District Invests in Digital Social and Emotional Learning Resources to Support Youth Mental Health and Wellness

FARMINGTON HILLS, Mich. and NORTH BEND, Ore. – April 6, 2021 – With additional pressure being placed on students due to the pandemic and other stressors, Gale, a Cengage company, is helping the North Bend School District 13 (NBSD) support mental health and wellness. Located in North Bend, Oregon, the district is using Cameron’s Collection and Cameron’s Camp for Wellness on the Gale eBooks platform to help students better understand their mental health and provide guidance to strengthen their social and emotional learning (SEL) skills.

More than 4,000 students can privately and anonymously access the digital collections from the district’s library website, 24/7 from any location or device. School staff, including counselors, can also access the resources to assist students and their family members.

Nationally, one out of five teens suffer from mental health challenges, and more than 75% don’t seek help[i]. With COVID-19 and other stressors impacting students every day, it’s important that they are equipped to navigate emotions in a healthy way.

“When I first heard about Cameron’s Collection, it resonated with me because I was that teenager who wouldn’t have sought out a counselor,” says Laurie Nordahl, librarian at North Bend High School. “I wouldn’t have opened up to a staff member or taken a book with a mental illness topic to the library desk to check out - I know there are students just like me, and I wanted resources for them.”

Providing mental health and wellness resources through Gale supports the district’s mission to provide for the health and safety of students by increasing social-emotional, mental and behavioral health support.

“The real ‘gotta-have-it-right-now’ moment came when we lost a student to suicide,” Nordahl said. “It devastated our school community, and after the initial surge of support, some students were still processing. If a student was up in the middle of the night thinking about these things, I wanted them to have access to these quality, vetted resources.”

NBSD’s Gale eBooks collections include:

• Cameron’s Collection: This collection focuses on helping students cope with everyday stressors and stay in the present moment. More than 90 digital titles span a wide range of topics including: ADD, ADHD, alcohol, anorexia, anxiety, bulimia, caregiving, cutting, depression, divorce, drugs, eating disorders, homelessness, OCD, self-injury, stress and suicide. Created in partnership with the Cameron K. Gallagher (CKG) Foundation, this collection aims to inspire students affected by mental illness to seek help.

• Cameron’s Camp for Wellness: More than 100 eBooks provide targeted guidance on sensitive issues for K-5 students, teachers and counselors with topics on managing emotions, teamwork, problem-solving, family issues, staying positive, being safe and much more. The core foundation of this collection is helping students recognize and manage emotions, social skills and safety.

The collections were created in honor of Cameron Gallagher, a bright and talented young girl battling depression and anxiety whose dream was to raise awareness and prevent the unnecessary suffering from stigma. At the age of 16, she suddenly passed away from an undiagnosed heart condition after crossing the finish line of a half marathon, a goal she set which helped her cope. Gale, in collaboration with the CKG Foundation, created Cameron’s Collection to ensure schools are equipped with educational resources to help struggling teens.

“The big thing for me is letting kids know that they’re not alone,” Nordahl explained. “I have always tried to make the library not only a warm, welcoming place, but the place students can get answers and help for anything – I feel like Cameron’s Collection fits right into this philosophy.”

“We’re inspired by educators like Nordahl who work tirelessly to provide valuable resources to their students,” said Paul Gazzolo, senior vice president and general manager at Gale. “While it isn’t a substitute for a professional, Cameron’s Collection offers essential content to support the mental wellness of students who aren’t ready to seek in-person help or want privacy while they explore.”

Read more about North Bend School District’s success with Cameron’s Collection and how they secured funding for the collections: https://bit.ly/3rOWCJi.

For more information, visit Gale’s SEL webpage: https://bit.ly/3mpWtL5.

About Cengage and Gale
Cengage, an education technology company serving millions of learners in 165 countries, advances the way students learn through quality, digital experiences. The company currently serves the K-12, higher education, professional, library, English language teaching and workforce training markets worldwide. Gale, a Cengage company, believes in the power and joy of learning. For schools, the company helps drive positive outcomes by providing essential, curriculum-aligned content that empowers educators to solve curriculum challenges and meet students where they are. Today, that includes supporting distance and social and emotional learning as well as equity and inclusion goals. Gale’s K-12 offerings extend from educational databases and custom eBook collections to instructional tools and professional development resources. For more information, please visit: www.gale.com/schools.

