electronic databases and ebooks that have similar materials also available (or potentially available) in print.  When I see the number of pages being printed from the electronic [...]