Encyclopaedia of Islam Online now available

Posted on May 16, 2006 by Fred Rowland

The Encyclopaedia of Islam is a great work of reference covering the many-sided nature of Islam and the Muslim world, with articles on art, history, law, philosophy, politics, religion, and more. The user can browse the alphabetical entries, or peruse and select from the Subjects index or the Names index. Searching options include using English or transliterated terms to query Full Text, Headwords (article entries), Keywords, bibliographies, or Contributors.

Interested in the famous library at Cordoba created by the Umayyad caliphs that “contained some 4000,000 volumes, described in a catalogue of 44 volumes, each containing 40 leaves”? What was its fate? Check out the article entitled MAKTABA (Arabic for “library”).
What about the spread of Islam in China, where the “military forces [of Kubilay Khan], used for the overunning of both North and South China, were built largely upon the thousands of Muslim soldiers which he brought with him from the Middle Eastern and Central Asian campaigns.” Look at the article on CHINA (al-SIN).
Want to find books and articles on modern Turkey? Search the Bibliography field for “modern turkey” and you’ll retrieve the bibliographies of 81 articles. If you’re just interested in the early state period, you could add the term “world war” and reduce the set to 5. (You can even search the bibliographies for “temple university” and find that two Temple dissertations have been cited.)
And what about a comprehensive article on the Koran (al-KURAN), with sections on Etymology and Synonyms, Muhammad and the Kuran, History of the Kuran After 632, Structure, Chronology of the Text, Language and Style, Literary Forms and Major Themes, The Kuran in Muslim Life and Thought, and Translation of the Kuran?

The Encyclopaedia of Islam covers the main precepts of Islam at the same time that it reveals the rich interplay between Islam and other world civilizations going all the way back to the late antique world. This encyclopedia will prove very useful, whether you’re studying the core of Islam or just nibbling at the interdisciplinary edges. There are some challenges, however, that the user needs to deal with. For one, you will need to download Brill fonts for handling Arabic terms in transliteration. You can find links to the fonts in the upper right corner of the main search page. For serious scholars and students of Islam the many Arabic terms are one of the encyclopedia’s great advantages. For the uninitiated, however, it does take some getting used to (but after a little while it becomes fun). Don’t wait. Check out the Encyclopaedia of Isalm today! BTW, more good news: the second edition of The Encyclopedia Judaica will be released in the fall in print and online (as part of the Gale Virtual Reference Library). I hope we can get both versions. This will fill a big gap as we do not currently have a major online Jewish/Judaism encyclopedia. –Fred Rowland

Philosophy books on Google Book Search

Posted on May 10, 2006 by Fred Rowland

With the help of our excellent student workers in the Reference and Instructional Services Department, I carried out a small study of Google Book Search (GBS). Curious to know just how deep it was with regards to philosophy, I took a random sample of 381 titles out of the 4244 philosophy titles Temple bought between January 1, 2000 and December 31, 2005. It turns out that 35% of the philosophy books sampled are contained in GBS, including the following percentages from a number of top academic publishers:

39% of Oxford (21/54)
66% of Routledge (25/38)
70% of Blackwell (7/10)
76% of SUNY (13/17)
88% of Cambridge (28/32)

None of the books in my sample from Harvard (5), Cornell (8), MIT(5), Princeton (3), Stanford (3), or Yale (4) university presses were found, although books from all these publishers do show up in GBS (the Advanced Search allows a publisher search). Sample books from the large European academic presses Ashgate (9), Brill (3), Continuum (5), and Palgrave MacMillan (7) also did not turn up. With the exception of Brill, this latter group does not appear to be participating in GBS. According to Google, books make it into GBS through two different routes, as part of the Partner Program or the Library Project. With the Partner Program, publishers (or authors) provide GBS with the full-text of books. Presumably, most are using this service as a means of marketing their books. By contrast, for the Library Project GBS scans in books from a number of major research libraries like those at Harvard, Michigan, Stanford, Oxford, and the New York Public Library. Depending on the copyright status of a book and on the agreements between publishers and Google, there are four different views of books that users see–the Snippet View, Sample Pages View, and Full View, and No Preview Available (which I ran into a number of times but for which Google gives no explanation).

