The game's afoot with the BHCTI Catalog

Closing in at last on the proposed BHCTI Library Catalog through American Biblical Higher Education's ABHE Solutions, though I've yet to have a clickable link for the stinker; The first iteration will feature individual links to all the items in both of our affliated GoogleBook libraries, BHCTILibrary 'Proper,' and BHCTILibraryToo, as well as Logos Bible Software's stand-alone website of full text ebooks at Books.Logos.com, and in addition all the content of ebook vendor Questia (and not only the 5,000 or so free full text items).

Those who recall our long relationship at BHCTI with Questia will remember that though the company sells individual accounts, Carroll has set these up for our students through student fees. The catalog will still require an individual login for any Questia content outside their 5,000 freebies; but Carroll students will know their accounts, or can ask...

A part of our 20,000 or so print collection (approximately 4,000 MARC records) will also be included. I hope in time to coordinate those catalog records with my available print items.

All in all, having author, title, and subject access to 75% or so of our items across vendors and platforms is a serious improvement, and (with apologies to Samurai Jack) 'an historic victory most worthy of our logs.' Or blogs. We should have the bugbots dispensed with before the month is out, so keep watching this space (and my wiki)...

New ways to squirrel away

If you're a BHCTI Student, you may have seen this message:

You will notice that some of the resources and links in Carroll Institute's website have been combined or shifted to other menu sections. These modifications are in preparation for our transition to a new administrative interface -- ABHE Solutions. ABHE Solutions is the new platform for student records and class registration. Current students will soon be receiving more information and specific instructions related to class registration for the Summer term.

A catalog to centralize our collection of data and serve as a multiplier of access points has been an ongoing need at Carroll; and through ABHE, we soon ought to have one. Watch this space for updates- and on a faster basis than in the last 6 months, guaranteed....

Google ebooks

Value added by the folks at Google to our BHCTILibrary "Proper" and BHCTILibraryToo Google Book collections include links from any individual ebook the those Carroll Library collections of free full view items to the Google ebook page, where you can download copies to your computer. That will also serve to advertise their service for Google e-books that are fee based; more on the purchase of suchlike as they develop the resources. Meantime, give them at http://books.google.com/ebooks for your own individual purchasing...

How to use the Google Libraries

Those of you using BHCTILibrary and BHCTILibraryToo may find the quantity a bit overwhelming; I'm going to suggest some searching strategies to make your time more fruitful:

• Choose a 'bookshelf' related to a Carroll 'area of concentration', for instance, 'Foundations of Education.'
• Or, type in a search (like Martin Luther) in the search box under my name.

Slow build

Development of my wiki (focused mostly on Library Instruction and expanding web site listings) and the reigns of teaching BHCTI 5000 (Gateway) for BHCTI has not stopped me entirely on my quest to place 10K or so full-view ebooks I'd discovered into Google Book libraries where they can be found easily and sorted by Library of Congress letter ranges, BHCTI areas of concentration, and suchlike 'bookshelves;' but it has sure slowed me down. We hit 1,600 'reviewed' items in the second collection, BHCTILibraryToo ('Too' for short) today; that makes our combined take about 4,100 items in both current collections (the other is located at the first BHCTILibrary, the BHCTILibrary proper, so to speak; therefore, 'Proper' for short). If Google retains its current ceilings of 2.5K titles per collection, I've got about 1.4K left to add to 'Too' before I create a third Googlebook library; I'm going to try speeding that process up with weekly adds there, and updates here. It's been my hope for a while now; and like Bilbo hoping for his eggs and toast in the Hobbit, 'not for the last time.' Stay tuned...

EBSCO Available

Carroll students and stakeholders, Ebsco is now a clickable button in the NexLearn online resources (with pride of place at the head of the list- it is, after all, our home for religious-studies specialized article citations, including full text). You can use it for ATLA Religion, ATLAS, and our newly acquired Old Testament Abstracts and New Testament Abstracts. This is ancillary to our purpose vis a vis Googlebooks, but it's kept my attention, and I figured you'd want to know why I'd been out for a bit...

Keep up on education

More full view Google Ebooks added in the "Foundations of Education" area of concentration (Faith and Heritage cluster, or FHFND for short) at BHCTILibraryToo today. Zwingli's short work on Christian education notable...

And a little more Education...

Some weeks are crazier than others, but in each one I try to add more Google books relevant to Carroll Disciplines to specially-designated Google Libraries. We have been chugging slowly uphill in the "Foundations of Education" area of concentration (also called MFFND here at BHCTI) in our BHCTILibraryToo account (affectionately referred to as "Too") for some time now, and will for some time to come. Click the link to review our progress!

A bit more yet

We've added a few more titles in Foundations of Education to 'Too today; just some more steps on the road!

Keep on keeping on

A handful of new books to add to 'Too today; no big breakthrough numbers, but just a steady flow...

It's an education

Just a few more "Foundations of Education" titles added today to 'Too; note the Google upgrade that changes our "Tags" (try Foundations of Education, or MFFND, or our broad Library of Congress Call Number setting LC) into "bookshelves." I'd call it a net gain, so far...

Education underweigh

The first new entries under our Foundations of Education area of concentration (subject cluster MFFND here at Carroll) are staring to appear on our collection of Full Text (i.e., full view) Google Book library at 'Too. Have a peak at what's developing...

And Missions plays out

What's up to bat now that the Missions titles are posted? There are plenty of Areas of Concentration left, so watch this space, and visit 'Too to see the latest Missions offerings....

More missions

Not quite played out, BHCTILibraryToo's Missions materials (Area of Concentration WMMIS) grew a bit today.

All is safely gathered in

Just in time for Thanksgiving, we've reached the 1,500 mark in BHCTILibraryToo, with a few dozen titles left in our "Area of Concentration" Missions (Worship and Missions "Subject Cluster," or WMMIS for short). Combined with the 2,500 titles gathered and tagged to BHCTI Subject Clusters and Areas of Concentration available at BHCTILibrary "Proper," we've hit (at long last) 4,000 readily accessable titles in the Google Book Libraries. Next numerical target will be 5K....

Looks good from a distance

Still climbing the hill on BHCTILibraryToo (Too for short), adding titles in our Area of Concentration Missions. Have a peak at the latest...

And a bit more, too

Our growing collection of free full text (i.e., full view) Google Books stowed at BHCTILibraryToo (Too for short) just got a little bit bigger today. Still soldiering on with the project...

Okay, 3.7K so far...

I'm still 300 titles short of the next mile marker in the combined GoogleBooks libraries, but as Tolkien famously said in the LOTR preface, I had "other duties I did not neglect." But we are still hacking away in Missions- you can see the results in 'Too to date.

Back on Mission

About 50 titles from the Missions area of concentration (Worship and Missions 'cluster') were added to BHCTILibraryToo today- the work is slow, but continues...

Sidelight on Bhctilibrary Wiki

This wiki is a sandbox-worthy version of how to search our NexLearn resources, and to (I hope) disambiguate our bibliographic instruction. Go there to learn how to search OCLC FirstSearch, Seminary Library, Questia, Oxford Reference Online, Grove Music Online, our '07 list of Online Resources; plus directives back to BHCTILibrary "Proper" and BHCTILibraryToo, as well as this page. Once the kinks are all worked out, some version of it will be added to NexLearn, but feel free to visit and edit meanwhile...