Lesson 7 - EBooks on EbscoHost (formerly NetLibrary)

Advanced Challenge ~

1.  I chose "quilting" as my subject matter and entered that into the Advanced search tool. When I did nothing to alter the "select a field (optional)" feature, I wound up with 5 results in my search. When I changed the "select a field (optional)" to read "SU subject", the results left me with just one choice from that initial 5 (five) results. When I returned to the 5 (five) results and chose the option, "Download available", there were only 3 eBooks listed. From this point, I began to explore the options offered under each book, settling on the first book in the line up of results. The book I chose is, The Complete Idiot's Guide to Quilting.

I explored the Page Options, which allows the individual to choose 4 different features: Result Format (Standard/Brief/Title Only/Detailed); Image QuickView: (when on, the reader may view thumbnails of the images in an article from the Results List); Results per page (5, 10, 20, 30, 40, or 50); and finally, Page Layout (1, 2, or 3 columns). The Relevance feature offers the patron/student/reader even more choices (Date - Newest/Oldest, Author, Title, or Date Added) to help them with their research.

Within the results, more options are available: PDF Full Text, Table of Contents, and Most Relevant Pages From This Book. If the patron/student hovers their mouse over the "page with a magnifying glass", a pop-up window displays the title of the  book, author(s), Publication & year published, Type of publication (eBooks in this case), Subjects within the book, along with the options to open the PDF Full Text, Add to a Folder, &/or a Detailed Record. The detailed record shows the related ISBNs, Accession number, Categories, Publication information (where/who/when published) and more. That's a nice & handy feature.

If the reader wants to share the eBook, they are equipped with links to a plethora of social media choices - Facebook, Twitter, Blogger, Yahoo, email, RSS feed and more. There is a Permalink provided for the reader to share, as well.

I believe anyone using this online resource will find it easy to navigate, not at all confusing. I enjoyed doing the research via the Ebscohost database. Now, I'm going to have to borrow this book over the weekend, just to brush up on some old techniques that have been neglected for far too long. :)

2.  This one was relatively simple to complete. I chose "new search" and typed in Fairy Tales, glanced through the list offered and discovered a few books written by one author (Andrew Lang) where each book had a color mentioned within the title. So, I changed the Relevance to Author's Name & typed in Andrew Lang into the search window. This led to the list of results being sorted by author and I was able to find the titles quickly. My grandmother (who actually was only able to read Ukraine & Russian) must have been searching for the Blue Fairy Book, the Red Fairy Book, the Yellow Fairy Book, and the Violet Fairy Book. Now, I've got 4 (four) more books tacked onto my "must read" list. :)