The Snippet View shows your keyword(s) in a few sentences of context. Books showing this view come from the Library Project and are still under copyright.
All the books in my sample presented the Sample Pages View. These books come from either the Partner Program or the Library Project. On the search results screen, books showing the Sample Pages View will contain the label Limited Preview. In either case, the publisher has given permission to display only a certain portion of the work. Many of the pages in this view will either require a login (free to set up), or will be inaccessible. For instance, when I searched inside the book Redeeming Nietzsche: On the Piety of Unbelief for “wagner”, six pages required login and six were inaccessible. (Of course, you are only asked to log in once per session.)
Full View books are entirely accessible. And whereas you can’t print pages out from the Snippet View or the Sample Pages View, you can print out pages from Full View books. You can also limit your search to just Full View books. These works either come from the Library Project and are in the public domain, or the author or publisher has given permission to view an entire copyrighted work.
No Preview Available books look a lot like the Snippet View except without the snippet. These probably come in as part of the Library Project and, appropriately, look a bit like library catalog records.

It is important to remember that despite which view you’re given, your search is querying the full-text of these books, not just the the book record as you would with, say, a library catalog. It’s also important to remember that Google intends this as a search service that will allow users to identify books that they will eventually borrow from libraries or buy in bookstores. It’s not meant as a provider of electronic books. Clearly, there are enough philosophy books in Google Book Search to make it a useful tool of discovery. Among its many uses are citation searching, identifying an obscure person, place, thing, or event, or just plain old full-text searching. Next time you’re doing philosophy research (or any other kind of research), try it out. BTW, Temple has quite a few subscription databases of full-text searchable books that might be of interest to the student of philosophy, some of which are listed below:

International Medieval Bibliography Online

Posted on May 1, 2006 by Fred Rowland

Temple now has access to the premier database for medievalists, The International Medieval Bibliography Online (IMB), which contains over 300,000 articles in thirty different languages. The articles come from journals, conference proceedings, essay collections, and festschriften chosen by a “worldwide network of fifty teams to ensure regular coverage of 4,500 periodicals and a total of over 5,000 miscellany volumes”. Extensive indexing–including separate indexes for subjects, people, places, repositories, and time periods–allows for precise searching. The IMB covers the period from 300 to 1500 CE and the geographic regions of Europe, the Middle East, and North Africa, making it relevant to scholars of classics, religion, philosophy, art and archaeology, history, literature, and Islamic studies. In addition to the IMB, here are some other electronic resources relevant to the study of various aspects of the Middle Ages: Encyclopedias:

Databases:

ITER: Gateway to the Middle Ages and Renaissance;
Index Islamicus;
ATLA–the database of the American Theological Library Association;
Bibliography of the History of Art;
Philosopher’s Index;
MLA International Bibliography–the database of the Modern Language Association.

–Fred Rowland

Library Depository

Posted on April 27, 2006 by

A number of changes will be underway soon with the completion this summer of Temple’s new Library Depository, a closed-stack shelving and retrieval facility.

Over the course of the summer, thousands of lesser-used volumes will be relocated to the Depository, thus allowing Temple Libraries to centralize a number of collections, expand services, and refurbish Paley Library’s stack areas with expanded study and collaboration space. Many research libraries are already using similar closed-stack facilities to preserve their growing research collections and open up space within the library buildings to meet the varied needs and expectations of contemporary students and scholars.

Materials in the Depository will be listed in the online catalog with a conveniently linked online request form. They will be retrieved by library staff and available within a quick turn-around time.

In conjunction with these changes, several branch libraries will close over the summer, providing the opportunity to expand services and reintegrate collections that have been split for years because of limited space. The Zahn Library’s last day of operation will be Friday, May 12, 2006, the last day of spring semester. Physics Library will be next, followed by Chemistry, Biology, and Mathematical Sciences. An exact schedule has not been set, but it is expected that the closings will be completed and the library materials relocated by the end of the summer sessions.

An FAQ with full details about the Depository and related services is posted on the library website. Advisories and progress reports will be featured in the library blog as the transitions proceed.

