Update

Between April and June of 2018, the Department of Administration (DOA), on behalf of the Department of Public Instruction (DPI), solicited bids to determine which companies DPI could sign contracts with to provide 13 Collections that may be included in the new BadgerLink.

Last week, DOA announced the final 4 companies selected (see table below). Because the total cost of all selected Collections exceeds the current BadgerLink appropriation, DPI is now determining which Collections it will sign contracts for. The decisions will be based on factors including past and recent usage trends, cost, feedback from the library field about priorities, and the availability of other resources provided by the public, school and academic library community that meet similar needs. DPI will be sharing the final list of Collections that will comprise the new BadgerLink as soon as the contracts are signed.

Regardless of the final contracting decisions, the procurement process was structured to allow publicly funded Municipal agencies; e.g. Public Library Systems, Cooperative Educational Service Agencies (CESAs), Public Libraries, the Wisconsin Public Library Consortium, etc., to contract for resources the Department may not be able to fund.

Please direct any questions about the procurement to Martha Berninger at martha.berninger@dpi.wi.gov.
 

The Department of Public Instruction has an opening for a full-time BadgerLink Technical Support and Training Specialist.

The BadgerLink Technical Support and Training Specialist will provide system administration and technical support for BadgerLink, implement new BadgerLink resources, manages the statewide authentication system for BadgerLink and other resources managed by the DPI, and develop innovative strategies and tools to raise public awareness of programs and services provided to libraries and residents statewide.

See the job announcement on wisc.jobs for full details and how to apply: BadgerLink Technical Support & Training Specialist announcement 

New look, same content!  LearningExpress Library updated their website today!  Changes include more intuitive access to centers from the homepage, a larger search box, and learning center name changes.  

Please reach out if you have any questions. 

Written by Kara Ripley, Reference and BadgerLink Training Librarian

After seven great years providing BadgerLink training to Wisconsin schools and libraries, I will be leaving the Department of Public Instruction (DPI) to return to work at a public library. My last day at DPI will be January 31st. I have enjoyed connecting with you at conferences and trainings as well as helping you use the great resources provided by BadgerLink.

You can continue to expect the same commitment and dedication from the BadgerLink staff, but the BadgerLink team will be a bit short staffed. On Demand Training is always available on the BadgerLink website but until my replacement is hired, other training may be available on a limited basis, and with a greater reliance on webinars.

Please feel free to reach out to the BadgerLink team with any questions.

Britannica School provides encyclopedias in English and Spanish with images, maps, and other learning materials for students and educators. Britannica School recently made some updates to the resource.

Now when you access the homepage or the results page of Britannica School - Elementary or Britannica School - Middle, you get the link to the equivalent Spanish encyclopedia, Escolar Primaria or Escolar Secundaria. This new feature makes it easy to flip over to the Spanish encyclopedia for English language learners or English as a second language students.

Screenshot from Britannica School
Click to enlarge

If you have any questions, Contact Us.

On Friday, September 29th we began experiencing an outage of all LearningExpress Library Centers. Users are unable to login to take tests or download ebooks. 

The vendor has been contacted and will resolve the problem as soon as possible. This message will be updated as we learn more about the issue.

Sorry for the inconvenience.

UPDATE

As of October 3 at 8:30 AM, access to all LearningExpress Library Centers has been restored to BadgerLink users. Please Contact Us if you have any questions.

On August 10, 2017 LearningExpress will move to HTTPS and SSL for more secure browsing. HTTPS is the secure version of HTTP (Hyper Text Transfer Protocol). As an HTTPS website, all information sent using a web browser to LearningExpress will be encrypted, preventing anyone from intercepting the message anywhere along the network to the server. Read more about this update on the EBSCO News & Alerts site.

Many BadgerLink vendor websites, including our authentication and federated search provider Auto-Graphics, have already moved to HTTPS, so we are happy to see this addition. Libraries, like any provider of a service to the public, must have the confidence of the public to succeed and thrive. Patron privacy is one way to tell your library users you have respect for them and their needs, and for patrons to be assured the library is acting in their best interests. Moving from HTTP to a secure HTTPS communications platform helps convey that message.

If you run into any troubles don't hesitate to contact us!

After September 30, 2017, in Access NewspaperARCHIVE, you will no longer be able to view an article as a PDF. But don’t worry, you will still be able to download newspaper pages as PDFs.

The PDF viewer is being discontinued because PDF images are much larger than the JPEGs, taking a considerable amount of time to download and also putting a massive load on Access NewspaperARCHIVE’s servers. Additionally, Adobe Viewer is a third party platform which means Access NewspaperARCHIVE has no control over how the end product is displayed to the user.

After the transition away from the PDF Viewer, you will still be able to download in 2 easy steps.

1. Click on the envelope in the toolbar.

2. Select Save as PDF.

At about 4:30 PM on July 17 we begin experiencing an outage of HertiageQuest Online. The vendor has been contacted and will resolve the problem as soon as possible.

Sorry for the inconvenience.

July 18 UPDATE

Today at about 11 AM it was reported that the hardware problem was resolved and access was restored to HertiageQuest Online. If you continue to experience problems accessing this resource, please Contact Us.

The BadgerLink Team is happy to announce that in the beginning of August we'll be updating the layout of our homepage.

The purpose of our website is to get you to our fabulous resources. So we moved some content around to put a spotlight on what we have to offer. We also wanted new users to know what BadgerLink is, so we added a brief description of who we are and what we do.

Your feedback is very important to us as we strive to develop a website that is valuable to you. Please submit any questions, comments, and concerns to this feedback form.