Knox County Public Library, Knoxville, TN

New world music for streaming

The Contemporary World Music streaming service has added 440 albums (4,978 tracks) from ARC Music, Budamusique, Decca International, ECM, INEDIT, Piranha, Universal Music, World Circuit, World Music Network, and independent artists and ensembles from all around the world. Contemporary World Music (part of the Music Online streaming package) now contains 16,701 albums/209,182 tracks.

New content includes ambient, electronic, folk music, hip-hop, reggae, and Indian pop. New artists and ensembles include Ambient Teknology (UK), Beat Under Control (Sweden), Faouzi Tarkhani (Tunisia), Indidginus (S. Africa), Jay Kishor (India), Kara Nomadica (Turkey), Moh Alileche (Algeria), Osamu Kitajama (Japan), Philipp Weigl (Germany), Ruben van Rompaey (Netherlands), Strojovna 07 (Slovakia), Sofia Vicoveanca (Ukraine), and Cheikh Lo (Senegal). Example new albums include:

• The All Seeing Eye Project, performed by Ambient Teknology
• The Disk Platter Spins, performed by Industrial Sound Bank
• Djembolale - Fills and Drills, performed by Ruben van Rompaey
• Lebanese Bellydance: Best of Emad Sayyah
• The Payans Concert, performed by Jay Kishor
• The Rusalka Cycle - Songs Between Worlds, performed by Kitka
• Vietnam: Buddhist Music from Hue

Study, practice, excel

Some important dates for the college-bound to remember:

SAT Test Dates

• March 10
• May 5
• June 2

ACT Test Dates

• April 14
• June 9

Remember that the Library has online access to courses, ebooks and practice exams to help students do better on the ACT and SAT. There are also courses to help students improve their basic skills and get higher grades.

Learning Express Library is brought to you by the Tennessee Electronic Library. You'll find that it offers more than courses for students: there's help for making career changes, job hunting, learning personal finance, and seeking citizenship. It does require a username and password, but you get to create that for yourself. Your account allows you to put ebooks, courses and exams into "My Center" so that you can track your progress over multiple sessions with the material.

 

Ebooks that don't expire

Did you know that we have ebooks you can download that don't expire? They don't have a due date because they don't get checked out--they are reference books.

Our extensive collection of online reference books in the Gale Virtual Reference Library offers downloadable ebook and audiobook features. You can download the books in sections, usually one chapter or article at a time.

Of course you can search the entire collection, but also you can browse the bookshelves by subject, select a volume and view the table of contents, and go to an article or chapter. Then you can download a PDF of the section. You can send to a Kindle by emailing the section to your @kindle address.

If you prefer to listen while you do other things, the built-in ReadSpeaker technology turns the text into speech. You can listen as you read along, or download an MP3 to play later. The mechanized voice sometimes has odd pitch and pronunciation, but after you get used to it, you'll be able to listen fairly comfortably.

(Downloading PDFs and MP3s directly on some devices can be problematic, but it always works to use a PC and save the files to your device over a USB connection. On Android devices, you may need to use the Firefox browser for direct downloading and saving to work. Let Melissa know if you run into problems.)

Since the books don't get checked out, they're always available; you never wait your turn to use them.

Here are just a few of the latest books in the collection:

• IQ and Psychometric Tests: Assess Your Personality, Aptitude and Intelligence
• Ultimate Job Search: Invaluable Advice on Networking, CVs, Cover Letters, Interviews, Psychometric Tests and Follow-up Strategies
• Readymade Job Search Letters: Winning Letters and E-mails to Help You Get Your Dream Job
• Ultimate Interview: Make a Great Impression and Get That Job
• World Folklore for Storytellers: Tales of Wonder, Wisdom, Fools, and Heroes
• How Your Government Really Works: A Topical Encyclopedia of the Federal Government
• The Gale Encyclopedia of Diets: A Guide to Health and Nutrition
• The Cook's Herb Garden
• Grow It, Cook It: Simple gardening projects and delicious recipes
• Garden Design
• Grow Organic

