Tag Archives: Religion

Exciting New Online Encyclopedias!

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Temple has just purchased electronic access to seven excellent encyclopedias, mainly on religious topics, through The Gale Virtual Reference Library, which is accessible from TUL homepage on the A-Z database list, the eBooks list, and in the Library Catalog. These specialized encyclopedias are great places to start research on unfamiliar topics, providing nice overviews, bibliographies, and linked cross-references. In addition to the great content, The Gale Virtual Reference Library interface is much more user-friendly than those of other e-book vendors, and each encyclopedia can be searched or browsed. Check out the links below! 1) Contemporary American Religion 2 volumes, 1999

2) Encyclopedia of Buddhism 2 volumes, 2004

3) Encyclopedia of Islam and the Muslim World 2 volumes, 2004

4) Encyclopedia of Religion 2nd ed., 15 VOLUMES, 2005

5) Encyclopedia of Science and Religion 2 volumes, 2003

6) New Catholic Encyclopedia 2nd ed., 15 VOLUMES, 2003

7) New Dictionary of the History of Ideas 6 volumes, 2005

Exciting New Online Encyclopedias!

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Temple has just purchased electronic access to seven excellent encyclopedias, mainly on religious topics, through The Gale Virtual Reference Library, which is accessible from TUL homepage on the A-Z database list, the eBooks list, and in the Library Catalog. These specialized encyclopedias are great places to start research on unfamiliar topics, providing nice overviews, bibliographies, and linked cross-references. In addition to the great content, The Gale Virtual Reference Library interface is much more user-friendly than those of other e-book vendors, and each encyclopedia can be searched or browsed. Check out the links below! 1) Contemporary American Religion 2 volumes, 1999

2) Encyclopedia of Buddhism 2 volumes, 2004

3) Encyclopedia of Islam and the Muslim World 2 volumes, 2004

4) Encyclopedia of Religion 2nd ed., 15 VOLUMES, 2005

5) Encyclopedia of Science and Religion 2 volumes, 2003

6) New Catholic Encyclopedia 2nd ed., 15 VOLUMES, 2003

7) New Dictionary of the History of Ideas 6 volumes, 2005

Foreign News Sources

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The Temple University Libraries provide online access to many different foreign news sources, both English and non-English publications. These sources are important because they offer news, events, and opinions that might otherwise be ignored or filtered by the US press. First, take a look at the Non-English Language News available in Lexis/Nexis. You can search for articles in Dutch, French, German, Italian, Portuguese, and Spanish. (Click on images below to see the enlarged images.) Lexis Nexis screenshot Second, if you don’t read any of the above languages, you can also read English language news from around the world in Lexis/Nexis. Many different countries publish newspapers in the world’s lingua franca, English. Lexis Nexis Screenshot 2 Third, try World News Connection for foreign news in English translation. The translations comes from the US Foreign Broadcast Information Service (FBIS). World News Connection screenshot One thing to keep in mind with both Lexis/Nexis and World News Connection is that you cannot browse through the electronic editions of these newspapers. Instead, you have to search for articles. To search a specific newspaper in Lexis/Nexis, you can click “Sources” in the upper right corner and select your newspaper (“Sources” not shown in the Lexis/Nexis images above). In World News Connection I had no luck searching specific publications, though this search option is supposed to work (appears to be a glitch that needs to be fixed). Lexis/Nexis and World News Connection are restricted to Temple students, faculty, and staff. Of course, the Internet offers a lot of free public content as well. Here’s a list of newspapers by geographic region from the Internet Public Library. The difference is that in Lexis/Nexis and World News Connection you can search across many publications for articles, thus saving a lot of time. For any one newspaper, you’re also likely to find more content in these two databases than in the free content on the newspaper’s site. One final note: if you are trying to learn another language, be sure to take advantage of the many news sites that offer audio and video clips in addition to print news. Often governments sponsor the best news sites for language learning. Sometimes you can even hit the motherlode of language learning, audio and video clips along with a transcript, so that you can read and listen at the same time. Take a look at the following sites for audio and video clips: Deutsche Welle, news in over thirty languages Radio Netherlands, news in six languages Voice of America, news in dozens of languages Vatican Radio, news in dozens of languages, along with a whole lot more of religious programming. –Fred Rowland [Addendum: David Murray adds: Great article, Fred. A brand new database for obtaining foreign news articles is “Access World News”. It can be accessed from the A-Z list of databases under “NewsBank”. Access World News offers “full-text content of [700] local and regional papers” outside the United States. There’s a nice browse function that allows easy limiting to a specific publication and/or date. The content I found was all in English. Paid advertising is excluded.]

