Public Library Of Youngstown & Mahoning County: New Year, New You – New Skills!

Press release from the Public Library of Youngstown & Mahoning County:

Sara Churchill

January 12th, 2022

Happy New Year! Are you one of the many that has made a New Year’s Resolution? A popular goal many people choose to do is to learn something new.  If you are interested in picking up new skills or crafts, we have many online resources to help you succeed! To make them easy to find, we have grouped most of them together on our Learning Resources webpage. Here, you can choose among resources that will provide full online, self-paced courses (many providing certificates upon completion) and ebooks, audiobooks, and videos.  Other places to find these resources are: Career Resources, Computer Training, and Digital Resources.

Let’s start with the resources that provide full courses and tutorials: 

The newest resource, provided to all Ohio residents through your local library, is Northstar Digital Literacy. Here you can take free assessment tests to check how much you already know on a variety of topics:

For those who sign up for a free Northstar Learner Account, there are even 6 self-paced online classes you can take:

Plus, the library is offering proctored assessment tests by appointment. Contact the library by phone: 330-744-8636, email reference@libraryvisit.org, or in-person. NOTE: Only Northstar learners who take proctored assessment tests are able to receive a certificate for each assessment they successfully pass!

Learning Express Library provides unlimited access to a wide variety of tutorials and practice tests for elementary school students through adult learners. It is divided into centers.  When you login, you will be taken to your “My Center” page. Here it will keep track of what tutorials you are working on, along with ebooks you have chosen to download.  There is no time limit on completing tutorials, and ebooks download for an unlimited time period as well! To locate the tutorials, ebooks, and practice tests, here are recommended centers for all adult English and Spanish speaking learners out there: 

These centers will help you work on math, reading, grammar, speaking and vocabulary skills. Plus, they include a U.S. Citizenship tutorial and practice test.  The Computer Skills center covers beginner computer and internet tutorials through advanced tutorials for Excel, Word, and other Microsoft software. 

Did you know that LinkedIn Learning includes all the courses from Lynda.com which originally began as an arts and crafts creative learning resource? While it is widely known today for its business and computer/technology courses, it also still includes a variety of creative skills video-based learning courses. There are art courses, such as Learning Calligraphy, or choose an art topic, such as Photography Foundations, plus various music lessons, such as Ukelele Lessons: Fundamentals and Singing Lessons: 1 Fundamentals. Of course, as already mentioned, LinkedIn Learning also includes lots of computer and technology courses, from beginner to advanced, and general computer knowledge to specific software and coding.  You can locate courses by keyword searching and limiting results with filters, which is how I located these three basic computer literacy courses: 

Or you use the Browse menus for Business, Creative or Technology topics to then narrow down to courses within each of the many sub-topic categories available. The LinkedIn Learning User Guide provides instructions on how to find and use the courses in LinkedIn Learning. There is also a free app available for smartphones and tablets:

Note when using the app, you will need to enter the library’s institution ID: oh0248. All the courses in LinkedIn Learning are video-based, some include practice exercises to help you with learning the material, and if you successfully pass all the quizzes within a LinkedIn Learning course, you will be able to print out a certificate!

Universal Class has 500 courses to choose from on a wide variety of subjects.  You can actively work on 5 courses at the same time, and you will have up to 6 months to complete a course.  All the courses in Universal Class are fully accredited by an international continuing education association, so each course is listed with its C.E.U.s (Continuing Education Units). As with LinkedIn Learning, you can browse the catalog of courses or do a keyword search to locate a specific course. One of the main differences from LinkedIn Learning is that Universal Class courses involve reading lessons, submitting assignments for grading, and passing tests, along with viewing videos. If you successfully complete and pass all your assignments and tests, then you earn a certificate for that course. Another difference from LinkedIn Learning is that there is no subject limitations on the topics that Universal Class provides courses.  Check out this screenshot of the course catalog: 

You can take a course in Aromatherapy 101, Bread Baking 101, Excel 2019, Introduction to Music Appreciation, Screenwriting 101, Typing & Keyboarding 101, Spanish Culture 101, Watercolor Painting 101, and Yoga 101. Universal Class Trifold brochure is a printable brochure. 

While the first four resources have multiple subject courses to choose from, if you are mainly interested in learning a new language – or refreshing your skills in that high school language course you took years ago, you should definitely look at Mango Languages and Transparent Language Online. Both resources offer full courses to learn a language.  Mango Languages has over 70 language courses and Transparent Language Online has over 100 language courses. They also include specialized language courses.  For example, Mango’s Spanish, Latin American course includes specialty units on Business, Legal, Medical, and Text Talk. And Transparent Language Online’s Spanish, Latin American includes Business Vocabulary and Medical Vocabulary. What is unique to Transparent Language Online is that every English language course has a U.S. Citizenship course as well. A final note, both of these language resources have a free app available for smartphones and tablets:

Moving on from the full online course resources, you can locate lots of educational material in our Digital Resources. 

Hoopla is the library’s streaming digital resource, providing free access to audiobooks, ebooks, music, moves and television series to library cardholders.  And you can use these on smartphones, tablets, and computers.  Last week, I showed the many choices in Hoopla for improving your body, well Hoopla also has lots of choices to help improve your mind!

Audiobooks 

Ebooks – There are lots of nonfiction, educational ebook subjects to choose from.  Here are some of the more popular areas of interest for many people: 

Movies – Another area where there are many nonfiction topics to choose to learn about. Here are some popular choices to check out: 

Television – The final area of Hoopla with many nonfiction topics which I have narrowed down to a few popular choices for those looking to learn new skills and knowledge. 

Another educational digital resource would be our OverDrive catalog of eBooks and Audiobooks. There are lots of nonfiction, educational subjects to browse through.  Some top picks for those interested in learning something new would be: 

Of course, along with ebooks and audiobooks, you can always choose to learn through reading the digital magazines available in Flipster  

Art & Design has 2 magazines: 

Hobbies, Interests and DIY has 18 titles to enjoy: 

Science & Technology includes 6 magazines: 

A final resource for those interested in learning a new craft or hobby is the Hobbies & Crafts Reference Center. 

You can browse by your craft or hobby interest, or you can do a keyword search.  This resource takes a very broad view of hobbies and crafts. Thus when you search backpacking, it will pull up articles evaluating the equipment backpackers need along with how to backpack and places to go. The Feature Video on the homepage changes once a month. Note the “Browse Popular Sources” area – these are full books, completely digitized and available for you to enjoy!

I hope you will find something of interest to you in this blog of library online resources which will help you on your goal to gain new skills in this new year.

Happy New Year!

Sara Churchill

Sara Churchill is the Digital Services Specialist and Assistant Supervisor in the Information Services Department at Main Library. A major fan of technology devices and computer research resources at work, she enjoys helping everyone learn to use their devices and the library's many online resources.  She loves reading Science Fiction/Fantasy books, British cozy mysteries, True Crime and other true stories, plus a past reader of horror fiction by the likes of Stephen King and John Saul (among others).  Also, she’s a big fan of Sci-fi, action, horror, spaghetti westerns, and based-on-a-true story movies.  Her blogs are for adults and the entire family to enjoy reading and trying out the many online resources free for PLYMC library cardholders to use.

This press release was produced by the Public Library of Youngstown & Mahoning County. The views expressed here are the author’s own.