Kyle @ Bellevue Archive.

As I'm sure many of you know, KCLS no longer subscribes to Rosetta Stone, the database used to learn other languages. This was a very popular database, and we were very sad to lose it. Unfortunately, it wasn't really our choice, as Rosetta Stone has chosen not to offer an affordable and worthwhile subscription to library systems anymore. So earlier this year, our Online Services folk started looking for a replacement. I wasn't there, but rumor has it the search took them to Azerbaijan, and the hanging gardens of Babylon! And then, deep within the Dry Valleys region of Antarctica, they stumbled across a new service to replace Rosetta Stone. And wouldn't you know it, what they found is, I think, even better! Welcome then, to Mango Languages.

That's a pretty bold claim, I know, so bear with me while I defend my wild accusations. Obviously they both are language learning tools available online. Both offer a wide variety of languages to choose from. And both are accessible from home or in your local branch. Both there's a very important difference in between the two services, and it all comes down to how they go about doing what they do. If I were to compare the two of them to a game of darts, Mango Languages is like throwing darts from only a few feet away and slowly moving back as your aim improves. Rosetta Stone, on the other hand, was like playing in the dark. And instead of regular darts, you're throwing squirrels.

Oh sure after a bit of trial and error, and a lot of bandages, you may start hitting the dart board a little more consistantly, but you never really get the impression you're learning anything. Like a game of Concentration, you slowly improve your ability to remember where things were, and begin to guess correctly with a little more consistancy. But thats not really learning, is it? If you were to play 5 rounds of Concentration, and then replay Round 1, in all likelihood you weren't going to card locations any better than you did the first time. Its not really learning, its just exploiting your short-term memory.

Mango Languages, on the other hand, starts off light and easy, and guides you towards your ultimate goal with the same sort of finesse you'd usually find in a classroom, or with a private tutor. With each of their many language lessons, they begin by teaching you some basic phrases, such as "Hello. How are you?" This is followed by a lot of repetition, and literal translations to help you understand a little better how each language works. They even include a few slides with each lesson to teach you about some part of the grammar that is important to note. By the end of the first few lessons, you will have learned several phrases you would use in normal conversation, including the important question "Do you speak English?" Which could be very helpful when you need to find an emergency room to help treat your friend's squirrel bites, since Rosetta Stone has so far only taught them  how to say "Ball", "Airplane", and "Boy".

Not too long ago, we talked about OverDrive, the database of downloadable content KCLS offers to all of its card-holders. We also talked about media players that do (and don't) work with OverDrive. At the time I wrote those posts, staff here at Bellevue were getting familiar with OverDrive through some informal training some of us techs were giving. Thus, as is the way of things with technology, OverDrive updated their database right in the middle of everything! Blog posts were re-written, training was updated, and everything worked out in the end. So it should come as no surprise that now, two months later, OverDrive and KCLS have redesigned the eBooks page. Welcome then, to the all new KCLS Downloads.

At this point you may be asking yourself, so what? A fresh coat of paint and a new front bumper doesn't make a car any better. What is so special about doing the same to your website? Well besides the obvious fact that our website doesn't have a bumper, this isn't just a fresh coat of paint... its a whole new car--er, site. Whatever.

The new design appears in two places: our Downloads portal, which links to OverDrive, NetLibrary, and Books 24x7, and the OverDrive itself. The Downloads portal has links to separate OverDrive collections, immediately making it easier to begin browsing what you want to browse.

The OverDrive site itself is also simplified. The sidebar has been condensed, and menus now appear when you hover over many of the "Browse..." links. Like the changes to our Download portal, this makes it much easier to look at the format and subject you want, and avoid all the ones you're not interested in. All of these changes add up to a much nicer browsing experience... which is good, considering how much OverDrive has expanded over the last several months.  

School is back in session, and you know what that means: research reports! And chances are, you aren't the only one doing your report on a particular subject. Which usually means that whomever makes it to the library first will snap up all the books on a particular subject, and everyone else is left trying to find good sources of information. Thankfully, KCLS offers many wonderful databases to help you research your subject. And if your subject is a current or controversial topic, CQ Researcher may be just what you need.

Once a week, CQ Researcher publishes an extensive report on a current topic, including cited sources, contacts for more information, and a section they call The Next Step, which they call an "additional bibliography providing sources related to particular questions considered in the report." You can also find plenty of additional links to help flesh out your report with news articles, blog posts, and other books on the same subject.

Best of all though, CQ Researcher tries to provide a balanced and objective description of the issue at hand, its background, and its possible repercussions. It then gives both sides of the issue a chance to voice their argument, without choosing sides. This helps by letting readers choose their own side, instead of promoting one side over the other. And it helps shed light on the other side's viewpoint, which can be especially important in a debate.

Hot-button issues are coming hard and fast this election season, so let CQ Researcher help you find your own opinion on the matter!

I suppose its possible that there are people out there who aren not aware there is a rather important vote coming up. Perhaps they were in Antarctica, visiting relatives. Or on the moon (with Steve)! But chances are, if you've turned on the TV, the radio, or your computer any time in the last year or so, you have probably caught a vague hint that we're approaching that rather important day when we vote for the next President of the United States. But did you know there are other things we vote for on that day too?

Its true! On November 4th, voters across the country will have their chance to weigh in on their favorite candidates, taxes, and initiatives. But if you're like me,  you probably don't have a good idea of what all of it means. Who are these people, and what are their stances towards the things I care about most? How will that initiative affect me? How much will that new tax cost me? And where is the closest Dairy Queen?

