From the Director's Desk

In this Presidential election season, it seems that everyone is talking about “change” so let me tell you about a number of changes here at McQuade Library. First, there have been some staff changes. As you may know, our Director, Barbara Lachance, left this past summer to accept a position as Director of Sandown Public Library in her hometown of Sandown, NH. I am very honored and excited to be serving as Interim Director, and I encourage you to contact me with any questions, comments or concerns about McQuade Library. I am also pleased to introduce Marie Deuerlein, our new part-time Reference/Instruction Librarian. Marie will be here to help provide reference and instruction services to the community while I am serving in the interim position. Marie comes to us with extensive library reference experience, including positions at the Harvard Business School library and the Tisch Library at Tufts University. Stop in and say hello to her!

McQuade Library has also recently acquired a number of new research tools. New products such as the Early American Newspapers and SPORTDiscus databases provide valuable new research materials. Reference Universe is a new resource that improves access to the research collections we already own. Read more about these products and more later on in this newsletter. Check our web site often for ongoing updates about new services, new acquisitions, and trial databases that we are investigating. As always, your feedback is essential to help us best meet the research needs of our community and our curriculum.

So yes, McQuade Library is always evolving, but what doesn’t change is our commitment to providing our community with the very best resources and services that we can. Are you a student just assigned a research paper and you don’t quite know where to start? Or perhaps you are a professor looking for ways to improve the quality of your students’ research. Maybe you are a student teacher who needs materials to bring into your classroom, or you’re someone looking to unwind with a magazine, DVD, or the latest bestseller. We have talented staff and quality materials that can help you with all this and much more.

And getting back to that upcoming election… If you are having trouble sorting through all that talk about change and you want to learn more about the issues to make sure you cast an informed vote, we can help you out with that kind of research too!

McQuade Library, in a cooperative effort with other NOBLE Libraries, will begin offering downloadable audio books in the late fall.
Students, faculty and staff will have anytime, anywhere access to a dynamic collection of digital audio books through this new library service with technology provided by Overdrive, Inc. of Cleveland, Ohio.

The eclectic collection will include thrillers, romance, science fiction and more. Look for bestsellers or notable authors, too!

Check the McQuade blog often for the latest news and updates on this new collection.

McQuade Library subscribes to over 30 Ebsco databases including Academic Search Premier, PsycINFO, and ERIC. With the launch of Ebsco 2.0, all these databases now have a new look and feel. These changes, based on usability testing and feedback, offer a clean and intuitive interface. New features and functionalities include:

• Date slider feature to limit search by date range
• Mouse over option to view citation and abstract information
• Breadcrumb trail of recent search options
• Related images appear in search results
• Bookmarking of articles
• And more!
  

To use the new interface, simply log into EBSCOhost and start searching. We encourage you to watch the Ebsco 2.0 tutorial below (start by clicking on arrow) and review this help sheet . If you have any questions or would like a quick demonstration, don’t hesitate to ask a librarian.