Santa Barbara, Calif. (Jan. 15, 2010) – With the squeeze on Americans’ pocketbooks and the struggle with unfiltered, uncategorized results garnered through popular search engines, many public libraries nationwide are experiencing a surge in demand from young adults and their parents seeking library services to save time and money. To ensure a diverse collection of authoritative resources that meet the evolving needs of these patrons, Aurora Public Library in Aurora, Ill., and High Plains Library District, based in Northern Colorado, subscribe to ABC-CLIO’s online databases.

As centers for information and lifelong learning in their communities, libraries play a critical role in helping people develop 21st century skills such as critical thinking and information literacy. The online databases from ABC-CLIO and its imprint Greenwood offer a rich portfolio of digital resources that provide authoritative, accessible, and award-winning research and reference information, with in-depth coverage of history and social studies topics as well as multicultural and contemporary culture. The databases use a dynamic, multimedia-enhanced format to support multiple learning styles and to improve understanding of topics and issues. The content offers a diverse range of viewpoints to encourage critical thinking and is aligned with school curriculum requirements.

According to the latest research by The Nielsen Company, Americans’ overall consumption of media from TV, the Internet, and mobile phones continues to increase every year, in almost every age group. Adults and young people have come to expect quick access to information, presented in visually appealing, engaging ways.

Aurora Public Library has had a steady increase in middle and high school students coming in after school and on Saturdays, often accompanied by their parents, to use the library’s resources for homework and school reports. Aurora Public Library actively promotes its services to local schools. With some schools in the area closing or reducing library services, the public library is quickly becoming a central hub for information and resources for teens, parents and teachers.

“They may have tried Google before and it took hours to locate possible resources, and then they had to fact-check everything,” said Himanshu Trivedi, the library’s electronic resources librarian. “With the databases, they can find exactly what they need in a few clicks and instantly get to work.” The library subscribes to the ABC-CLIO World Geography and Issues databases, as well as the Greenwood Daily Life Through History and Pop Culture Universe databases, supported by the Greenwood Skills Center. Trivedi explained teachers often visit the library to access the Greenwood Skills Center for lesson plans and materials.

ABC-CLIO’s affordable, high-quality databases enable the library to offer its patrons resources they can’t get elsewhere. “We are proud to be able to offer something unique to our patrons. Having these databases puts us at ease knowing that we can guide our patrons to user-friendly, scholarly resources,” Trivedi said. “Recently, a young music fan came into the library looking for information about a musician from the ‘30s and ‘40s. Without the databases, I wouldn’t have known where to even begin to look to help this young man. Using Daily Life and Pop Culture Universe, we were able to quickly drill down to the right decade, and within minutes, he was learning more about his favorite musician’s early life and influences.”

High Plains Library District also has experienced a significant increase in use of library services by students and parents over the past year. The District comprises 12 libraries spread over a geographic area of almost 4,000 square miles in Northern Colorado, serving more than 217,000 residents with 104,000 cardholders. All of the District's branches and resident cardholders have remote access to a collection of online databases from ABC-CLIO: American History, World History: Modern, World History: Ancient, American Government, World Geography, State Geography, US at War, and Issues.

“We chose the ABC-CLIO databases to further develop our collection and offer more non-fiction material for middle and high school students,” said Jamie Lowen, the District’s digital collections librarian. “While there are dozens of schools in the area, they usually don’t have the funds to offer a wide range of databases. ABC-CLIO offers some of the most straightforward and easy-to-use databases, which is ideal for students and their parents to find information. They don’t want 7 million search results and pages and pages to skim through; it’s information overload. The content in the online databases is presented in a visually appealing way with succinct articles, so it’s not overwhelming to kids, and it’s simple to navigate. Since the databases are more convenient and effective for patrons to use, they also ease the burden on library staff.”

About ABC-CLIO

Founded in 1955, ABC-CLIO is an award-winning publisher of reference titles, academic and general interest books, electronic resources, and books for librarians and other professionals. The company, headquartered in Santa Barbara, Calif., publishes under four well-respected imprints. ABC-CLIO serves the history profession, history teachers, and students and scholars of history with a complete line of databases, books, and eBooks, along with social studies reference and curriculum resources for middle and high school libraries and classrooms. Greenwood publishes high-quality, authoritative reference books and general interest topics across the secondary and higher education curriculum. Praeger is widely regarded for scholarly and professional books in the social sciences and humanities, with emphasis in modern history, military studies, psychology, business, current events and social issues, international affairs, politics, visual and performing arts, and literature. Libraries Unlimited/Linworth publishes professional materials for librarians, media specialists, and teachers. For more information, visit www.abc-clio.com.

Contacts

ABC-CLIO
Tim Lum
805-968-1911
TLum at ABC-CLIO dot com
www.abc-clio.com

C. Blohm & Associates, Inc.
Kristen Plemon
608-839-9805
kristen at cblohm dot com
www.cblohm.com

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