For business managers:

• American Time Use: Who Spends How Long at What
• Best Customers: Demographics of Consumer Demand
• Household Spending: Who Spends How Much on What
• Everyday Finance: Economics, Personal Money Management, and Entrepreneurship
• How to Market Your Business: A practical guide to advertising, PR, selling, and direct and online marketing
• Strategic Planning: How to Deliver Maximum Value through Effective Business Strategy
• Effective Internal Communication

Finding more read-alikes

NoveList displays reviews from Kirkus, Publishers Weekly, Library Journal, and School Library Journals in Series and Title Detail pages when available, and these are great sources of information when you're deciding whether to pick a book up. But did you know that you can use the Advanced Search to mine those rich reviews to help you pick your next great read?

For example, you can use reviews to find read-alikes. Let’s say you loved the Kay Scarpetta mysteries, but you’ve already read the series suggested in the "NoveList Also Recommends" section of the Series Detail page:

Use the Advanced Search to look for more suggestions:

1. Access the Advanced Search page by clicking the Advanced Search link in the Search For… box on the homepage.
2. In the first field, enter scarpetta, and select RV Review from the adjacent drop-down.
3. In the next row, select NOT from the Boolean drop-down.
4. Type cornwell, patricia daniels (or just patricia cornwell) in the next field, and select AU Author from the adjacent drop-down.
   
   
5. Click Search.

This will give you a list of titles with reviews that mention the Kay Scarpetta mysteries, without listing the titles written by Patricia Cornwell.

More about using Novelist

Genealogy databases: training and prize

Free training

Learn how to use two of the Library's genealogy databases—Heritage Quest and Ancestry Library Edition—with free live webinars by ProQuest. Registration is required. Recorded webinars are available for viewing, too. If you take one of the webinars, leave us a comment on how it was.

Win a prize

In celebration of October as Family History Month, ProQuest is joining with Ancestry.com and their research firm ProGenealogists® to sponsor the Explore the Amazing History of You Sweepstakes:

• Grand prize: An expert professional from ProGenealogists will work one-on-one with the lucky winner for up to 20 hours to research their family history. ProGenealogists specializes in researching and documenting genealogy and family history, including: immigrant ancestors, European origins, Canadian origins, lineage societies, United States colonial research, and Medieval British research.

• Two runners up will be chosen randomly to win either a one-year subscription to Ancestry.com's World Explorer or Family Tree Maker software (PC or Mac).

Visit ProQuest's Facebook page to enter between October 1-8, 2011.

The training and the prize are not related. You do not need to take a webinar to enter the sweepstakes.

Free online seminar for business owners

Topic:  Start, Manage, Grow!  How Businesses can use ReferenceUSA
Day/Date:  Mondays (through September 26)
Time:  2:30 PM Eastern (1 hour)

Entrepreneurs and business owners will learn how to use ReferenceUSA (one of the Library's resources) to find the mission critical information necessary to start, manage and grow a business. Topics include:

• research prospects and prospective clients
• locate hard to find vendors, both locally and nationally
• network with other businesses in your area or in your industry
• develop relationships with related business for co-branding opportunities
• understand community demographics
• survey locations for expansion
• conduct competitive analysis
• locate subject manager experts and professional services
• source new employees
• find investors, venture capitalists and angels
• plan delivery routes and service areas

Register for a session. Note the times may display in the Central time zone. You can change your time zone in the website.

WorldCat suggests search terms

We all have wondered if our search terms were getting the most relevant results. Now a new auto-suggest option on the WorldCat search box prompts users with possible search terms, with the most-used terms and phrases at the top. These suggested searches are based on the ever-growing data from millions of real user searches, ranked by popularity. Try it for yourself!

WorldCat is a catalog of items owned by thousands of libraries around the globe. It's a larger catalog than the Library of Congress, the British Library, or the Amazon.com catalogs.

