I found a couple of fun e-content tidbits on the exhibit hall floor of the American Association of School Librarians’ (AASL) 15th National Conference last week in Minneapolis.
First up is ThingLink, a site that provides image enhancements through tag links. Think old-school image maps, but taken to an entirely new level. ThingLink tags can be simple links, but can also include embedded audio and video content. The sample image shown here was taken from a ThingLink blog post on using the product in schools. While it would be very easy for me to come up with numerous other examples of educational ThingLink enhancements, there are also many possibilities for the product in other types of libraries. For example, a public library could enhance a historical map of the city or town being served or provide additional context when sharing building plans. This is also a great way for libraries to add additional value to digitized collections. There is a free version of the tool available.
In the Gale booth, I saw the new design for the Gale Virtual Reference Library interface. For the last few years, GVRL has been more of an ebook database than a book reading platform. There was no way to actually read a book cover-to-cover, and search results used the same theme as other Gale reference products. And that was okay; after all, this is the virtual reference library. With an expanded lineup of publishers and content, however, Gale is now re-imagining their display. The new browse screen provides book covers instead of title lists and, more importantly for clean display, multiple volumes of a reference book are now condensed behind a single cover. I was very impressed with the new theme. It matches nicely with the changes brought with Gale’s In Context display theme. I was told that the new interface will be launching “soon.” You can watch an extended webinar on the new interface and features.