Accessibility features in Gale databases

Gale’s platforms aim to support users with visual, hearing, mobility or cognitive impairments, and any users accessing via keyboard-only inputs or assistive technologies.

Gale has introduced experience and design enhancements to assist accessibility across its portfolio of products on the main Gale platform including Gale OneFile, Gale In Context, and  Gale Literature

The enhancements help to unify the platform experience.  It’s important to have a unified user experience across all platforms. Over the past few years our agile team has worked hard to unify our platforms so your experience and functionality of a platform such as Gale Onefile: Australia and New Zealand will be similar to that of an In Context database product, or a Gale eBook.

Our accessibility tools help those, who may otherwise; not feel comfortable using online products.  These features include:

• Mobile responsivness of platforms
• a unified platform experience
• Reading and lexile levels of each article
• Translation tools at both platform level and document level
• Font sizes
• Document customisation to assist dyslexic users
• Text-to-speech tools in inElish and other translated languages
• Visual search tools

• Predictive search (search assist) to see recommended search terms 

• Transcripts and closed captions of video and audio content.

• Access alt text for images: where provided by the publishers

Gale's Electronic Accessibility Policy is available on the Gale Support Page

The following video outlines some of our accessibility tools available on our databases

Effective searching techiques using Gale databases and archives

A search engine, like Google, uses computer algorithms to search the Internet and find websites that match the keywords you enter.
Gale databases and archives have highly organized information due to the metadata in the back end of the product that allows you to find information with high relevance to search terms.  Robust metadata tools allow you to narrow efficiently by dozens of categories. 

Create a search strategy
First create a general search strategy. This is very general because your search strategy is dependent on how much time you have. It is a very different situation if you are on a refence desk with 5 minutes to help a patron with a reference question, to a search strategy if you are undertaking in-depth research.
Think about what is being asked - What are you researching? What question(s) are you trying to answer?

Identify key concepts and subject terms -
What are the key areas of your research topic or question Think in broad terms.  Brainstorm synonyms and related subject terms These will be the keywords used when you search within the databases.

Also take into account in archive products the era and language used when the article was written.

Break your topic into concepts (subjects). These concepts will form the building blocks of your search strategy.

Remember

• Databases don't like sentences! 
• Long phrases or sentences will confuse the database and lead to disappointing or NO results. 
• Pick out the words that indicate the main points of your topic. 

Select relevant databases and resources.  - This is all about knowing your resources. 
Do you need a subject specific database coving a particular area of time in history.

Databases are different because they are written in present day language using present day metadata and subject headings. 
Archives are written in a certain time in history using the language of that era

Combine search terms – know how your gale databases and archives work.

Do you need to use Boolean operators to refine your search or can this be done through a simple search?
How does the simple search and advanced search options operate in your databases and archives?
Do you have visual tools help refine your search?

Execute and refine your search; once again know how to refine your search using the option available to you through your databases and archives

Review and refine search as required

 Do your information sources seem relevant? You may be required to do more research within different databases, using different search terms.

Analysing your search results - Are you getting too many results?

Use Boolean operators – AND & NOT – Both Boolean operators limit search results, so you get a smaller, more specific results list by searching with keywords that are connected with AND or NOT.

Are there subject terms in your previous results that may help you refine your search?

Analyzing related subject terms will help you refine your search by giving you different keywords to use.

Use the Subject Terms or Thesaurus features in the databases to find related search terms. Different related keywords may help you limit your results.

Are you not getting enough information?

Use the Boolean operator – OR – it expands search results by combining similar terms – Get more results by connecting keywords with OR.

Are there subject terms in your previous results that may help you refine your search?

Analyzing related subject terms will help you refine your search by giving you different keywords to use. If you are not finding enough information, different keywords may yield more results.
Use the Subject Terms or Thesaurus features in the databases to find related search terms. Different related keywords may help you increase your results

What are the search options on your Gale products

The Homepage search or Basic search

The first search that you come to on the Gale platforms allows you to perform a broad search across the Entire Document – full-text, Document Title, Subject, and expands to synonyms of your search term. Once you have performed your search; there are limiters to help narrow your results.

Advanced Search
Allows you to customize your search and target relevant results:
It includes

• Keyword: Select this field to search “hot spots” of articles, including citations, subject headings, abstracts, and the beginning of each article. This is a good general option to start your search.
• Subject: Choose this field to increase specificity by using document tags to find results fully focused on your topic. Try subject if your basic search produces too many results.
• Publication Title: Use this field to find all articles or documents from a particular publication. It’s useful for browsing recent issues of sources like Nature.
• Entire Document: Pick this field to search within the entire text of documents. This option performs a broad search for any mention of your terms, and can be used to find articles that use very precise phrases or touch on specific concepts.
• Search Operators in Advanced search (AND, OR, NOT, NEAR)
  Use these drop-downs to connect your search terms.
  These options are also available as Filter Your Results options after you execute a search.