Foreign News Sources

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The Temple University Libraries provide online access to many different foreign news sources, both English and non-English publications. These sources are important because they offer news, events, and opinions that might otherwise be ignored or filtered by the US press.

First, take a look at the Non-English Language News available in Lexis/Nexis. You can search for articles in Dutch, French, German, Italian, Portuguese, and Spanish. (Click on images below to see the enlarged images.)

Lexis Nexis screenshot

Second, if you don’t read any of the above languages, you can also read English language news from around the world in Lexis/Nexis. Many different countries publish newspapers in the world’s lingua franca, English.

Lexis Nexis Screenshot 2

Third, try World News Connection for foreign news in English translation. The translations comes from the US Foreign Broadcast Information Service (FBIS).

World News Connection screenshot

One thing to keep in mind with both Lexis/Nexis and World News Connection is that you cannot browse through the electronic editions of these newspapers. Instead, you have to search for articles. To search a specific newspaper in Lexis/Nexis, you can click “Sources” in the upper right corner and select your newspaper (“Sources” not shown in the Lexis/Nexis images above). In World News Connection I had no luck searching specific publications, though this search option is supposed to work (appears to be a glitch that needs to be fixed).

Lexis/Nexis and World News Connection are restricted to Temple students, faculty, and staff. Of course, the Internet offers a lot of free public content as well. Here’s a list of newspapers by geographic region from the Internet Public Library. The difference is that in Lexis/Nexis and World News Connection you can search across many publications for articles, thus saving a lot of time. For any one newspaper, you’re also likely to find more content in these two databases than in the free content on the newspaper’s site.

One final note: if you are trying to learn another language, be sure to take advantage of the many news sites that offer audio and video clips in addition to print news. Often governments sponsor the best news sites for language learning. Sometimes you can even hit the motherlode of language learning, audio and video clips along with a transcript, so that you can read and listen at the same time. Take a look at the following sites for audio and video clips:

Deutsche Welle, news in over thirty languages
Radio Netherlands, news in six languages
Voice of America, news in dozens of languages
Vatican Radio, news in dozens of languages, along with a whole lot more of religious programming.

–Fred Rowland

[Addendum: David Murray adds: Great article, Fred. A brand new database for obtaining foreign news articles is “Access World News”. It can be accessed from the A-Z list of databases under “NewsBank”. Access World News offers “full-text content of [700] local and regional papers” outside the United States. There’s a nice browse function that allows easy limiting to a specific publication and/or date. The content I found was all in English. Paid advertising is excluded.]

EndNote and RefWorks: Differences and Similarities

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Recently a number of patrons have asked about the differences and similarities between EndNote and RefWorks, two programs that help writers and researchers organize their references. Here are some differences between RefWorks and EndNote: 1) RefWorks is free because the university has a site license to the RefWorks web site. You just have to go to RefWorks to create an account. EndNote costs about $100 for students and about $180 for the exact same software at the regular price. But when you leave Temple, Endnote will still be on your computer, while your Refworks account will be inaccessible. 2) RefWorks is web-based so you can access your account from any computer with an Internet connection. If you are on a computer that does not have Internet access, you will not be able to get to RefWorks. EndNote in contrast is loaded onto the hard drive of your computer so it is not accessible from other computers. However, EndNote licenses do allow you to load a copy onto your “work” computer as well as one on your home computer. Check your license for details. 3) EndNote is probably faster because it resides on your computer. RefWorks will be slow if your Internet connection is slow. Here are some similarities between RefWorks and EndNote: 1) Both EndNote and RefWorks are databases that allow you to organize the references you use for your research. You can enter references manually or download them. 2) For both, there are two ways to download records. You can start from an external library database, save selected records, and import them into EndNote or RefWorks. The second method is to use either EndNote or RefWorks’ native search interface to search external library databases. Downloading of records can be problematic with some library databases, so for questions on specific databases, get in touch with one of the contacts at the end of this entry. 3) You can output your references into the form of a bibliography in many different styles, including APA, MLA, Chicago Style, as well as hundreds more, including many for the sciences. For each program, you can take an output style and customize it for your own purposes, or you can create a new style from scratch. 4) Each program has an MS Word plugin that allows you to insert in-text citations as you write your paper while your bibliography is automatically constructed at the end of the paper. EndNote’s plugin is called Cite-While-You-Write, while RefWorks’ is called Cite-N-Write. 5) You can transfer records between EndNote and RefWorks, so if you start by using one of these programs, you can switch at a later date to the other one. So, which one to select? One of my colleagues called RefWorks “clunky” compared to EndNote. Another colleague said that she could use RefWorks after 1.5 hours of training and still had trouble with EndNote after 9 hours of training. She says that RefWorks is much more intuitive. I like EndNote but have spent a long time learning it. I’ve also used RefWorks recently and found it very useful. The only surefire advice is that if you don’t have EndNote already, start with RefWorks and see how you like it. But above all, if you are doing a lot of research writing, try one of these products out because it could save you a whole lot of time. For more information, email Fred Rowland or George Fowler. –Fred Rowland

EndNote and RefWorks: Differences and Similarities

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Recently a number of patrons have asked about the differences and similarities between EndNote and RefWorks, two programs that help writers and researchers organize their references.

