Pearl Avenue staff had a full 100% participation from all 18 staff, all 13 weeks.  That is astounding and well worthy of some pizza.   Well done, team!  I worship at your database-expert feet!  You’ve won a pizza party from the pizzeria of your choice, with salad for the veg and health-minded among you.

I also want to congratulate the 3 other branches who had over 95% participation: Edenvale with 99.38% (ooh, so close!), Berryessa with 99%, and Willow Glen with 95.93%.  In honor of your near perfection and true awesomeness in the face of all things database-related, you’ll be getting some surprise food of your own (ooh, the suspense)!  I promise, it will be yummy.

Again, congratulations to everyone who participated, and to the winners of the individual prizes as well.  This was a learning experience for all of us, and I know from those who participated that it was a good experience too.

Finally, I wanted to honor everyone who participated, but especially the 120 staff who completed all 13 weeks of the training.  Please see that list below.  These folks deserve a smile, a handshake, a slap on the back (gently, now), and a cookie.  Honor their greatness! (if I missed anyone, let me know).

Thanks again everyone, and happy searching!

The 125 Staff Who Completed all 13 Weeks of Database Delight

1. Sean Devine
2. Mark Drequito
3. Ahya Esmaili
4. Rod Ramos
5. Pam Crider
6. Ed Koetitz
7. Joseph Baiza
8. Susan Scott
9. Debby Sandell
10. Joe Ho
11. Tracey Firestone
12. Pete Becerra
13. Nancy Buckles
14. Carmen Candelaria
15. Quan Che
16. Ana Fabela
17. Azar Hatami
18. Theresa Ho
19. Angie Miraflor
20. Jennifer Luayon
21. Victor Mireles
22. Elsa Mora
23. Ken Nadeau
24. Kathy Nguyen
25. Carmel Ordaz
26. Frank Ortega
27. Juana Ramirez
28. Trina Richbourg
29. Steve Shaffer
30. Ken Shockley
31. Binh Tran
32. Mai Trinh
33. Kristen van der Molen
34. Ned Wappler
35. Deborah Jara
36. Yvette Torres
37. Kaye Moore
38. Hai Cao
39. Zobeyda Moreno
40. Orest Mytrofaniuk
41. Shally Lin
42. Bryan Le
43. Priscilla Gove
44. Bich Ngoc Mai
45. John Nguyen
46. Jaspal (Jesse) Sidhu
47. Mika Tanaka
48. Manmeet Mavi
49. Justen Hunter
50. Elijah Cortez
51. Lynda Tran
52. Bo Li
53. Thanh-Nhan Huynh
54. Khuong Vo
55. Tom Miller
56. Deborah Hennessee
57. Chynell Clark
58. Sarah Thornton
59. Mike Sarhad
60. Amy Silva
61. Kelly Baeta
62. Angel Chen
63. Mike Dines
64. Jessica Guidotti
65. Rose Jaramillo
66. Hanh Luc
67. Oanhna Ly
68. Erica Nunez
69. Galen Oback
70. Andrew Paul
71. Tracy Wilderman
72. Elisha Wright
73. Eric Younng
74. Anne Wang
75. Mana Tominaga
76. Tim Reif
77. Carole Kennemer
78. Lauren Poelvoorde
79. Lucille Boone
80. Nina Petrova
81. Ryan McMurray
82. Tina Drew
83. Kim Nguyen
84. Tracey Firestone
85. Margaret Yamasaki
86. Linda Keirstead
87. Clint Keaton
88. Mario Ponce
89. Laura Candelaria
90. Amber Hargreaves
91. Hao Le
92. Barbara Arango
93. Benjamin Fernandez
94. Fabian Garcia
95. Mark Helfrich
96. Amrita Kaur
97. Meicheng Lee
98. Jonathan Liu
99. Adam Padilla
100. Cathy Phung
101. Sukhjit Sangha
102. Kothai Sellathurai
103. Diana Pham
104. Brandon Smith
105. Lynette Renteria
106. Elise Tavella
107. Tim Collins
108. Shu-Hua Liu
109. Ruth Kohan
110. Sheela Singh
111. Peggy Elwell
112. Carol Valentine
113. Mary Cage
114. Maria Canchola
115. Rosa Avalos
116. Selena Quintero
117. Adrian Barrientos
118. Christine Caneda
119. Anling Wu
120. Madeline Walton-Hadlock
121. Sharon Fung
122. Monique C. Clellan
123. Melinda Babayan
124. Ashlee Wilde
125. Carol daSilva

I am happy to announce the winners for the Database Delight raffle!  All items are on their way to the winners now!

