Friday’s New Resource Round-up

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The Library is acquiring access to new electronic resources (not to mention all the new books) faster than we can announce them. Here’s a bunch of recent resources with brief descriptions (taken from the Library’s database description page). There are plenty more coming.

—International Bibliography of the Social Sciences includes nearly two million bibliographic references to journal articles and to books, reviews and selected chapters dating back to 1951. It is unique in its broad coverage of international material and incorporates over 100 languages and countries. Over 2,700 journals are regularly indexed and some 7,000 books are included each year. (Updated quarterly)

—MIT CogNet subtitled “The Brain Sciences Connection” is a collection of resources in the cognitive sciences. It includes 7 full-test MIT journals, searchable abstracts of 30 other journals, 6 full-text MIT reference works, and over 400 full-text cognitive science books from MIT Press. Also included are conference proceedings, open courseware materials, job information, calls for papers, and information about gradiate programs in the cognitive sciences.

—Safari Tech Books Online is a full-text library of over 800 information technology books from publishers including O’Reilly, Que, New Riders, Addison-Wesley, and Sams.

—The Encyclopedia of American Studies “brings together a wide range of disciplines related to the history and cultures of the United States, from pre-colonial days to the present. It features broad, synthetic articles covering areas such as history, literature, art, photography, film, architecture, urban studies, ethnicity, race, gender, economics, politics, wars, consumer culture, and global America.
Interdisciplinary in its coverage of the American experience, this comprehensive reference has been written by hundreds of internationally renowned scholars who present their topics in clear and lively prose.
With over 660 online, searchable articles and bibliographies, the Encyclopedia of American Studies provides an integrated approach to problems, themes, and issues that cut across disciplinary lines. The breadth and depth of disciplines, topics, and issues featured in this resource support research and study in a wide range of courses and assignments at all levels.”
The Encyclopedia’s editor in chief is Temple’s own Miles Orvell.

—Current Protocols Series provides hundreds of basic to advanced research protocols and overviews covering areas of interest in the life sciences. Each protocol contains a materials list, and the units feature commentary and guidelines written and edited by experts. All protocols are carefully selected for maximum applicability, lab-tested in leading laboratories, and then thoroughly scrutinized by expert editorial boards to make sure you can easily duplicate them in your own labs. Temple University subscribes to Current Protocols in: Bioinformatics, Cell Biology, Cytometry, Human Genetics, Immunology, Microbiology, Molecular Biology, MRI, Neuroscience, Nucleic Acid Chemistry, Pharmacology, Protein Science, and Toxicology.

—Hospitality & Tourism Complete covers scholarly research and industry news relating to all areas of hospitality and tourism. The database combines the records of three collections: Cornell University’s former Hospitality database, Articles in Hospitality and Tourism (AHT), formerly co-produced by the Universities of Surrey and Oxford Brookes, and the Lodging, Restaurant & Tourism Index (LRTI), formerly produced by Purdue University. Together, this collection contains more than 500,000 records from more than 500 titles, with coverage dating as far back as 1965. Hospitality & Tourism Complete contains full text for more than 200 publications. Sources are both domestic and international in range and scope, with material collected from countries and regions such as Canada, Australia, Europe and Asia. Of special importance is the inclusion in this database of the “Cited Reference” search feature which supplements and complements the results found in Social Science Citation Index.

If you have questions about any of these resources, please Ask a Librarian.

–Derik A Badman

xreferplus: electronic reference collection

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One of the library’s latest purchases is xreferplus, a collection of over 200 reference books in electronic form. This full-text searchable collection is cross-referenced between the sources, allowing users to move not only within books but between books and disciplines. The included sources are in a variety of subjects: Art, Bilinguals, Biography, Business, Conversions, Dictionaries, Encyclopedia, Food, Geography , History, Language, Law, Literature, Medicine, Music, Philosophy & Psychology, Quotations, Religion, Science, Social Sciences, and Technology. And come from publishers such as Barron’s, Blackwells, Cambridge, Cassel, Columbia, Elsevier, Penguin, Routledge, Sage, Gale, and Wiley. See a list of all the included books.

The advanced search allows limiting a search to longer articles on subjects as well as articles that contain images or sound files. Each entry also includes a citation for itself in MLA, APA, and Chicago styles. The special visual search option called a “Concept Map” graphically represents the connections between different articles and sources. The image below shows the beginning concept map for a search on “Duchamp.” Even at this level one can see the connections made from Duchamp (the artist) to other artists, art movements, and art concepts.

xreferplus concept map

Each node on the map represents an article in the xreferplus collection. The interface allows users to zoom in on parts of the map and more directly see the connections between the nodes. xrefeplus is a valuable resource for quick answers, general overviews of a topic, and students beginning research and looking to better negotiate their topic. If you have any questions, feel free to direct them to me or your librarian of choice.