Well you're in luck, because KCLS has launched a new site to help answer your questions: InfoVote 2008, a central place find the answers you need (except that Dairy Queen question, you might want to try Ask A Librarian for that one). Virtually bursting with information, dates, and important links, InfoVote is your one-stop shop for all of your voting needs.

If you've ever written a computer program, designed a website, or been the administrator of a network, you probably have experienced late nights working on a line of code you just cannot get to work properly. You've tried everything you can think of, you've read through every book you own on the subject, and you're still stuck.

If this had happened 12 hours ago, you could have stopped by the nearest King County Library to borrow another book on the subject, but this early in the morning all you're going to find is a dark building. And even if it were open, there's no guarantee you'd find the book you need, right?

So where else can you go for up-to-date technical manuals, programming language tips and tricks, or even advice on how to train your dog or lose weight? Why, Books 24x7, that's where!

Books 24x7 is database chock full of manuals for programmers, web developers, network and enterprise administrators, and even for people looking to improve their experience with Microsoft Windows or Apple OS X. There are also sections for Self Help and Productivity books, such as the Bird Flu Preparedness Planner! So while it may not have every subject you would expect your local library to have, it has its specialties, and it covers them very well.

One quite interesting thing about Books 24x7 is that they are not an eBooks site; you do not need Adobe Digital Editions or MobiPocket Reader. Instead, all books are presented in web format right on their site. This means they're generally easier to use, and aren't limited by how many people are currently viewing each book. It also means better support for mobile devices, such as smart phones and mobile internet devices. It all adds up to an informative, intuitive, and impressive database of helpful resources, all accessible through the KCLS Databases page!

Have you ever finished reading a book and wondered what else you could read on the same topic? Did that brand new space opera make you want to track down more great epics? Or did you enjoy a fictional account of the Spartan warriors' stand at Thermopylae, and you just need to read more stories set in ancient Greece? You might think your best bet is to wander the fiction shelves at your local library, or check out the selection at your nearest book store. But why not save yourself the time (and gasoline) and find a book that sounds just right for you, all from the comfort of your own home? That's where Fiction Connection comes in!

Fiction Connection is the perfect database for anyone who is looking for something to read, and doesn't quite know what they want. The main page has a very powerful search engine (which uses the same software as our Catalog Explorer), allowing you to search by title, author or topic, or use one of the provided Topic Cloud links. But the real power is in the Find Similar function!

Start by finding a book you enjoyed. In my case, I used Peter F. Hamilton's Pandora's Star. Next to the search results, each book has a  button. Using a large list of associated topics, Fiction Connection will give you recommendations that are easily refined using the check-boxes that appear on the left screen panel. In the case of Pandora's Star, there were about 15,000 similar books unfiltered. But by checking off the "24th Century" box, I was able to narrow that down to just 57 titles! And we're not done yet, folks.

That left panel works in the order you check off the boxes you want, to help filter your searches even more. Without anything checked, the Find Similar panel tells me there are 492 similar books that fall under the "Moral Dilemmas" category. But by checking off "24th Century", and that number drops all the way to just 1 book. Voila! Days of Cain by J.R. Dunn is set in the 24th century, and deals with a Moral Dilemma. From a book I liked, to a book I'd probably have never found by myself, tailored to my interests, in just a couple of minutes! Give Fiction Connection a try next time your bookshelf is looking too familiar, you just might find something wonderful!

Last week I introduced the audiobook database OverDrive, a massive collection of downloadable digital content provided for KCLS patrons. Whether you're at home with a cold, on your computer at work, or on a jog around your local park, downloadable audiobooks can help you pass the time in a much more enjoyable way. And over the last month, OverDrive has made listening to downloadable audiobooks even easier by introducing their MP3 Audiobook collection, which expands upon their already wonderful catalog by offering audiobooks that work with Apple's iPod line!

So which media players work best with OverDrive? Well if you're just starting out, you can check out this great list of compatible devices OverDrive maintains. The list is pretty up-to-date, and has a very large number of dedicated media players and media-capable phones. They even provide links to Google Product Searches for each device, to help you find the best price available. As you look through the list, pay attention to the amount of storage each device has. The more storage a device has, the more data it can hold. That means more audiobooks on the device at any one time, which reduces the amount of time spent making room for your next book.

For as long as I can remember, KCLS has offered Books on Tape (and later Books on CD) for checkout to the general public. From kits for children, to romance novels, many popular books are released in audio format, and we try to provide those for checkout as often as possible. But much like the music industry, the audio book industry is utilizing downloadable formats for audio books more and more. To help bring this new technology to you, KCLS subscribes to two wonderful databases that provide downloadable audio books: Recorded Books, and the topic of this week's post, OverDrive.

OverDrive is an easy-to-use, searchable catalog of downloadable audio books, music, eBooks, and videos. At present, there are over 4,200 downloadable audio books, 1,000 videos, 350 albums, and 5,000 eBooks available through OverDrive. And while some titles are available in multiple formats (such as downloadable audio, MobiPocket eBook, and Adobe eBook) at the same time, that still adds up to a whole lot of books, videos, and albums, available from anywhere in the world with your library card. For me, that meant being able to check out the 6th Saga of Seven Suns book, Metal Swarm, after having finished the 5th book halfway through my vacation.

OverDrive is great for students, as well. The Literature Collection contains 29 pages of classic and modern literature, many of which are assigned reading for one class or another. So when your English teacher assigns The Scarlet Letter, and everyone rushes to the library after school to pick up a copy that may or not be immediately available anyways, a quick trip to OverDrive could get you an Adobe eBook copy in just a couple of minutes, saving you a trip to the library and the stress of finding out there are 47 other people waiting for the book before you. There's even an Always Available Audio Book collection including books like Fahrenheit 451 and War and Peace.