We’re still working on calculating who won the coveted pizza party for the most overall participation.  But look below to see the winners for all 53 different prizes.  Is your name there?  Some of the prizes got 100-300 bids (go Hello Kitty & Target gift cards)!

We’re really pleased that everyone took the time to participate in this training program.  Thank you for all of your insightful comments about the databases.  We’ll be passing many on to the vendors so they can make them even better!

Stay tuned for eBooks Excitement in late autumn.  And look through your closet for gifts you don’t want, items you’d like to get rid of but someone else would enjoy, and route them to Sarah Houghton-Jan in Digital Futures @ the King Library.

Again, congrats to all the winners!  You deserve every last awesome bit of it.

****************************************

#1: The Office Trivia Game

Nick Sandoval—East Branch

#2: The Executive Package

Amanda McFadden—Willow Glen

#3: The Metro Bag

Binh Tran–Edenvale

#4: Library Love Pack #1

Peter Nguyen—Berryessa

#5: Health and Wellness Pack

Lucille Boone—King Library, GenRef

#6: CD-RW Recorder

Peter Becerra–Edenvale

#7: Library Love Pack #2

Simone Williams—King Library, Access Services

#8: For The Home Utility Pack

Dawn Imada—King Library, Youth Services

#9: The Bing Microsoft Love Pack #1

Bryan Le—Pearl Avenue

#10: Memories Photo Album

Sean Devine—Almaden

#11: The Hardcore Gamers Package

Carmel Ordaz–Edenvale

#12: The World and Local Traveler’s Pack

Amber Hargreaves—Berryessa

#13: Cat Lovers Unite!

Ruth Kohan—Almaden

#14: The Mark McGwire Jamba Juice Card

Shally Lin –Pearl Avenue

#15: The No More Pirated Music Card

Paul Liu—Alviso

#16: The $25 Get Anything You Want Card from Target

Rose Jaramillo—Willow Glen

#17: USB 2.0 Flash Drive (blue) – 2 available

WINNER 1: Selena Quintero—Biblioteca

WINNER 2: John Nguyen—Pearl Avenue

#18: USB 2.0 Flash Drive (green) – 2 available

WINNER 1: Linda Keirstead—Berryessa

WINNER 2: Corina Saenz—Rose Garden

#19: The Strongest Laptop Bag In The World

Sheela Singh—King Library, Access Services

#20: The Retro Vintage Old-School Party Pack

Mark Drequito—Almaden

#21: The Bing Microsoft Love Pack #2

Michelle Amores—Tully

#22: The Search Engine Love Triangle Prize Pack

Eric Ha—East Breanch

#23: The Relax and Pamper Yourself Pack

Katherine Ha—East Branch

#24: The Zhu Zhu Hamster

Yvette Torres—Edenvale

#25: The Star Wars Prequel Trilogy on THX DVD

Juana Ramirez—Edenvale

#26: The Bing Microsoft Love Pack #3

Amy Silva—Vineland

#27: The Sports Lover Pack

Bryan Le—Pearl Avenue

#28: The Semi-Decorative/Miscellaneous Items Pack

Sherrie Sepahmansour —Almaden

#29: The No More Pirated Movies Card – 4 available

WINNER 1: Maddy Walton-Hadlock—Alum Rock

WINNER 2: Peggy Elwell—Biblioteca

WINNER 3: Eric Young—Willow Glen

WINNER 4: Mai Anh Trinh—Edenvale

#30: The Fancy Pants Pack

Ngoc Mai—Pearl Avenue

#31: The IT Lover Party Pack

Leslie Tanaka—Santa Teresa

#32: Library Love Pack #3

Kat Luedke—West Valley

#33: The World Guide to Gnomes, Fairies, Elves, and Other Little People

Angel Chen—Willow Glen

#34: In Search of Jefferson’s Moose / Notes on the state of cyberspace

Pam Crider—Almaden

#35: Crash Gordon and the Mysteries of Kingsburg

Benjamin Martinez—East Branch

#36: The Vampire Book / The Encylopedia of the Undead

Elise Tavella—King Library, Technical Services

#37: “I Am A Tech Genius” Pack

Tina Drew—King Library, GenRef

#38: Lord of the Rings Pack

Ashlee Wilde—Cambrian

#39: Hand Jewelry

Rachel Collier—East Branch

#40: Banned Books Bracelets, Family Set

Lucy Sun—Rose Garden

#41: The “Looking Fancy” Silver Jewelry Set

Adrian Barrientos—Hillview

#42: The New Downtown Library

Mana Tominaga—Digital Futures

#43: The Mobile Techie Pack

Nhan Huynh—East Branch

#44: The Super Reader Pack

Kaye Moore—Pearl Avenue

#45: Science Fiction Lovers Pack

Traci Truttman—Alviso

#46: Mythological Fairy Land Pack

Mike Dines—Willow Glen

#47: Hello Kitty Fun Pack

Amrita Kaur—Berryessa

#48: Twilight Series Hardcover Book Pack (a.k.a. the “I want Edward in hard cover” pack)