World of Forensic Science and the CSI effect

The term "CSI effect" refers to the idea that popular television shows such as Bones, CSI and Dexter are raising peoples' expectations for scientific evidence in criminal cases. If you are called to sit on a jury, do you know what forensic evidence you can expect to see, and how reliable it is? Find out more about the real state of crime scene science with this reference ebook, The World of Forensic Science.

Music streaming is expanding

The online resources for music and sounds continue to grow (and didn't we mention there's a mobile app?). Here's the latest new content:

Jazz Music Library

850 albums (8,000 tracks) from Blue Note, EMI, Angel Records, Capitol Records, and Vanguard Records. The new content includes releases by Benny Goodman, Buddy Rich, Bobby McFerrin, Nancy Wilson, Cassandra Wilson, Wynton Marsalis, Louis Prima, Nigel Kennedy, Bernadette Peters, and more. Great recordings include:

• Duke Ellington Live at the Blue Note
• The Complete Imperial Sessions: Sonny Criss
• The Rudy van Gelder Edition CDs of Sonny Rollins, Herbie Hancock, Walter Davis Jr, Andrew Hill, Dexter Gordon, and more
• Benny Green Live at the Village Vanguard
• David Axelrod at Capitol Records (1966-1970)
• The Complete Capitol Recordings of Art Tatum
• The Complete Blue Note Recordings of Herbie Nichols
• Kenny Burrell 75th Birthday Bash Live

Contemporary World Music

99 albums from Virgin India, Angel Records, Air Mail Music, Playasound, Piranha, Tropical Music, and PAN Records. New material includes Indian Classical music, African drumming, cumbia, African gospel, chant, ritual music and more. Examples of new albums include:

• Ravi Shankar Collection
• Anoushka Shankar: Anourag
• Swar Shikhar - The Taj Heritage Series
• Samba Touré: Songhai Blues: Homage to Ali Farka Toure

Music Online now contains:

• 309,704 tracks
• 21,973 albums
• 66,855 pages text reference
• 21,878 scores (369,844 pages)
• 426 videos

NoveList: find books that appeal to you

NoveList uses appeal factors like writing style and pace to help you get better reading recommendations.

Watch a video tutorial [requires Adobe Flash Player].

Click on the image below for a screen shot of a way to use the new appeal factors in combination.

In this example, someone got a list of books that are described as "thought-provoking" (S1) but there were too many of them. Then she looked at a list of books described as "reflective" (S2) and there were too many. So, she clicked on "Search History" and saw both of the searches in the list. She clicked on the check boxes for S1 and S2, and then clicked the "Search with AND" button.

The result of combining those searches is a smaller list (S3, with 119 items in the list) of books that are both thought-provoking and reflective. Now she can get an even smaller list using the limits on the right-hand side, such as Adults, Fiction, Award winner.

New recommended reading lists

To find these lists, type the title in the Search For… box on the NoveList homepage. Then, click the Lists & Articles tab above the Result List.

Imaginary Creatures. With sneaky trolls and fire breathing dragons, the books on this list view imaginary creatures as either heroes or villains.

Ghost Stories. This list of scary books features ghosts in all kinds of settings, including haunted houses.

Murder with a Foreign Accent. For readers who have been won over by the mysteries of Henning Mankell and Stieg Larsson, the Scandinavian juggernaut of outstanding mysteries continues; what is even more exciting is that more mysteries from around the world are also being published in North America, so that readers have an ever-expanding range of foreign mysteries to enjoy.

Mobile version

Scan this QR code on your smartphone and go to the URL (or if you're reading this on your phone, go here), then set a bookmark. Then you can add the bookmark to your home screen if you wish.

Get widgets and apps

You can use mobile features and widgets (such as search boxes) for some of our online databases.

Catalog

BookMyne (iOS, Android) is an app that allows users to easily find your nearest library location, search the library’s catalog, place holds, and renew currently checked out items. You'll need your library card number and PIN to access your personal account information and place holds using the BookMyne app.

