Oct

New Provider, New Customers on the Digital Reference Front

Credo Reference, a mainstay in offering reference content to libraries since 1999, announced today that it has signed over 500 customer libraries in the nine months since the launch of its Literati solution. This announcement, as well as the news last week from IOP Publishing that it has partnered with Morgan & Claypool to branch out into offering ebook content for research libraries, bodes well for the future and more widespread adoption of digital educational and refernce content.

“In an environment where information costs are skyrocketing and user need is shifting, libraries are required to break the chains of antiquated approaches to siloes of resources, and Literati is the way,” said Mike Sweet, CEO of Credo Reference, in a press release today. “Far more than a search interface or e-book platform, Literati was built with continual input and support from libraries to help them achieve their strategic goals through our technology and customizable services.”

Rather than replacing the materials and search tools that libraries have already invested their budgeted dollars in, Literati works with libraries’ existing materials while growing that content catalog to over 10,000 Topic Pages and a database of over 3.6 million entries, including over 500,000 images, videos, and more.

The feature that has some faculty most excited, though, is the live support from its staff of librarians, meaning that the money invested in signing up with Literati won’t just provide a database of content, but rather make people available to help with the development of course materials and research.

Mercy Pilkington (1086 Posts)

Mercy Pilkington is a young-adult author and a teacher in a correctional facility. She does not have a single textbook in her classroom. With the top-of-the-line technology at her disposal and the low reading ability of many of her students, there’s no need for standard paper texts. Instead she relies on e-readers, iPads, desktop PCs, Polycom video conferencing equipment for virtual field trips, live streaming for science demonstrations, and text-to-speech read-aloud software to teach English and science. Within the next ten years, public school classrooms across the country are going to look a lot more like Mercy’s classroom because the educational possibilities with these kinds of technologies are limitless. Have a question? Send an email to mercypilkington@yahoo.com