Florida Electronic Library

Last updated

The Florida Electronic Library (FEL) was founded in 2003 to provide nearly 200 million articles, ebooks, and other digital resources to the citizens of Florida. The FEL partners with Florida's public libraries in order to enhance the availability of resources and services to patrons.

Contents

History

The FEL is funded through the Library Services and Technology Act from the Institute of Museum and Library Services, which is administered by the Florida Department of State’s Division of Library and Information Sciences. [1]

The FEL website uses Geo-IP Authentication to recognize that users are Florida residents and therefore have access to the FEL resources. [2] This allows users to access the website without having to use their library identification card's barcode. If Florida residents are traveling outside of Florida, they will need to enter their library card barcode in order to access the FEL.

Services and Resources

The FEL offers digital resources such as books, magazines, and newspapers focused on a variety of topics, including current events, business, education, technology, and health issues. [3] Users are able to conduct their search according to 18 different interests, including interests titled "The Caregiver," "The Job Seeker," "The Researcher," "The Small Business Owner," "The Student," and "The Health Care Professional." [4] Selecting one of the interests will provide an automatic list of ebooks, online resources, and databases relevant to the selected interest.

The "Browse By" tool of the FEL allows users to easily locate resources relating to Homework & Research, Body & Mind, DIY & Small Business, Career & Jobs, Magazines & Newspapers, Arts & Culture, History & Society, and Florida. [1] Selecting one of the "Browse By" options provides resources and research topics relating to each subject. The Homework & Research page lists separate categories for elementary, middle, high school, and college students as well as educators.

Ebooks are available through the Gale Virtual Reference Library and SAGE Platforms. Ebooks are organized according to the topics of Arts, Biography, Business, Education, Environment, General Reference, History, Law, Literature, Medicine, Multicultural Studies, Nation & World, Science, and Social Science.

The "All Resources" search option guides users by dividing resources according to alphabetical order, subjects, grade level, ebooks, or popularity.

In addition to providing access to digital resources, the FEL also includes the service Ask a Librarian, which allows patrons with a virtual reference service. Users can directly message librarians using text messaging or live chat 10 a.m. to midnight Sunday through Thursday (ET), and from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Friday and Saturday (ET). [5] Users can email librarians through Ask a Librarian 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Library</span> Organized collection of books or other information resources

A library is a collection of materials, books or media that are accessible for use and not just for display purposes. A library provides physical or digital access materials, and may be a physical location or a virtual space, or both. A library's collection can include printed materials and other physical resources in many formats such as DVD, CD and cassette as well as access to information, music or other content held on bibliographic databases.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Reference desk</span> Public service counter in a library

The reference desk or information desk of a library is a public service counter where professional librarians provide library users with direction to library materials, advice on library collections and services, and expertise on multiple kinds of information from multiple sources.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Glossary of library and information science</span>

This page is a glossary of library and information science.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Librarian</span> Profession

A librarian is a person who works professionally in a library providing access to information, and sometimes social or technical programming, or instruction on information literacy to users.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Research library</span> Library that supports scholarly research

A research library is a library which contains an in-depth collection of material on one or several subjects. A research library will generally include an in-depth selection of materials on a particular topic or set of topics and contain primary sources as well as secondary sources. Research libraries are established to meet research needs and as such are stocked with authentic materials with quality content. Research libraries are typically attached to academic or research institutions that specialize in that topic and serve members of that institution. Large university libraries are considered research libraries, and often contain many specialized branch research libraries. The libraries provide research materials for students and staff of these organizations to use and can also publish and carry literature produced by these institutions and make them available to others. Research libraries could also be accessible to members of the public who wish to gain in-depth knowledge on that particular topic.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Questia Online Library</span> Former online research library

Questia was an online commercial digital repository of books and articles that had an academic orientation, with a particular emphasis on books and journal articles in the humanities and social sciences. All the text in all the Questia books and articles were available to subscribers; the site also included integrated research tools. As of December 21, 2020, it ceased operations.

Digital reference is a service by which a library reference service is conducted online, and the reference transaction is a computer-mediated communication. It is the remote, computer-mediated delivery of reference information provided by library professionals to users who cannot access or do not want face-to-face communication. Virtual reference service is most often an extension of a library's existing reference service program. The word "reference" in this context refers to the task of providing assistance to library users in finding information, answering questions, and otherwise fulfilling users’ information needs. Reference work often but not always involves using reference works, such as dictionaries, encyclopedias, etc. This form of reference work expands reference services from the physical reference desk to a "virtual" reference desk where the patron could be writing from home, work or a variety of other locations.