Music Online

You can send an audio track, album, or playlist from the streaming collections to your mobile device to listen to later. The item that you send stays on your device for 48 hours.

At this time, this functionality is supported on Android and iPhone (3G or better).

Also, there are free biweekly downloads on Music Online. For more information, visit the Music Online Help page.

Novelist Plus Mobile site

This isn't an app or a widget, but it is a mobile version of the Novelist database which supplies reading recommendations. For example, enter a book you've enjoyed and get recommendations of similar books. Scan this QR code and go to the URL, and set a bookmark. Then login with your library card. You can add the bookmark to your home screen if you wish.

Gale databases

You can get widgets for the Gale databases here and put them on your personalized web page, such as iGoogle. You'll need our library identification code, which is tel_p_knoxcpl.

You can also get iPhone and Android apps for the Gale databases.

WorldCat

Two free iPhone apps, pic2shop and Book Bazaar, work through our WorldCat subscription and are downloadable through Apple’s iTunes App Store. For Android, there's a BookMinder app.

There's also a mobile website, a Google Gadget and a Facebook app for WorldCat.

Quick Search Bar engines

You can add these search engine plugins (called "search providers" in Internet Explorer) on your browser's Quick Search box:

• Our library catalog
• Oxford English Dictionary
• WorldCat

 

Community directory

The Directory of Local Organizations lists about 600 community organizations in the Knox County area, with browse categories such as Hobby and Recreation, Retirees and Senior Citizens, Appalachia, Environment, and many more. Each listing contains a description of the organization along with basic contact information. You can explore further using tags, search with keywords such as "scholarships," and download records for mailing lists.

If you know of an organization that might be suitable for the directory, or if you would like to update information for an existing organization, please email the Reference staff at reference@knoxlib.org.

Genealogy database highlights

If you're interested in history and genealogy, you'll want to spend some time in the Footnote database, which is now available to all Knox County Public Library card holders without restrictions on premium content when accessing it from home.

Students can find interesting primary source documents for their homework assignments, such as an FBI case file mentioning Helen Keller, or the decree of the Court freeing the Africans of the Schooner Amistad.

• Discover historical documents using a wealth of different search and browse options like Keyword or Person search, explore by historical era, etc.
• Documents can be viewed, downloaded and printed at high resolution with many advanced options such as:
• Adjust image contrast 
• Adjust image height to full screen
• Zoom in and out
• Rotate images
• Spotlight an image
• Make annotations
• Make image connections / Bookmark the image
• Save to your gallery or download
• Share an image
• Print and download images and documents

Footnote includes:

• Footnote™ History and Genealogy Archives
• African American Archives
• American Revolution Archives
• Native American Archives
• U.S. Bureau of Investigation Case File Archives
• World War II Archives

Use the Drop-down box at the top of every page to toggle between products.

Fun with WorldCat lists

I've been enjoying this list of "100 best first lines from novels" on WorldCat. The public list was created by a WorldCat user just like you, and of course WorldCat also allows you to make and keep private lists. Have you found (or created) an interesting list you'd like to share?

New feature in CultureGrams

Have you seen the latest CultureGrams feature? Faces of the World is a collection of nearly 100 interviews in which people of all ages—from around the globe—describe their challenges, ambitions, worldviews, and everyday lives. Rich in detail, these accounts provide a new layer of insight into their cultures.

To access Faces of the World, use the Interviews link at the top of the World and Kids editions. This will take you to a gallery of photos, with links to each full interview. Also, each applicable country page has a link in its "Additional Content" box, and relevant excerpts are linked from category pages.

From Culture Matters: ProQuest Newsletter. ©2008 ProQuest LLC. All rights reserved.

Gale PowerSearch features

There's a brand new interface for the Gale PowerSearch database platform (we old-timers know it as  'InfoTrac'), and it is downright nifty. The company's new slogan is "Power to the User" and with that in mind, the visually appealing design offers more features than ever before, but makes them easier to find.