Follow Gale on:
• Twitter - @galecengage
• Gale Blog - https://blog.gale.com/
• Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/GaleCengage/
• LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/showcase/3836963/admin/

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[i] National Alliance on Mental Illness: Mental Health by the Numbers

ByWater Solutions, America’s forefront provider of Open Source library technology support, announced that Union County College in Cranford, NJ is now live on Koha!

Bywater Solutions completed the transition of the Union County College Library 137,000 holdings from SIRSI ILS to Koha and is providing ongoing support services to the library. The libraries' customized Koha OPAC can be viewed at https://catalog.ucc.edu/

Karen Venturella, Associate Librarian who handles Acquisitions at Union County College recently commented on the migration, "The Bywater Koha Support team was incredible and assisted us with integrating our Discovery tool as well as setting up reports. The Zoom training was scheduled and recorded to address the scheduling needs of the librarians and library staff.”

About Union County College
The Union County College has three campus libraries that “support the mission and goals of the College…the Libraries provide the diverse college community with information resources and services that complement curricula and aid students in completing degree and certificate programs.”
Read more at https://www.ucc.edu/library/

About ByWater Solutions
ByWater Solutions is a full service, high-quality Open Source support and implementation company dedicated to providing libraries with a lower cost, more advanced level of support for their systems than a traditional proprietary solution can offer. ByWater Solutions has a proven track record in the first-rate implementation and support services with library systems of all sizes for the Koha ILS, Aspen Discovery, Folio LSP, Coral ERM, and Libki PC Management.

Our highly ranked, comprehensive support is what sets our company apart from any other vendor in the industry. Partnering with ByWater Solutions not only lowers the cost of implementation and maintenance of OSS but more importantly empowers libraries by giving them the flexibility and freedom they deserve. For more information please visit https://bywatersolutions.com.

About Koha
Koha is the first open-source Integrated Library System (ILS). In use worldwide, its development is steered by a growing community of libraries collaborating to achieve their technology goals. Koha’s impressive feature set continues to evolve and expand to meet the needs of its user base. It includes modules for circulation, cataloging, acquisitions, serials, reserves, patron management, branch relationships, and more.

Koha’s OPAC, circulation, management, and self-checkout interfaces are all based on standards-compliant World Wide Web technologies, HTML5, CSS, and Javascript, making Koha a truly platform-independent solution. Koha is distributed under the open-source General Public License (GPL). For more information about Koha, please visit http://koha-community.org.

For More Information
Jessica Zairo
Director of Library Sales & Outreach
ByWater Solutions
bywatersolutions.com
Phone:(888)900-8944

New fully-digital archaeology title THE PAST has launched a cutting-edge digital subscription service for individuals and institutions in partnership with the Exact Editions online platform. Subscriptions will offer readers fully-searchable access to the brand new first issue, as well as all future bi-monthly issues as they are published.

Written and edited by leading archaeology experts, THE PAST entertains, informs, delights, and provokes. Each issue is packed with features on the latest discoveries, research and big ideas from all across the globe.

The new digital edition offers subscribers a seamless cross-platform browsing experience on web, iOS and Android devices to support reading on the go. The Exact Editions platform’s intuitive navigational tools also include an advanced search functionality and clickable URLs, email address and contents pages for an interactive experience.

THE PAST is available in the Exact Editions individual and institutional shops here:

Individuals: https://shop.exacteditions.com/the-past-magazine

Institutions: https://institutions.exacteditions.com/the-past-magazine

Magazine co-founder Dr Nadia Durrani commented “We don’t think there is anything quite like THE PAST. With double the content of all comparable titles, and covering the whole of human history, it’s full of compelling content. We’re really excited to be able to offer archaeology devotees such a superb digital subscription, which will only grow in value as future issues build up to form a valuable archive of content.”

Managing Director of Exact Editions, Daryl Rayner, said: “It’s a delight to welcome THE PAST on board; the wealth of their team’s experience in both the archaeology and magazine industries will assist in driving the success of this exciting new title.”

About THE PAST:

THE PAST is the creation of trained archaeologists and seasoned magazine professionals Nadia Durrani, Neil Faulkner and Gary Rossin. The exclusively online archaeology magazine digs deep into all aspects of human history, over all time periods, in all areas of the world.

About Exact Editions:

Exact Editions is a digital publishing company based in London. It is a team of producers, developers and designers that turns periodicals and books into dynamic, user-friendly digital editions. Exact Editions specialises in digitising content, selling subscriptions and providing streaming solutions across web, iOS and Android platforms. Exact Editions are also the innovators of ‘Reading Rooms’ technology, so publishers can provide streaming, time-limited, access to digital editions.