Here are some differences between RefWorks and EndNote:

1) RefWorks is free because the university has a site license to the RefWorks web site. You just have to go to RefWorks to create an account. EndNote costs about $100 for students and about $180 for the exact same software at the regular price. But when you leave Temple, Endnote will still be on your computer, while your Refworks account will be inaccessible.

2) RefWorks is web-based so you can access your account from any computer with an Internet connection. If you are on a computer that does not have Internet access, you will not be able to get to RefWorks. EndNote in contrast is loaded onto the hard drive of your computer so it is not accessible from other computers. However, EndNote licenses do allow you to load a copy onto your “work” computer as well as one on your home computer. Check your license for details.

3) EndNote is probably faster because it resides on your computer. RefWorks will be slow if your Internet connection is slow.
Here are some similarities between RefWorks and EndNote:

1) Both EndNote and RefWorks are databases that allow you to organize the references you use for your research. You can enter references manually or download them.

2) For both, there are two ways to download records. You can start from an external library database, save selected records, and import them into EndNote or RefWorks. The second method is to use either EndNote or RefWorks’ native search interface to search external library databases. Downloading of records can be problematic with some library databases, so for questions on specific databases, get in touch with one of the contacts at the end of this entry.

3) You can output your references into the form of a bibliography in many different styles, including APA, MLA, Chicago Style, as well as hundreds more, including many for the sciences. For each program, you can take an output style and customize it for your own purposes, or you can create a new style from scratch.

4) Each program has an MS Word plugin that allows you to insert in-text citations as you write your paper while your bibliography is automatically constructed at the end of the paper. EndNote’s plugin is called Cite-While-You-Write, while RefWorks’ is called Cite-N-Write.

5) You can transfer records between EndNote and RefWorks, so if you start by using one of these programs, you can switch at a later date to the other one.
So, which one to select? One of my colleagues called RefWorks “clunky” compared to EndNote. Another colleague said that she could use RefWorks after 1.5 hours of training and still had trouble with EndNote after 9 hours of training. She says that RefWorks is much more intuitive. I like EndNote but have spent a long time learning it. I’ve also used RefWorks recently and found it very useful.

The only surefire advice is that if you don’t have EndNote already, start with RefWorks and see how you like it. But above all, if you are doing a lot of research writing, try one of these products out because it could save you a whole lot of time.

For more information, email Fred Rowland or George Fowler.

–Fred Rowland

Online Tools for Managing Your Research Papers

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Temple University offers a number of different tools for the successful online management of research papers. These tools originate in different departments around campus but taken together help cut down on preparation time and improve your final product. First, there’s My Backpack, accessible through the toolbar of TUportal after logging in. My Backpack allows you to store your paper in one central place so that you can access it from any computer on or off campus. Each time you want to work on your paper, you download it to your computer from My Backpack. When you’re finished working on it, simply upload it until you decide to work on it again. Since TUportal is regularly backed up, you don’t have to worry about forgetting to have a backup copy. For managing your bibliography and in-text citations, there’s RefWorks to which the university has a site license. Simply go on to RefWorks and set up an account. RefWorks allows you to enter references manually or download them from databases. RefWorks produces bibliographies in any number of styles, including APA, MLA, Chicago Style, and Turabian. If you are writing a group paper, RefWorks can be shared so that you can build and use a bibliography collaboratively. For more information about RefWorks, see the Refworks Tutorial page. For help on the mechanics of writing, The Writing Center offers “Handouts, Tipsheets, and Writing Guides”. These online guides cover a wide range of topics, including the writing process, argumentation, revising, proofreading, grammar, punctuation, plagiarism, and citing sources. Finally, the library has access to over two dozen EBSCOhost databases, including Academic Search Premier, ATLA, Business Source Premier, ERIC, Humanities Abstracts, MLA International Bibliography, and PsychInfo. If you set up a personal account with EBSCOhost (it’s free), you can save and store article records to My Folder. This allows you to search and store records until you are ready to print, delete, email, or download them. This functionality works across EBSCOhost databases so that you can save records from, for instance, Academic Search Premier, ERIC, and PsychInfo, and store them all in one place, My Folder. For more information on any one of these important tools, please contact Derik Badman, David Murray, or Fred Rowland.

