Ok friends, this is part one of a series (not sure how many in the series) of posts about the e-resources that Canadian and in particular, Ontario Public Libraries, offer to their patrons.
“What is an e-resource?”, many people ask. Well, here is my non-librarian response…”e-resources are online resources that are bought by your library so that you don’t rely on Wikipedia’s no-so-reliable information. Most importantly they are of the highest quality and secondly…they’re FREE!” Although in Wikipedia’s defense, for general items and some geographical info I have received good information. I think in order to really understand e-resources you have to just give them a try.
In Ontario, the public libraries are supported by two organizations SOLS (Southern Ontario Library Service) and OLS(Ontario Library Service) North. These organizations exist to help libraries work together and have assisted in a group purchase of many e-resources. You can view all of the e-resources that have been purchased with Provincial funding here. http://www.sols.org/ministryprojects/$15MillionInvestment/compass/index.htm
I am going to walk us through each of the provincially funded e-resources and show you my favourite aspects of each. Those outside Ontario please feel free to post about the e-resources that your library offers (or doesn’t) and I will try to support you as well. I may be able to give you a temporary password to access some of the e-resources.
If you are so blessed as to live in the amazing township of Douro-Dummer, come and visit me at the library and get your own fresh library card so that you will have access to all of our online resources!
Wherever you are, get out your library card and prepare for our journey ahead.
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