Purdue Libraries and School of Information Studies News

MEL’s Database of the Week for 9/17/10

September 17th, 2010

Welcome to this feature from the Management & Economics Library (MEL).  These database snapshots will give you basic information about our most relevant and beneficial online resources.

Database name: lynda.com, from Lynda.com.  lynda.com was Database of the Week in August 2009; today’s email is updated information.

Link: www.lib.purdue.edu/mel, in the pull down Quick Access to Business Databases alpha list right below the Libraries’ search box.

Description/focus: lynda.com provides online video lessons on the usage and techniques of software products.

Start with this hint: lynda.com lets you select lessons with a keyword search or from dropdown menus.  The menus cover Subject (try Game Development), Software (such as Quicken), and Vendor. The Vendor list includes Apple and Sony, but also includes Open Source. The lessons list shows the level of difficulty and the time required to complete the lesson.  The lessons cover the expected software such as Microsoft Office, Adobe,  SQL, AutoCAD, Dreamweaver and other common tools, but also include 2D character animation, and many others.

Why you should know this tool: The lessons at lynda.com are short, focused, and  have the right amount of information without being overwhelming. Over the last year, the most viewed lessons have guided Purdue users through Acrobat, ActionScript game development, Captivate, CSS website design, Illustrator, Google Apps including Calendar, Outlook, Photoshop, and SQL. Closed captioning and a transcript are available for many of the lessons.

How this will help students: Students can go at their own pace to learn the basics, and they can learn techniques that will make their presentations more professional and more logically organized.  Types of software include web design, content management systems, digital video, graphics, and more.

Cost: 3 seats, paid annually by the Libraries.

——————————

Database of the Week comes to you from the Management & Economics Library (MEL). Our intent is to give you a brief introduction to a database that you may not know.  If you would like more information about this database, or if you would like a demonstration of it for a class, contact kranlib@purdue.edu.  Database of the Week is archived  at https://blogs.lib.purdue.edu/news/category/MGMT/.  For more Purdue Libraries news, follow us on Twitter (@PurdueLibraries).

If you would like us to promote your favorite database, send an email to mdugan@purdue.edu.