Erica Lopez—King Library, IT

I want to congratulate everyone on completing as much as you did.  It’s amazing how much participation we’ve had.  We have had some intense participation at some of our branches and units, and I’m looking forward to announcing who won the pizza party!  I’m also working on randomly selecting prize winners for each of the 53 different prizes we had to give away, and (not really) looking forward to labeling & shipping all of them

Thank you again to everyone who participated, even for only one week.  That’s one more database you know a little better, one more resource that might make your customers’ lives (or your life) that much easier.  For those of you who completed all 13 weeks, BIG PROPS!  That is a huge accomplishment.  To commit to 13 consecutive weeks of anything is impressive!

All in all, I have been overwhelmed with the staff enthusiasm, good ideas, and interest in this project.  As you may know, this was a pilot for us at SJPL–a first try to see how self-paced online learning would work for some of our existing online services and resources.  So far, it looks like it went pretty well.  Look for more self-paced online learning in the future!

And once again, congratulations to everyone, but you’re going to have to wait a couple more days for the prize winners.

There are only 3 days left to finish the program. Hurry!

You have until Sunday, July 3rd to complete the final Week 13 exercise.  After that, we’re finished with the formal program.  You can of course go back and complete the exercises later, or refer back to the site for a refresher.  But the contest ends July 3rd.

It looks like we had about 250 people start the program, and here in the final week it looks like about 200 will finish all 13 weeks.

Amazing!  Great work, library people!

Remember to bid on a prize in the Flickr Prize Catalog: http://www.flickr.com/photos/sanjoselibrarystaff/sets/72157623411556466/ Make sure you take advantage of the opportunity to earn one more raffle entry and even a bonus 5 if you finished all 13 weeks!  To enter your bonus 5 entries, just leave your name & branch/unit with the word “bonus” or “extra” (something to indicate they’re the super-awesome entries).

Winners and achievement awards will be announced the second week in July.  For the individual prizes, we will use a randomizer to choose the winners from among all the entries.  For the branch/unit pizza party, we will work with the branch & unit managers to determine which branch or unit had the highest percentage of participation.

Stay tuned!  And pat yourselves on the back for a training well done!

Reference USA , a detailed business directory for business/competitor research, features more than 14 million U.S. businesses.  All data is verified and updates are made monthly to maintain accuracy of information.

This database can assist small business owners, entrepreneurs, and job seekers research companies.  Researchers have access to company information such as, but not limited to, address, telephone number(s), number of employees, sales volume, maps, credit rating, and nearby competing businesses.  This information is particularly helpful for potential small business owners to research if there are competing companies in the area of where h/she may want to open up shop.  Or perhaps a job seeker wants to locate all the construction companies in San Jose so h/she can get contact information.

Reference USA has a wealth of information, I suggest you play around with Custom Search and see all the information that is available. This is the database to keep in mind when customers have business start-up questions or any time a customer wants detailed company information.

Researchers can use the Quick Search or Custom Search function to locate information.  Users are allowed 50 downloads per search.

Discovery Exercise:

1. Can you tell me who the owner is of Café Pomegranate?
2. Can you tell me the nearby competing businesses of Café Pomegranate?
3. How many employees does Café Pomegranate have?

Don’t forget to leave a comment below to register your participation, and then go bid on a prize!

Search Selection Criteria includes:  Contacts, Company, Counties, NAICS, SIC Product Codes, States

No Help screens are available.

This database is accessible from SJPL public computers and outside of the library with a San Jose Library card number and PIN. 

DISCOVERY EXERCISES:

1.  How many company records are there in Rich’s database for Santa Clara County containing the name “Varian”?

2.  Can you find an email address for any executives of Nvidia?

Don’t forget to leave a comment below to register your participation, and then go bid on a prize!

Novelist Plus (Adults, Kids, & Teens)

Novelist K-8 (Kids and Teens only)

Customers think that anyone that works in the library knows about every book out there- non-fiction, sci-fi, mysteries, romance, you name it, you should know about it.  I like to tell customers that I work in the library therefore I don’t have time to read.  Of course, it’s impossible even for the well read amongst us to be able to recommend books in every genre.  Anyway, the point is that you don’t have to be well read to help customers find books to read.  NoveList can help.

NoveList can help you find new books for customers based on other books and authors they like.  You can search by author, title, series title, or by describing a book plot.  You can also limit by age group- younger kids, older kids, teens, and adults.  Novelist covers fiction and non-fiction titles.