The California Digital Library (CDL) was founded by the University of California in 1997. Under the leadership of then UC President Richard C. Atkinson, the CDL's original mission was to forge a better system for scholarly information management and improved support for teaching and research. In collaboration with the ten University of California Libraries and other partners, CDL assembled one of the world's largest digital research libraries. CDL facilitates the licensing of online materials and develops shared services used throughout the UC system. Building on the foundations of the Melvyl Catalog, CDL has developed one of the largest online library catalogs in the country and works in partnership with the UC campuses to bring the treasures of California's libraries, museums, and cultural heritage organizations to the world. CDL continues to explore how services such as digital curation, scholarly publishing, archiving and preservation support research throughout the information lifecycle.

Serials Solutions was a division of ProQuest that provided e-resource access and management services (ERAMS) to libraries. These products enabled librarians to more easily manage electronic resources that serve the needs of their users. Serials Solutions became part of ProQuest Workflow Solutions in 2011 and the "Serials Solutions" name was retired in 2014. In 2015, Proquest acquired Ex Libris Group, a library automation company with many similar products to those of ProQuest Workflow Solutions. The Workflow Solutions division was to be merged with Ex Libris into a new business group called Ex Libris, a ProQuest Company.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Project MUSE</span> Online database of journals and ebooks

Project MUSE, a non-profit collaboration between libraries and publishers, is an online database of peer-reviewed academic journals and electronic books. Project MUSE contains digital humanities and social science content from over 250 university presses and scholarly societies around the world. It is an aggregator of digital versions of academic journals, all of which are free of digital rights management (DRM). It operates as a third-party acquisition service like EBSCO, JSTOR, OverDrive, and ProQuest.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Texas A&M University Libraries</span>

The Texas A&M University Libraries support the teaching, research, and outreach missions of Texas A&M University through leadership in acquiring, managing, and delivering information in an environment that fosters learning and inquiry. In particular, Texas A&M is nationally and internationally recognized for many research collections, including:

ERAMS are a way of thinking about library management to help libraries optimize the access, usage, data, and workflows of electronic library collections in the physical and digital library.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Special library</span> Library providing resources on a particular topic or discipline

A special library is a library that provides specialized information resources on a particular subject, serves a specialized and limited clientele, and delivers specialized services to that clientele. Special libraries include corporate libraries, government libraries, law libraries, medical libraries, museum libraries, news libraries. Special libraries also exist within academic institutions. These libraries are included as special libraries because they are often funded separately from the rest of the university and they serve a targeted group of users.

OverDrive, Inc. is a digital distributor of eBooks, audiobooks, online magazines and streaming video titles. The company provides digital rights management and download fulfillment services for publishers, libraries, schools, corporations and book retailers.

Minitex is a publicly supported information and resource sharing program for academic, government, public and specialized libraries in the states of Minnesota, North Dakota, South Dakota, and with partners in Wisconsin and Iowa. Minitex was created as a pilot project, initially funded in 1968 through a grant from the Louis and Maude Hill Foundation and state and federal grant funds from the Minnesota State Department of Education.

A pathfinder is a bibliography created to help begin research in a particular topic or subject area.. Pathfinders produced by the Library of Congress are known as "tracer bullets". What is special about a pathfinder is that it only refers to the information in a specific location, i.e. the shelves of a local library.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">NewspaperCat</span>

The Catalog of Digital Historical Newspapers (NewspaperCat) is a free online resource for open-access digitized historical newspapers published in North America and the Caribbean. NewspaperCat was developed from a grant by the George A. Smathers Libraries at the University of Florida and is powered by SobekCM, the content management system used by the University of Florida Digital Collections.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">E-book lending</span>

E-book lending or elending is a practice in which access to already-purchased downloads or online reads of e-books is made available on a time-limited basis to others. It works around the digital rights management built into online-store-published e-books by limiting access to a purchased e-book file to the borrower, resulting in loss of access to the file by the purchaser for the duration of the borrowing period.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">University of South Florida Tampa Library</span>

The University of South Florida Tampa Library is the main research library for the University of South Florida. Housing over 1.3 million books, academic journals and electronic resources, including 52,000 e-journal subscriptions, 443,000 e-books, and over 800 databases, the library has more than 2 million visitors each year. The library offers tutoring and writing services, laptops, a career resource center, and course reserves. The facility houses several special and digital collections, including literature, oral histories, photographs, artifacts, and the university archives. The current Dean of USF Libraries is Todd Chavez.

Covenant University Library, also known as Centre for Learning Resources (CLR), is the library of Covenant University in Ota, Ogun State, Nigeria. It is housed in a three-story glass building with a seating capacity of 3,500.

References

  1. 1 2 "About Us". Florida Electronic Library. Retrieved 26 November 2018.
  2. "FAQs". Florida Electronic Library. Retrieved 26 November 2018.
  3. "Florida Electronic Library". Florida Atlantic University Libraries. Retrieved 26 November 2018.
  4. "Interests". Florida Electronic Library. Retrieved 26 November 2018.
  5. "Ask a Librarian". Ask a Librarian. Retrieved 26 November 2018.