"With both schools and public libraries developing budgets over the next couple of months, now is the ideal time to think about adding new digital content," says Shondra Brisco, district librarian of the Peaster Independent School District in Texas, in her May 2008 SLJ review of the "10 Best Digital Resources."

New Web Buttons and Banners
Rosen has added new, smaller Teen Health & Wellness icons/buttons for librarians to use on their websites. Visit the Rosen web pages and download the graphics in the size most appropriate for your needs.

With the launch of the newly designed online edition of Who's Who and Who Was Who, Oxford University Press is providing the first dedicated home for Who's Who information on the web. Following the model of OUP's award-winning Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, the new online edition of Who's Who and Who Was Who is custom built for biographical research — simple to use and laid out to show you exactly what you want to find quickly and accurately.

Just a few of the new features include:

• The combination of faceted search and tabbed results screens makes running complex searches as easy as clicking on links.
• Searches can be defined by category and further refined to discover similar attributes between categories.
• Extensive cross-references lead to wider search results.
• More than 10,000 direct web links provide detailed information.
• Switching from searching just Who's Who 2008 entries to searching Who's Who and Who Was Who is easy and straightforward.
• Search results are easy to print out or send via email.
• Updates are now scheduled monthly, with major annual updates coinciding with annual printed edition of Who's Who.

For more details, visit the Who's Who web pages on BCR's website. BCR's Chris Cook (ccook@bcr.org) can provide pricing and subscription details.

Serials Solutions’ development of new products and features over the past few years has included significant improvements to make it easier for librarians to manage and patrons to access e-resources. BCR subscribers will soon be able to take advantage of these new features.

• Serials Solutions KnowledgeWorks — More resources in the form of 500,000-plus eBooks from more than 20 providers are scheduled to be added later in May and integrated into all e-resource access and management services.
• 360 Resource Manager — A new, more powerful Acquisitions Data Import feature, new reports and upcoming Consortia Support features will help libraries better manage all their e-resource subscriptions.
• 360 Counter — Additional features, including SUSHI Schema 1.5 for EBSCOhost support and new enhancements have been designed to help a library discover the value of its e-resources.
• 360 MARC Updates — Supercharge your OPAC with updated records for e-resources (e-journals and eBooks), improved brief records and Unicode compliance.
• 360 Search — Search and connect to more databases with the new Integrated Connector Library (360 Search and WebFeat connectors).
• 360 Link — More integration means a library can leverage new developments surrounding eBooks, Community of Scholars (COS) and Google Books.
• 360 Core — Increased access to eBooks through the E-Journal Portal.

For specific pricing for your library, please contact BCR's Jay Ford (jford@bcr.org). You can discuss with him what your library’s needs are and talk about what solution would be most beneficial for your library and your patrons.

Learn More
To learn more about what Serials Solutions has to offer, please visit the BCR web page. Take advantage of free webinars from Serials Solutions — register for any session at the Serials Solutions learning website.

Access to the NML is easy and efficient. With just a click of the mouse, a subscriber can retrieve every composition and track instantly — no more searching on shelves or updating archive information. The Naxos product line includes:

Naxos Music Library

• World's largest collection of streaming classical music with more than 260,000 tracks.
• Classical music, plus six other genres, including jazz, blues and world music.
• New releases added monthly (more than 39 per month in 2007).
• Accessible from anywhere in the world; remote access included.
• Powerful teaching tools to support educational use, including static URLs at all levels (track, repertoire, CD and playlist).

• Access to Fantasy, the world's mightiest jazz catalog and the very best in blues and R&B.
• More than 23,000 tracks from 1,400 albums featuring over 460 renowned artists, with hundreds more to come.

• A collection of the world's greatest literature — many classic novels, plays and poetry, from medieval times to the 20th century.
• Nineteen categories, from Children's Classics and Classic Fiction to Shakespeare's Plays, Music Education and many more.
• All works read by professional actors/actresses — English literature by English, American literature by Americans.
• New releases automatically added (30 titles in 2006).
• Many texts can be followed on-screen or printed out, facilitating language learning.

• SheetMusicNow.com delivers digital sheet music content to a growing number of libraries. With an IP-authenticated subscription, library users download and print their own copies of sheet music from a catalogue of over 40,000 works. Remote access is included free of charge.

Streaming upgrades are available. OCLC has added streaming resource and system requirements information to all MARC records for CDs that are included in NML and that already have records in OCLC WorldCat. The 856 field is also included and is customized for each institution's URL, enabling direct linking from the record to the CD on NML.

For more information and pricing, please see BCR's website or contact BCR's Maura Dunn at mdunn@bcr.org.