Novelist Plus is comprehensive covering adults, kids and teens whereas Novelist K-8 covers kids and teen titles only. In addition, each listing has an SJPL library catalog link and you can instantly check if the library has the book. NoveList is also great for figuring out the order of series book titles.  For example, a customer may ask for the 3^rd book in the Left Behind Series. You can look up the series title in NoveList Plus/ K-8 and it will list in order (with publication date) the books in the series.  There are also book discussion guides, lists of award winners, and book talks.

NoveList is really a powerful tool.  Here’s a sample of what you can find within a book listing in Novelist Plus/ K-8:

• Link to our library catalog
• Grade level, Reading Level, and Lexile of book
• Link to Similar Books
• Book Reviews
• Book Summary
• Series Information (if applicable)

I highly recommend you check out NoveList and explore this database.

Discovery Exercise:

1. Read this http://support.epnet.com/uploads/kb/gettingstarted_plus.pdf
2. Use the Describe a Plot search limiter in Novelist Plus.  A customer says she’s looking for a book but doesn’t know the title or the author but she remembers it was about a woman who went through a divorce and made a journey to India. What is the title of the book?
3. Can you tell me what the grade level is for Diary of a Wimpy Kid?
4. A parent wants recommendations for her 10 year old that wants fantasy books. Hint: use the Recommended Reads link under the appropriate age group.

Access outside the library with a San Jose Public Library card number and PIN

Don’t forget to leave a comment below to register your participation, and then go bid on a prize!

Two tips: CHC does not contain a thesaurus of subject terms so you have to know the exact term for subject searching. It can also be difficult to intuitively find the area for browsing publications by title (first go to the advanced search page and then select the link for “publications”).

This database, like our others, is accessible from SJPL public computers and outside of the library with a San Jose Library card number and PIN.

For a good walk through of CHC, check out the Consumer Health Complete Tutorial.

DISCOVERY EXERCISES:

1. How many news reports with the subject “H1N1 (2009) influenza” were published in November 2009?
2. Which publication is NOT available through CHC? (1) Nature (2) New Beginnings (3) Eating Out.
3. Alli is a nonprescription supplement  for weight loss available over the counter in many drug stores.  A friend is considering buying  it and asks you to find out more information. Find a fact sheet in simple or plain English that that answers the following questions:  What are its side effects?  Who shouldn’t take this supplement? Do you need to be on a special diet? (Note: Alli is a brand name: this supplement may be known/marketed under other names.)

Don’t forget to leave a comment below to register your participation, and then go bid on a prize!

Literary Reference Center includes popular as well as scholarly publications. Think widely – you might find a biography, critical work, interview or even online link to a work by a well-known journalist, songwriter, philosopher or scientist. Students will find helpful guidelines on literary research, writing research papers and critical reading.  Also a good source of background materials for Book Group discussion leaders.

Other features include: a literary timeline; terms from the American Heritage Dictionary; 4^th Edition; criticism and review articles

Besides the Magill’s summaries (quick overviews), I like the Browse authors and Browse works feature. You don’t need a name –for authors you can search under Country, Culture (good for hyphenated groups e.g. Korean-American), Genre, and Movement. For works you can search under Genre and Location.

Warning:

• In Browse mode, scroll down the page for links to related information .
• For  list of publications, go to Advanced Search

Users outside SJPL libraries will need to sign in with barcode and pin number

Discovery exercises: go to Literary Reference Center from  the A-Z listing of SJPL Articles and Databases page.

Watch 5 minute tutorial (example: John Steinbeck). Go back to main page.

1. From Browse most studied authors, choose an author (or go to the author in focus: home page right hand side). Scroll down to see cross referenced features.
2. Find authors who were part of the Counterculture movement.
3. Find works written with California as a location.

Don’t forget to leave a comment below to register your participation, and then go bid on a prize!

The Sanborn Maps collection features large scale images of old fire insurance maps that include information about structural locations, property lines, and structure building dates etc.  On the incredibly rare chance that someone will ask specifically for a California historical fire insurance map, here is your resource!  Additionally, these are useful for people looking for the history of their properties, property lines, when structures were built, and general history of the local area.

These maps contain data that fire insurance companies used to estimate the potential risk for urban structures. This data included information such as historical street names, house numbers, building size, building use and construction details.

Access from outside the library with a San Jose Public Library Card number and PIN

Discovery Exercise:

Read the Sanborn Maps FAQ’s and help topics first, then answer the following question.

1. I used to have family that lived around the 700 block of Almaden Avenue, San Jose in the 1930’s. Can I get a map of what the neighborhood looked like? (Hint: use index sheet to find sheet number)

Don’t forget to leave a comment below to register your participation, and then go bid on a prize!