Online Tools for Managing Your Research Papers

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Temple University offers a number of different tools for the successful online management of research papers. These tools originate in different departments around campus but taken together help cut down on preparation time and improve your final product.

First, there’s My Backpack, accessible through the toolbar of TUportal after logging in. My Backpack allows you to store your paper in one central place so that you can access it from any computer on or off campus. Each time you want to work on your paper, you download it to your computer from My Backpack. When you’re finished working on it, simply upload it until you decide to work on it again. Since TUportal is regularly backed up, you don’t have to worry about forgetting to have a backup copy.

For managing your bibliography and in-text citations, there’s RefWorks to which the university has a site license. Simply go on to RefWorks and set up an account. RefWorks allows you to enter references manually or download them from databases. RefWorks produces bibliographies in any number of styles, including APA, MLA, Chicago Style, and Turabian. If you are writing a group paper, RefWorks can be shared so that you can build and use a bibliography collaboratively. For more information about RefWorks, see the Refworks Tutorial page.

For help on the mechanics of writing, The Writing Center offers “Handouts, Tipsheets, and Writing Guides”. These online guides cover a wide range of topics, including the writing process, argumentation, revising, proofreading, grammar, punctuation, plagiarism, and citing sources.

Finally, the library has access to over two dozen EBSCOhost databases, including Academic Search Premier, ATLA, Business Source Premier, ERIC, Humanities Abstracts, MLA International Bibliography, and PsychInfo. If you set up a personal account with EBSCOhost (it’s free), you can save and store article records to My Folder. This allows you to search and store records until you are ready to print, delete, email, or download them. This functionality works across EBSCOhost databases so that you can save records from, for instance, Academic Search Premier, ERIC, and PsychInfo, and store them all in one place, My Folder.

For more information on any one of these important tools, please contact Derik Badman, David Murray, or Fred Rowland.

Amazing New Biographical Resource

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Have you ever been confused by titles of nobility in British history? Who was The Earl of Gloucester, or The Duke of Lancaster, or Lord Buckingham? What were their real names and what role did they play in the rough and tumble events of British history? Just how many Earls of Gloucester were there anyway and which centuries did they live in?

You can discover this and much, much more in print or online in the recently available 2004 Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. The 60 print volumes are available in the Paley Reference Stacks (1st Floor: DA28 .O95 2004). The online version is available from the library’s alphabetical list of databases for a one year trial period. More commonly known as the Dictionary of National Biography, or DNB, this amazing resource contains over 50,000 biographies and 10,000 images of important British men and women from the 4th century C.E. through 2001, living persons excluded. The online version includes additional functionality for researchers, like the ability to search the references and images of each entry, or the ability to search by gender, profession, and religion. Looking for the Hogarth portrait of 18th century patron of the arts Mary Edwards? Wondering if there is any information on 19th century Quaker women scientists? Trying to identify a few good sources for the study of botany in Elizabethan England? The answers to these questions and more are only a few clicks away.

Remember, the online version of this amazing resource is available for a one year trial period, so if you like what you find, please be sure to tell your local Temple librarian. Faculty and student input is taken very seriously.

Amazing New Biographical Resource

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top-logo.gif Have you ever been confused by titles of nobility in British history? Who was The Earl of Gloucester, or The Duke of Lancaster, or Lord Buckingham? What were their real names and what role did they play in the rough and tumble events of British history? Just how many Earls of Gloucester were there anyway and which centuries did they live in? You can discover this and much, much more in print or online in the recently available 2004 Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. The 60 print volumes are available in the Paley Reference Stacks (1st Floor: DA28 .O95 2004). The online version is available from the library’s alphabetical list of databases for a one year trial period. More commonly known as the Dictionary of National Biography, or DNB, this amazing resource contains over 50,000 biographies and 10,000 images of important British men and women from the 4th century C.E. through 2001, living persons excluded. The online version includes additional functionality for researchers, like the ability to search the references and images of each entry, or the ability to search by gender, profession, and religion. Looking for the Hogarth portrait of 18th century patron of the arts Mary Edwards? Wondering if there is any information on 19th century Quaker women scientists? Trying to identify a few good sources for the study of botany in Elizabethan England? The answers to these questions and more are only a few clicks away. Remember, the online version of this amazing resource is available for a one year trial period, so if you like what you find, please be sure to tell your local Temple librarian. Faculty and student input is taken very seriously.