From the Director
by Carolyn Schuler, Director
Are you familiar with BadgerLink? It is a project of the Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction (DPI), Division for Libraries, Technology, and Community Learning, whose goal is to provide access to quality online information resources for Wisconsin residents. Currently you can access it via a dedicated public terminal at the library or through links at the library system’s website (www.swls.org). Soon you will be able to access it from the library link on the City’s new site.
DPI currently contracts with five vendors (EBSCO, ProQuest, Thomson Gale, NewspaperARCHIVE, and TeachingBooks) to provide access to articles from thousands of newspaper and periodical titles, image files, and other specialized reference materials and websites. Users can find access to over 11,000 periodical titles and over 700 newspapers (including Wisconsin newspapers.) You’ll find resources for children’s and adult literature, business, medical, and education, and many other specialized resources not available through regular internet search engines. BadgerLink also connects users to WISCAT (the online catalog of Wisconsin library holdings), OCLC WorldCat (an international database of library holdings), directories of libraries, access to library digitized collections, and other information.
If you do not have home Web access through one of the many Internet service providers registered with BadgerNet, you can access the BadgerLink vendor resources using your public library barcode number as a log-in ID. To use the full-text resources on BadgerLink you’ll need a recent browser (such as Microsoft Internet Explorer®, Netscape® or Mozilla Firefox®) and your browser must be configured so that cookies, JAVA, and JavaScript (or “active scripting” in recent versions of IE) are enabled. To view page images of some resources users will need to have Adobe Reader®.
BadgerLink services, which began in July 1998, are funded through the Universal Service Fund at an annual rate of approximately $2 million. That figure alone makes this library service one of the best deals around! But lack of use may put this wonderful deal in jeopardy. We have to use it or lose it. Please . . . check it out!