—Derik A Badman

LexisNexis Congressional and United States Serial Set now available

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Paley Library has purchased the combined LexisNexis Congressional and United States Serial Set research databases. LexisNexis Congressional is the most comprehensive electronic index currently available for United States legislative information. Congressional publications comprise an extremely wide variety of information that reflects the needs and concerns of an evolving nation. They impact virtually every aspect of the curriculum and are particularly important for the Departments or Schools of Business Administration, History, Economics, Law, Political Science, Social Administration, Communications, Criminal Justice, Sociology, Education, Geography and Urban Studies, Journalism, American Studies and, African American studies. The LexisNexis Congressional interface allows users to simultaneously search the Congressional reports and documents that comprise the Serial Set as well as prints, bills, the Congressional Record, selected testimony in hearings before Congress, Public Laws, Statutes at Large, the United States Code Service, the Federal Register, and the National Journal. It also provides information about Congressional Committees, Congressional biographies, recent legislative activities, and public policy issues such as voting records, financial data, and regulatory information. Much of the material is linked to full text. Congressional publications from as early as1789 are available in their entirety as are the text and status of proposed current legislation and recently signed laws. Additional resources offered by LexisNexis Congressional includes a keyword searchable Code of Federal Regulations, and the full text of the Washington Post’s Section A from 1977 to the present. LexisNexis Congressional’s legislative publications online and Paley Library’s collection of legislative publications combine to provide the Paley Library community with a complete set of the official congressional publications. The link to this resource is now available via the library electronic resources web pages. Here’s the A-Z database list. We hope you will find this resource useful. If you have any questions about its content or if you have any difficulty using it, please contact me or one of my colleagues in Reference and Instructional Services at Paley library. —Susan J. Golding

Music Index Online!

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For information, research, cultural enhancement, classroom enrichment, and study and research, Temple University Libraries are pleased to announce the addition of Music Index to our electronic resources. Indexing over 775 journals in music, Music Index provides the gateway to a vast amount of information in music. The Ebsco Interface is an easy-to-use and familiar format for searching for information. Full-text links to articles in JSTOR are supplied. This online version of Music Index covers journals from 1976 to the present, and is updated quarterly. Music Index provides indexing to a wide array of periodicals and subjects. International in scope, Music Index includes periodicals from over 40 countries in 22 languages. Every aspect of music is covered. There is indexing to classical music, composers, and performers. But, there is also indexing for book reviews, obituaries, new periodicals, and the music industry. In addition, Music Index is a fine resource for finding information in music education, music therapy, ethnomusicology, and jazz. For help using this service, questions, and/or feedback, contact Anne Harlow.

Early American Newspapers, Series I, 1690-1876

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Temple Libraries on March 23 acquired Early American Newspapers, Series I (1690-1876), a third major component of the Archive of Americana. “In 1690, Benjamin Harris published Publick Occurrences, the first newspaper in America. The British colonial governor immediately suppressed it, and only one issue was ever published. However, beginning with the Boston News-Letter in 1704, the early American newspaper industry thrived, experiencing particularly strong growth following technological advances in the 19th century. Early American newspapers, published often by small-town printers, documented the daily life of hundreds of diverse American communities, supported different political parties and recorded both majority and minority views” (Readex). “Early American Newspapers, Series I, 1690-1876 offers fully searchable, cover-to-cover reproductions of more than one million pages from more than 650 historical American newspapers, focusing on titles published in the 18th century” (Readex). EAN, Series 1, is based on Clarence Brigham’s famous History and Bibliography of American Newspapers, 1690-1820. —David C. Murray

Paley’s New Leisure Reading Collection

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Are you a mystery buff or a sci fi aficionado? Do you like to keep up with the latest bestsellers, both non-fiction and fiction? Do you love biographies? How about romances, self-help, and how-to books?

Or are you simply looking for a good book to read … to get away from it all? Paley Library”s new Leisure Reading Collection has it all!

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During National Library Week, April 3 – 9, Paley Library is introducing its new Leisure Reading Collection, located on the main floor of the library.

On opening day, the collection will offer approximately 1,300 titles, from New York Times bestsellers to Harry Potter. Within a few months, some 2,000 titles will be available. Thereafter, about 100 newly-published titles will be added each month.

