Keeping Up With the Librarians

Ever struggle to use the library? Then, our new Toolkits are for you!

The toolkits offer a central location where you can find the "tools" you may need to help you research a topic or use a resource.

For this launch, we've focused on providing Database Toolkits, which offer tips on how to use our largest, and most popular, databases more effectively. Additionally, there are tutorials if you're new to the database and other insights that might be useful to you. For example, one of our featured databases is Business Source Complete. This toolkit offers links to the database (and in this case, a specialized collection within Business Source Complete: SWOT Analysis), videos on how to search Business Source Complete, and tips and resources that align with research that you may be doing in your courses.

We currently have four toolkits available, with more coming soon! If there's something, in particular, you'd like to see, let us know in the comments or reach out to us through Ask Us!

Happy 51st Earth Day, fellow humans!

Earth Day is the largest secular holiday in the world and is celebrated by over a billion people in 192 countries. Here are 5 simple things from earthday.org you can start doing today to honor our home.

1. Take reusable bags to the grocery store.
   Did you know that 4 TRILLION plastic bags are used each year worldwide? And only 1% of these are recycled. That means we're sending a whole lot of plastic bags to landfills, where they will stay for lifetimes.
2. Switch to reusable water bottles.
   38 billion water bottles make their way to the landfill each year and, unfortunately, only 30% of these bottles are downcycled.
3. Plant a bee-friendly garden.
   Bees perform about 80 percent of all pollination worldwide. 70% of our top 100 food crops, which represent about 90% of the world’s nutrition, are pollinated by bees. So, show some bees that they're bee-loved!
4. Give up the gum.
   Chewing gum is made from synthetic rubber, which is plastic. Around 100,000 tons of this plastic is thrown away every year.
5. Stop getting junk mail.
   Seriously, who doesn't want to stop unwanted junk mail? It's estimated over 5.6 million tons of paper junk mail is sent to the landfill each year. To eliminate credit card promotional mailings, call 1-888-567-8688 (1-888-5OPT-OUT) or visit https://www.optoutprescreen.com/.

Want more?

• Here are some individual actions you can do and virtual events you can attend.
• Read Earth Day from Gale in Context for some Earth Day history.
• Watch Silent Spring, which discusses the book that brought environmental issues into public awareness.

Ah, it’s never too late in the day for a Wizard of Oz pun, even a bad one.

We’ve recently added some new databases to the library and, while we love all of them, I wanted to highlight some of our favorites.

Business Insights: Global
Struggling with conducting company research? Business Insights: Global can help! It offers comprehensive business intelligence, including company reports and financials, SWOT analysis, industry and market share reports, and case studies.

Gale Health and Wellness
Ah, health information. It’s available in abundance these days. But, how to do you know what’s credible? Enter Gale Health and Wellness. It’s a great first-stop to research a range of health-related issues, from current disease and disorder information to in-depth coverage of alternative medical practices.

Gale Power Search
If you’re a regular EBSCOhost and ProQuest user, Gale Power Search is for you. It combines most of our Gale databases into a single search platform and is a good place to start your research or if you need to uncover a lot of information at once.

Honorable Mention – In Context Databases
We added several new In Context databases (think Opposing Viewpoints-esque). There are too many to mention by name in this post but they cover topics such as environmental science and history. If you're not familiar with our In Context databases, they're great at helping you getting a grasp on a topic by offering overviews, historical context, and current news and research. They also offer related topics to help you branch into other areas of research you might not have considered before.

Check out all our new Gale databases!