The author, whose breadth of experience in financial markets is unrivaled, places the current crisis in the context of decades of study of how individuals and institutions handle the boom and bust cycles that now dominate global economic activity. "This is the worst financial crisis since the 1930s," writes Soros in characterizing the scale of financial distress spreading across Wall Street and other financial centers around the world. In a concise essay that combines practical insight with philosophical depth, Soros makes an invaluable contribution to our understanding of the great credit crisis and its implications for our nation and the world.

The eBook of the Month showcases new and noteworthy titles available from NetLibrary. Each month, NetLibrary selects a new featured title and provides free, unlimited access through the authenticated homepages of more than 13,000 public, academic and special libraries. To access each month's eBook as well as a tool kit of free promotional materials that can be downloaded and personalized for your library, visit the NetLibrary eBook of the Month resources web page.

For more information about NetLibrary eBooks, please contact BCR's Chris Cook at ccook@bcr.org.

The conference sessions are planned to feature innovative ideas from around the globe that address how libraries are rethinking their processes in document delivery and resource sharing, acquisitions and collection development and reference and information services.

The conference speakers include:

• Lorcan Dempsey, OCLC VP and Chief Strategist
• Poul Erlandsen, National Library of Denmark
• Sharon Karasmanis, La Trobe University, Australia
• Catherine Davidson, York University and Amy Greenberg, Scholars Portal, Canada
• Keith Webster and Heather Todd, University of Queensland, Australia
• Patrick Danowski, Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin, Germany
• Sarah McHugh, Montana State Library
• Brenda Bailey-Hainer, BCR President and CEO
• Steven Abrams, Sirsi/Dynix VP for Innovation

For information on other speakers as well as conference registration, see the conference website.

Plan to attend the When History Happens conference, July 30 through August 1, to be held on the Auraria Campus near downtown Denver. The agenda and more information will be available soon.

Enroll in Teaching with Primary Sources - Colorado to receive training on how to get the most out of your participation in When History Happens. These valuable workshops are available without charge. Check the workshop schedule to review your options and get more details at the Teaching with Primary Sources website. Learn about the free electronic editions of The Denver Post and Rocky Mountain News and the free Colorado Historic Newspaper Collection.

When History Happens is sponsored by BCR, the Colorado State Library, Council on 21st Century Learning, Denver Newspaper Agency: Educational Services Department and Teaching with Primary Sources - Colorado.

Any Colorado educator is welcome to participate in this unique project. For more information, see the When History Happens website.

A short list of product enhancements include:

• Online Statistical Reporting — An online service available through the AWE-Net Web Portal that works in conjunction with Exporting of Utilization Statistics.
• Dynamic Access Control — Educators may now direct activities; select and limit content available to children by curriculum area, by age group or by specific titles; and profile content by age group.
• Improved Bilingual Spanish — Kid's Activity Reports and Patron Messages are now available in Spanish.
• Automated System Start-up — Allows automatic user-determined start-up time on weekdays and/or weekends, complementing the ability to schedule automated system shutdown for user-determined times.
• Earliest Learning Edition — A new version that specifically targets ages 3-6 and includes 31 of the highest-rated educational titles across seven curricular areas.
• Bilingual Spanish Edition — The new ELS Bilingual Spanish contains over 40 top-rated educational products and can also be customized using the Dynamic Access Control feature, allowing customers to change available content to meet demands of particular groups.

• ELS English Edition
• Sesame Street: Learn to Play, Learn to Grow — Sesame Street Learn, Play & Grow Preschool is focused on early childhood learning and self-esteem building. It includes 25 engaging activities with Elmo, Big Bird and Cookie Monster as playmates who provide children ages 2-4 with language development, counting, music, art, shape games activities and more.
• Britannica Children's Learning Suite: K-8 — Children's Learning Suite provides separate encyclopedias for young learners and middle-school students. Composed of Britannica Elementary Encyclopedia and Merriam-Webster's Student Dictionary and Thesaurus, the suite includes more than 2,200 articles, interactive games, online magazine articles, video clips, a world atlas and historical timelines.
• ELS Bilingual Spanish
• Sesame Street: Let's Make A Word — Children join host Guy Smiley as he presents his game show, Let's Make A Word. Children can choose from six Muppet playmates and four discovery sites (farm, construction, park and restaurant), and from two modes of play: free play, which allows them to explore the setting and discover at their own pace what each Muppet guide has to teach them; and game play, which places the child in a more interactive situation.
• Educorock (World of Reading) — Educorock includes four popular vocabulary songs (from Educorock Espanol), with animated videos designed to teach basic vocabulary. Motivate Spanish students with rap, club dance and hip-hop songs for all ages. Animations help the students learn the topics visually and create a lasting impression in their memories.

A complete look at Version 5.0 can be found in the Early Literacy Station PDF information sheet.

If you would like more information about AWE products, please visit BCR's website. For pricing or if you would be interested in attending an on-site demonstration and practice session with an AWE professional, contact Maura Dunn at mdunn@bcr.org.