For more details about the Library Depository and the related changes, please see the Temple Times article published on April 27, 2006.

depository.jpe

Here’s a recent view of the construction underway as moveable compact shelving carriages are assembled. New photos will be added occasionally as work progresses.

— Carol Lang

xreferplus: electronic reference collection

Posted on April 5, 2006 by John Schoolar

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

Posted on April 4, 2006 by Fred Rowland

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

Paley’s New Leisure Reading Collection

Posted on March 31, 2006 by

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!

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

ArchiveGrid = NUCMC Improved

Posted on March 20, 2006 by Gerald Doyle

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.

Infomine: A “Library Catalog” for Web Sites

Posted on March 2, 2006 by Gerald Doyle

Instructors usually experience frustration when students turn first to Google and other non-vetted sources of information for papers and research projects. Most history professors, for example, would greatly prefer that students not cite anelementary school project on Abraham Lincoln. (Yes, such things have been known to happen.) Let’s face it: The vast majority of web sites indexed by Google are inappropriate for college-level research. And yet the benefits offered by digital information sources are undeniable. What to do about this dilemma?

Typically, concerned instructors require students to use a prescribed set of sources vetted by them (or by a librarian). Another solution well worth considering, and one that allows for greater student autonomy, is to use a directory of scholarly web sites. Services such as the Internet Public Library, Librarian’s Index to the Internet, WWW Virtual Library, INFOMINE, Internet Scout Project, Argus Clearinghouse, Digital Librarian, BUBL Information Service (U.K.) and others, diligently strive to separate the Internet wheat from the chaff. INFOMINE — whose tag line is “Scholarly Internet Resource Collections” — will be most useful to academic researchers.

“INFOMINE is a virtual library of Internet resources relevant to faculty, students, and research staff at the university level. It contains useful Internet resources such as databases, electronic journals, electronic books, bulletin boards, mailing lists, online library card catalogs, articles, directories of researchers, and many other types of information” (Infomine Welcome).

Conceptually it helps to think of directories as library catalogs for web sites rather than print books and journals. Thus, INFOMINE is to scholarly web sites what the Diamond catalog is to Temple’s print holdings. INFOMINE permits access to its records through title, author/publisher, subject (Library of Congress Subject Headings, or LCSH), assigned keyword, description/abstract, and a “full-text” search. What is more, INFOMINE allows users to browse through an alphabetical listing of all titles, authors, LCSH headings, and keywords used in the database! It can be said without exaggeration that INFOMINE’s search and retrieval capabilities are easily on par with those of most modern library catalogs, such asDiamond.

In sum, human-powered directories of the type discussed above provide a respite from the dubious results often obtained through software-based search engines such as Google. The various web directories (or catalogs) do suffer from a lack of standardization in the way metadata is searched and presented; novice researchers might find it difficult to quickly switch from one service to another. Students who make the effort will nonetheless discover the benefits of incorporating directories into their research repertoire. Professors, meanwhile, will just be happy that students are using appropriate sources while simultaneously developing their information literacy skills.

—David C. Murray

Encyclopedia of Philosophy available online

Posted on February 2, 2006 by Fred Rowland

Great News! We now have the Encyclopedia of Philosophy 2nd edition online as part of the Gale Virtual Reference Library.

Containing over 450 new articles and over 1000 biographical entries, this is an update of the Encyclopedia of Philosophy edited by Edwards nearly 40 years ago. In some cases 1st edition entries have been simply republished, like H.B. Acton’s entry on “Idealism”. In other cases entries have been entirely rewritten and in others the 1st edition entries have been supplemented by additional entries. As an example of the latter, the 1st edition entry on John Dewey remains, but there is a new article entitled “Dewey, John [Addendum]”. Among the many topics covered are African, Islamic, Jewish, Russian, Chinese, and Buddhist philosophies; bioethics and biomedical ethics; art and aesthetics; epistemology; metaphysics; peace and war; social and political philosophy; the Holocaust; feminist thought; and much more. This is a great place to begin your research on individual philosophers or a specific topic area. The articles on individuals usually have bibliographies that include primary and secondary sources. You can do a Basic Search which searches the article record and full-text, or you can limit your search in different ways using the Advanced Search.