Gale, part of Cengage Learning and a publisher of research and reference resources for libraries, schools and businesses, has announced expanded product and services initiatives, new publishing program and the addition of industry-leading STEM content from partners. These updated strategies and partnerships usher in a new era of resource development that will help libraries and their users thrive in today's education landscape.
As a part of the expansion Gale will now provide science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) eBook collections from Springer and Elsevier through the Gale Virtual Reference Library (GVRL).
Gale offers this in-demand STEM content to meet the growing needs of the hard science disciplines. The U.S. Department of Commerce states that STEM occupations are projected to grow 17 percent by 2018. The availability of more than 2,900 titles from Springer - combined with Elsevier content - provides library users with a single point of access to the most esteemed STEM publications.
Accessing this content through GVRL, as opposed to other eBook platforms, grants users the added flexibility of viewing and downloading content in multiple formats in addition to other unique benefits of Gale's platform, such as ReadSpeaker text-to-speech technology and translation of content into other languages.
Gale has launched 70 new eBook collections covering STEM, humanities and social science disciplines, as well as general interest topics like travel and do-it-yourself. Unique collections are now available to meet the specific needs of academic, public and school libraries. Additional collections will be added in the future, underscoring Gale's commitment to being the largest eBook provider to libraries.
In addition to the new content, Gale will rebrand GVRL, which was named Best Database by Library Journal in 2012 and is a research staple for students, professionals and general readers. The company plans to combine the reference content from its 90 publishing partners with monographs and multimedia content, such as videos, to make GVRL the only library platform delivering this broad cross-section of research support.
Monographs - specialized studies on a single subject - are also a core part of Gale's product strategy moving forward. The company is launching a new proprietary monograph publishing program that, when combined with Gale's existing collection of over 350,000 monographs, will deliver unrivalled benefits to scholarly and general researchers. The program will combine the best works available from Gale's partners covering the humanities, philosophy, religion and social science disciplines matched with Gale's core strength across these content areas, resulting in the ability to better discover and understand the research.
