USDLA Announces the Availability of the Learner’s Library Coursepack Builder for USDLA Colleges and University Members.
Why the Learner’s Library? The Learner’s Library helps bring the most relevant library resources to the student 24/7 in an easy to use, easy to access tool set. As stated by Dr. John G. Flores, Executive Director of the United States Distance Learning Association, “Learner’s Library as a reference and research tool coupled with its Virtual Coursepack availability should be a welcome addition to any educational institution or environment. Educators should take note of its ease of use and its comprehensive data base as a quality resource.” It allows Students and Faculty to make use of full text copyright cleared material — backstopped by a citation checker to ensure that accidental plagiarism does not happen. Faculty can make better use of their time — and keep course content more current — by building their coursepacks in the Learner’s Library. The high quality academic journals in the Learner’s Library database provide for a more concise and better- focused search, even for savvy web users. Time, money and paper will all be saved – from better searches to lower priced coursepacks. Get only what you need and when you need it for your class. The Learner’s Library is a great learning and research tool and is now in place at more than 500 colleges nationwide.
What is the Learner’s Library? The Learner’s Library is a single source database for the full text of hundreds of thousands of high quality academic journal articles, more than 120 million book bibliographic entries and a set of value added research aids. Anyone can use Learner’s Library to research full text materials. Subscribers are allowed full save, cut, paste, copy and print privileges with regard to this material. They can save and annotate the multiple steps in their research activities and, when a research paper or article is complete, it can then be submitted for the automatic generation of the required footnotes. The Learner’s Library offers 24/7 access, and acts as a research librarian, as well as a research assistant at a price attractive to institutions and their students. The Learner’s Library database, updated regularly, is currently populated with the content of over 450 American and English academic and business journals, covering a wide range of subjects from 1998 to the present.
Create Virtual Coursepacks. Professors using the Learner’s Library to create “Virtual Coursepacks” are never charged. A “virtual course pack” is a collection of copyrighted full-text reading materials and/or lecture notes put together and offered online for use in a course. These virtual coursepacks are fully copyright cleared for reading, copying, and printing without the payment of additional fees based on usage. The virtual coursepack has flexibility, which allows for a more individualized educational experience. Faculty can change the coursepack mid-semester or on the fly. Students can extend the coursepack with notes and their own recommended readings. Users can recommend research materials for use in preparing class assignments. Faculty can access Usage Reports telling them which students are actually doing the required readings. Coursepacks prepared with the Learner’s Library cost $15 each regardless of size or usage. This can save students $25-$50 or more per class. And more importantly, Faculty members are always free.
Need for Online Research Tools. For students and researchers the Learner’s Library research tool helps address two critical needs in the research phase of an assignment – (1) – Topic exploration and how to get started and (2) the need for quotes to support a particular position. Unlike other search tools that return mere citations or entire articles, the Learner’s Library takes users with speed and accuracy to the precise place within the text that one needs to go to. Users can also query the Learner’s Library and find the most relevant sentences from the most pertinent articles in the Learner’s Library database. Search results are ranked for relevancy and accompanied by their source citations. For subscribers, each sentence links directly to the entire printable article from which it was excerpted – with the quote highlighted in its original context. Beginning December 1, 2004, the Learner’s Library will also include “live 24/7 help desk” that will provide chat access to a reference librarian to assist a user with queries.
Citeright® Technology. Included in the Learner’s Library is a citation check using proprietary Citeright® technology. A student or professor simply submits a finished paper to the system and the citations for any excerpts used from the Learner’s Library database will come up with all necessary source information. Also included in the cost of a Coursepack is a Book Finder and an Encyclopedia.
Special Invitation for Free Trial:
USDLA member colleges, universities, faculties and students are urged to try the new Learner’s Library and Coursepack service today. Call USDLA at 800.275.5162 for special savings and incentive offer.
Visit http:/ /www.learnerslibrary.com