1. Enticing homepage with teasers to the latest articles under hot topic headings
2. Easy browsing through more than 20,000 publications
3. On demand translation of articles, with 11 languages
4. Personal accounts for saving searches and receiving search alerts when new content is available
5. RSS feeds for your personal account
6. Images, video and podcasts enhance search results
7. Web 2.0 sharing tools, including Del.icio.us, Digg, Facebook, MySpace, and more

This interface is used for several of the databases we offer, primarily for periodicals and the Virtual Reference Library.

 

Database for studying controversial issues

Points of View Reference Center is especially useful for students with papers due as the end of the school year approaches. It presents multiple viewpoints on current issues and offers guides to debate, developing arguments and writing position papers.

For 200 topics you'll find an overview and opposing arguments, plus articles from leading political magazines, newspapers, transcripts, primary source documents and reference books. Additionally, this database contains the Video Encyclopedia of the 20th Century, a searchable collection of some of the most important social, political, and cultural moments of the 20th century.

Our Reference Databases are your first place to go for sources--and they don't count as "websites" for most teachers.

 

Dead Sea Scrolls

Time Magazine is covering a controversy about the community who saved and stored the Dead Sea Scrolls, the Essenes. The Library just happens to have an online reference book about the scrolls. Using your library card number, you can login to the Encyclopedia of the Dead Sea Scrolls. The encyclopedia's article about the Essenes points out some similarities and differences between classical sources (such as Josephus) and other data.

Keep lists, share lists

There's a list feature in the "e-Library"  (catalog/My Account software).

• You must log into the e-Library to use the My Lists feature.

• It will be up to you to keep updating a list of items you've checked out.

You'll find that the list feature is handy for many purposes. You can create a "to read" list, a "have read it" list, and any other lists.

It's not "Mark"

When you click the Mark button for items in a search results list, you're creating a Marked Items bibliography. The Marked Items bibliography is temporary because it lasts only for the length of the current e-Library session. 

My Lists versus Marked Items

• Only one bibliography of marked items can be maintained in an e-Library session, but you can have many My Lists.
• From a list in the My Lists feature, you can go to the details of an item in order to request that item. This is not available in Marked Items.

Other library databases with personal lists:

1. WorldCat

WorldCat includes not only our library catalog, but the catalog of thousands of other member libraries. So, in making your reading lists on WorldCat, you're not limited to just items that Knox County Public Library owns.

You start by going to http://kcp.worldcat.org and registering for your account there. Then you can search for an item, and when you find the one you want, add it to a list. You can make your lists public or private, and you can add your own comments and reviews. You can also subscribe to someone else's public list if you find another user who has tastes similar to your own.

From any item in your list, if we own it, you can click the link that is our library's name and be taken to our website where you can reserve the item. Interlibrary Loan can try to get items for you that we don't own.

Your WorldCat account also allows you to post your stuff on social networking sites, install a WorldCat browser tool, or even a mobile phone application if you're super high-tech.

2. NoveList

You can make multiple lists in the NoveList database, and from any item in NoveList you can link to our catalog to look for the item. Here's more about NoveList.

Please call Melissa Brenneman at 215-8723 if you have any questions about any of this.

Online Auto Repair Manuals

When it comes to auto repair, do-it-yourselfers have asked for Chilton manuals for years. Now you can use your library card for quick online access to the Chilton manuals database for repair, maintenance and service information on popular automobiles.

Login to the Chilton Library with your library card number. This database is one of many available through the "Reference Databases" link on the horizontal navigation bar above.

In addition to the Chilton database, Knox County Public Library also subscribes to the online database of Mitchell automotive manuals, available on computers at the Lawson McGhee Library. Call 215-8700 for information.

Children's online read-alongs

We're excited to offer a new online read-along activity for children on our website; you can find it in the Kid's Library or in the Reading Corner page under Kid's Library. The service is called TumbleBooks. Your child can read along with an animated, narrated book, and some books have related games and quizzes.