More discovery news, Credo Reference is now accessible through Ex Libris. From the press release: Credo Reference (credoreference.com), the award-winning online reference service, and Ex Libris Group®, a leading provider of library automation solutions, announced today that content from Credo’s General Reference, Publisher and Subject Collections will now be accessible through the Ex Libris Primo Central Index of scholarly content.
With this new agreement, Primo search results will include both Credo Reference content and Credo Topic Pages. Credo Topic Pages combine high-quality research, images and library resources to provide an engaging, all-in-one starting point for users entering the research experience. As a further benefit of the agreement, libraries will be able to customize Credo Topic Pages to display Primo results, promoting their relevant and valuable resources at the point of need.
Credo Reference is sponsoring a contest to bridge the library to Credo Topic Pages. Any student, faculty, or staff of a library (not required to be a Credo Reference customer) can submit an entry. The idea is simple – build a single web page using Credo Topic Pages to point to authoritative sources, images and more. This video describes the project in more detail: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xFPngz_cBDU
Great news for reference discoverability, Credo Reference will soon be available on ProQuest’s Summon discovery service. From the press release:
With this new agreement, the Summon™ service will now include results from Credo’s reference content—together with Credo Topic Pages—providing the overview and background information that researchers need when beginning to explore a new topic. Continue reading Credo Reference Searchable on Summon→
Credo Reference is now partnering with ebrary® to provide a user-friendly customization option for the new Credo Topic Pages. Libraries who subscribe to the Credo Reference customized product and ebrary will now be able to research their ebook content directly from the Credo Topic Pages. Designed to provide contextualized, orderly access to authoritative content, each of the approximately 9,000 Credo Topic Pages is a starting point that assembles topical material from resources within and outside the library.
Today, Joe Janes from Univ. of Washington, Mike Sweet from Credo, and myself had a great conversation on reference content, student research habits, and how reference content can be more discoverable during the LJ webinar “Reference: The Missing Link in Discovery.”
Joe highlighted research results from OCLC Perceptions study and 2 studies at the University of Washington – Project Information Literacy and use of Wikipedia for course-related research which focused on the changing research behaviors of students. He also addressed the teaching of reference sources to librarians, comparing his learning of sources years ago to today’s focus on content over containers. He speculated on various reference sources that have gone away, transitioned, and what still persists. Continue reading Reference: The Missing Link in Discovery – webinar summary→
I wrote a piece on Credo’s Topic Pages a couple of weeks ago, but here is the official press release announcing the launch of the Topic Page Beta.
Credo Launches Topic Page Beta
The Librarian’s Answer to Wikipedia
Boston and Oxford, (April 8, 2010) – The data is undeniable, a significant majority of today’s researchers turn to Wikipedia at some point in the research process, very often at the beginning, or “presearch” phase of research. Now, Credo Reference is pleased to announce an easy-to-use alternative for researchers – Credo Topic Pages – that help answer the question, “Where do I start?” Continue reading Credo Launches Topic Pages→
Mike Sweet, CEO of Credo Reference, gave me a tour of the new Credo Topic Pages yesterday. What a great tool they are for background/overview information on 10,000 different topics! The stimulus for creating the Topic Pages was context. A University of Washington study on how students research in the digital age found that students struggle to find context for the masses of information available to them in the digital age. Enter Credo’s Topic Pages. The pages are designed to offer context and vocabulary, subject orientation, and pathways to further exploration of the topic. The pages include simple definitions, encyclopedia entries, tag clouds showing the vocabulary of the topic, images, and a title list of the most common references from subject encyclopedia articles (all part of the Credo Reference content). Sharing the topic page content via social tools, links to the library’s chat/IM service, and article citations via EasyBib are included as well, and that’s just the basic topic page. (side note, have you heard of EasyBib? 16 million students are using it….probably some of yours) Continue reading Credo’s Topic Pages – a great place to start your research!→
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