“This is something that students, faculty, and staff have been asking about for many years,” says Larry Alford, Vice Provost for Libraries, “and I am delighted that we are now able to do it.” He adds, “We want to provide books for pleasure as well as for scholarship, and to be the Temple community’s home library in every sense of the word.”

Alford himself will be browsing the collection. “For myself,” he says, “I’m looking forward to keeping up with the latest mysteries.”

Keeping up will be easy. The collection is easy to locate on Paley’s main floor. The books have simple call numbers and are loosely grouped in fiction, non-fiction, and biography categories. They are also fully searchable in the online catalog.

The Leisure Reading books may be checked out for 4 weeks, with one renewal of 4 weeks.

— Carol Lang

FIAF International Film Archive

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The libraries are pleased to announce our subscription to FIAF International Film Archive Database. Produced by the International Federation of Film Archives, the database includes indexing to over 300 international periodicals on film and television, selected bibliographies, and a directory of archives and research centers.

  • International Index to Film Periodicals 72-present
  • International Index to TV Periodicals 79-present
  • Treasures from the Film Archives – finding aid for archival film material worldwide
  • International Directory of Film/TV Documentation Collections
  • Bibliography of FIAF members’ publications

Tips: When in the database, choose the component that you want to search from the red arrow in the upper right, next to the label “change databases.” Please also note that the subscription allows for 4 Temple students, staff, or faculty to search the database at one time. This number can be increased should use warrant it. Please feel free to contact me with any questions about this resource. —Jenifer Lee Baldwin

New EBSCO Features

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A number of new features have been added to our EBSCOhost databases, including Academic Search Premier, Business Source Premier, ERIC, MLA, PsychInfo, and ATLA. Here is a brief rundown on what’s new.

1) A dropdown list on the search screen enables users to change databases easily.

2) Results “clustering”:When your search results come up, you will see a column on the left side of the screen that lists the top ten subjects of your results. These links allow you to narrow your search to a more specific set of results. See the screenshot below for an example. A search in Academic Search Premier on (“economics” and “america”) brings up these results. Clicking on any of these will narrow the results to items that fit the original search criteria and are also categorized by the subject clicked. This is a quick way to narrow down your results to something more specific.

ebscocluster.gif

3) Search Alerts in RSS: EBSCO’s MyEBSCO features allows users to create accounts and receive search alerts, that is, notification when new articles or citations fitting the user’s search criteria are entered into the database. Traditionally done by email, these results are now available as an RSS feed. An orange icon link appears on the MyEBSCO “Search Alerts” part of the “Folder” (see screenshot). (For more on RSS see this article.)

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4) Visual Search:A visual search groups results in nested circles according to subjects. It is an alternate way to search and navigate results (rather than a list). It’s hard to explain but easy to play around with. Just click on the “Visual Search” tab (it’s blue) at the top of any EBSCO database screen. The screen shot below shows a search on “economics” narrowed to “economic forecasting.”

ebscovisual.gif

5) Citation Output: When emailing or saving citations you can now have them in a few standard formats such as AMA, APA, MLA, and Chicago/Turabian–a time-saving way to add that citation or bibliography entry to a paper. If you have any questions about these features or would like more information or assistance, feel free to contact me.

—Derik A Badman

ArchiveGrid = NUCMC Improved

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Manuscript catalogs connect advanced history researchers with important primary documents housed in obscure and not-so-obscure collections all over the country. Generations of scholars have turned to the National Union Catalog of Manuscript Collections (NUCMC) to track down collections critical to historical research.

ArchiveGrid is a new database from the Research Libraries Group (RLG) that also allows researchers to locate relevant manuscript collections. “Thousands of libraries, museums, and archives have contributed nearly a million collection descriptions to ArchiveGrid. Researchers searching ArchiveGrid can learn about the many items in each of these collections, contact archives to arrange a visit to examine materials, and order copies” (ArchiveGrid). RLG is providing free access to ArchiveGrid through May 31, 2006. After this date ArchiveGrid will remain free if RLG receives additional funding to continue the project. If funds are not found, ArchiveGrid will be made available to institutions as a subscription.

All records in the NUCMC catalog are said to be available in ArchiveGrid. Given that ArchiveGrid is a brand new resource, researchers should consult both databases for the sake of completeness. Graduate students and senior scholars should cross-check online search results against the print version of NUCMC.

—David C. Murray

Postscript: History researchers might also wish to consult Ready, Net, Go!, an index/guide to archival research on the web created by the Special Collections Division of the Howard-Tilton Memorial Library, Tulane University.