Subject Guide Search

The subject guide search offers the ability to narrow a single topic by subdivisions, and to view narrower and broader related topics.

Visual Search Tools - Topic Finder
The Topic Finder is a visual tool that takes the titles, subjects, and approximately the first 100 words from a subset of your top results and feeds them into an algorithm
This enables you to visually see the connections between topics and create new research paths.
The Topic Finder is good to use if you’re having trouble coming up with a research topic, when you have an idea for a topic and want to investigate related topics, or when you want to narrow your search results

The following video outlines some general  tips for effective searching across Gale databases and archives

The Gale Support Page

The Gale Support Page is a freely accessible page to help get the most from your investment with no-cost support. Hundreds of choices include everything from direct URLs, MARC records, database icons, promotional and instructional materials and technical support documents.

Access via the following link:
https://support.gale.com/
Enter your location ID to customise the page to your Institution

Please email Lynette Lewis for your Location ID

Watch a video Navigating the Gale Support Page

Making your Gale resources more discoverable

The Library Website

Where are your products positioned on your library website

Think of your library website as a piece of architecture like a house.
The Front door is your homepage and walking through the rooms of your house are like navigating parts of your website.
You design your house so it is accessible with doors, windows, rooms, storage – basically so you can easily move around and everything is in a logical order. 

This is how you should look at your website.  

Ask yourself

• Is your website accessible
• Is everything in a logical place so people visiting are comfortable navigating around

The Challenge

Some institutions may not have control of their website and where things are placed, in particular websites run by the council where the library is competing with council real estate

Some things to ask when looking at your website

• How many clicks does it take to access your products?
• How far do your have to scroll down the page to find resources?
• What are the products listed under.  Do your users understand what the name you have used means?
• Do you have consistent naming conventions for your Gale products
  do people know what the product is useful for.
•  Some libraries have Youth and childrens sections or homework help.  Are suitable products (Gale In Context, National Geographic Kids) listed in these sections
• Do you have an A-Z listing or do you have your products listed in subject specific areas to help users navigate to a subject?

Other things to consider

Do you have database icons to help display products?

Do you have a widget on the homepage so people can do a quick search of all Gale products
Database icons and widget can be found on the Gale Support page

Is access set up so library users can access your products remotely?

Important in the last 2 years where library access was restricted to remote access only.  So important that people could navigate around without asking in the library.  Remote learning means the user has no reference staff to help with an reference questions. The user must rely on the accessibility of your website/library catalogue and ability to find what they need.

Is the library Catalogue integrated into your website or do you have 2 separate sites?

The Library Management System

Some Institution use the library catalogue as their main library website, some have the catalogue integrated within a website and some have 2 separate sites – the library website and the library catalogue

If you use 2 separate sites, it is important that you make sure links are updated on both sites and that each site links back to the other
Your library catalogue also has re-estate on the homepage.  Do you have links to your online resources form the home page?
Do you have a widget on your homepage?

Marc Records

Do you have MARC records in your catalogue so if people search the catalogue, they will be able to link directly to topics, periodicals and eBooks directly form the catalogue

Important for products like Archives Unbound.  The title of this archive means nothing, but it contains over 400 individual archive collections.  BY putting the MARC records for each collection through the catalogue, allows each archive to be more findable

Discovery layers and Discovery services

A discovery layer adds another layer to your library website, enabling online products and the library catalogue to be cross-searched.
It also adds another layer on indexing
Do you have access to the Discovery Layers back end or Admin set up?
Make sure your Gale products are set up and are visible and retrievable via your discovery layer

The Gale Support page has information about setting up Gale products on a discovery layer

Learning Management System

LTI (Learning Tools Interoperability) Certification provides a standard for integrating with an LMS. It's what allows the LMS and Gale products to properly exchange authentication information and allow access to the products from within the LMS.
Library resources that began as reference materials ideally had to be able to be integrated into the LMS

Social Media

Many Institutions now use social media to advertise programs and events being run by the library.
These platforms are usually independent of the library website and catalogue

Things to consider

Do you use social media to drive traffic back to your website?
Do you use social media to advertise what resources are available on your website?

The Gale Support Page

The Gale support page can provide materials to assist you in setting up you gale databases.

Widgets
database icons
MARC records
How to guides
Instructions for setting up LMS integration
Short Descriptions of products to add to your website