NPR Book Concierge

In case you haven't "heard," National Public Radio is now in the readers' advisory business.  Sure they frequently had Nancy Pearl on for guest spots to review books, and they've run lists of best books since at least 2008. But for 2013 and 2014 they have an interactive service called "NPR's Book Concierge."

There are 27 filters that can be used and combined to narrow the recommendation. It's a fun little tool to use whether you're looking for a good read over the holidays or finding something recent that matches a patron's interests. (Remember that NoveList is one of our databases that will also help you find books with very specific interests.)

It would be a great project to compare NPR's best list with GPC holdings and send a list to Angiah for collection development. Anyone interested?

Downloading e-books on Mobile Devices - From Sonya

On 11/20/2014 Sonya emailed: We are receiving more and more questions about downloading e-books in chat and at the reference desks, so I want to make sure that we are all on the same page in answering them. 

All EBSCO e-books including former Netlibrary e-books can be downloaded on a user’s device for off-line viewing. Steps will vary slightly if downloaded on a computer or a mobile devices.

For all users: (this is only done once, the first time a user downloading a book)

           - Create ebsco personal account  

           - Create Adobe digital id (adobe digital id created to use with other adobe products, or for public library books, can be used)

For computer users:

      - Install Adobe Digital Editions

      - Authorize Adobe digital editions with your Adobe ID

For tablet users (will work on iOS, and Android devices including Kindle Fire) – one time step         

         - Install BlueFire Reader

     -   Authorize BlueFire Reader with your Adobe Digital ID

Once it is done, the process is seamless because a computer/ device will remember what program to use, etc.

 EBSCO e-books CANNOT be downloaded on library computers or any computers on campus.

If a user clicked Download by mistake they can e-mail the file to themselves and open it at home with Adobe Digital editions or they can sideload it to their compatible device (connect a device with a computer and drag a file to a downloads folder on a device).

Also if they were logged into their EBSCO account, the selected book will stay in their EBSCO folder, so they can download it at home without having to search for it again.

The default check out period for EBSCO e-books is 7 days. Books expire after 7 days, they do not need to be returned.

We have a variety of instructions for different devices at http://guides.gpc.edu/mobile_ebooks

Please let me know if you have any questions or need additional explanations. 

Thank you!  sonya