Temple University Libraries has recently begun access to the retrospective files of indexes that were once mainstays of many American academic libraries: Readers’ Guide Retrospective (1890-1982) Humanities & Social Sciences Index Retrospective (1907-1984) The Readers’ Guide is important because it indexes citations to general audience magazines before the 1980’s–which is about when most electronic databases begin their earliest coverage. There are 50 periodicals indexed from 1890 to 1899 and an increasing numbers after that. Humanities & Social Sciences Indexes are indexes of more scholarly periodicals than those covered in the Readers’ Guide–a selective number of titles chosen by boards of editors and librarians over the years that fit the criteria of being both important to their respective fields and likely to be held in most academic libraries. These indexes continue today as Humanities Abstracts and Social Sciences Abstracts, to which Temple University Libraries maintains access. In their present form, they are both useful for guiding students to limited sets of well-regarded scholarly periodicals. —Rick Lezenby

More new resources:

— International Index to Black Periodicals (IIBP) IIBP Full Text includes current and retrospective bibliographic citations and abstracts from scholarly journals and newsletters from the United States, Africa, and the Caribbean, and full-text coverage of core Black Studies periodicals. Coverage is international in scope and multidisciplinary–spanning cultural, economic, historical, religious, social, and political issues of vital importance to the Black Studies discipline.

— AGRICOLA PlusTextThe largest online source of key agricultural journals AGRICOLA Plus (AGRICultural OnLine Access) is an extensive bibliographic database of citations to the agricultural literature created by the U.S. National Agricultural Library. It is the definitive agricultural database, providing abstracts and indexing, and full text for hundreds of resources with coverage beginning 1970. The citations describe publications and resources encompassing all aspects of agriculture and allied disciplines. ProQuest Agriculture Journals covers a wide range of agriculture-related topics, such as:

• Animal and veterinary sciences
• Plant sciences
• Forestry
• Aquaculture and fisheries
• Farming and farming systems
• Agricultural economics
• Food and human nutrition

— RISM: Répertoire International des Sources Musicales = International Inventory of Musical Sources “The International Inventory of Musical Sources (RISM) is an international, non-profit joint venture which aims to comprehensively document the world’s musical sources of manuscripts or printed music, works on music theory and libretti stored in libraries, archives, monasteries, schools and private collections. The organization, founded in Paris in 1952, is the largest and the only global operation that registers written musical sources. RISM documents what exists and where it is stored.” “RISM series A/II: “Music manuscripts after 1600″ is the most comprehensive annotated index and guide to music manuscripts produced after 1600. Fifty years of careful research and joint initiatives sponsored by RISM brings together among others more than 551,000 records by over 19,500 composers into one database which can be easily searched. The manuscripts are found in over 750 libraries and archives in 31 countries…”

— African American Biographical Database The African American Biographical Database (AABD) brings together in one resource the biographies of thousands of African Americans, many not to be found in any other reference source. These biographical sketches have been carefully assembled from biographical dictionaries and other sources. The collection contains extended narratives of African American activists, business people, former slaves, performing artists, educators, lawyers, physicians, writers, church leaders, homemakers, religious workers, government workers, athletes, farmers, scientists, factory workers, and more–both the famous and the everyday person.

Temple University Libraries is pleased to bring you authoritative information on 200,000 motion pictures via our subscription to Film Indexes Online.

Film Indexes Online provides combined access to the distinguished British Film Institute Film Index International and the unparalleled American Film Institute AFI Catalog in one easy to use database. You can find the link to Film Indexes Online on our new databases page.

Film Index International is a filmography covering around 118,000 films and 685,000 personalities from over 170 countries, detailing directors, full cast and crew lists, credits, release and production information, biographical information, and lists of awards. All eras of film-making are covered. It also includes searchable plot summaries and references to film journals are cited in many of the entries.
The AFI Catalog is the national filmography, providing detailed information on American feature films including full production and cast information as well as extensive plot summaries. The catalog covers about 46,000 American films from 1893-1958 and 1961-1970. More than 17,500 entries cover the early years of American film from 1893 to 1910.

For many years the library provided access to Film Index International via CD ROMs accessible only from within Paley library, and to the print volumes of the AFI Catalog in the Paley reference collection. This new online subscription allows access to both resources from any location at any time via the library website. The combined search empowers you to perform the most comprehensive research using the most authoritative information. This resource is a welcome alternative and compliment to the often incomplete and inaccurate filmographies on the free web. The keyword searches for plots and themes, for example, are far more effective in Film Indexes Online than those in the Internet Movie Database. It will be a valuable resource across the all of the disciplines that have film as a focus of research or that use the medium as a teaching tool.

Please feel free to contact me with any questions about this resource.

—Jenifer Lee Baldwin

All Elsevier, Blackwell, Cambridge journals now available online!

Temple University Libraries is pleased to announce online access to virtually the entire journal collections of three major publishers: Elsevier, Blackwell Publishing, and Cambridge University Press. In collaboration with the Health Sciences Libraries, the Temple Libraries have licensed access to more than 1500 new titles. These new collections are especially strong in the sciences, technology, and medicine; offer substantive collections in the social sciences; and include a number of important titles in the humanities. A total of 750 Blackwell Publishing journals are now available via the Blackwell-Synergy platform, and 200 Cambridge University Press titles are available via Cambridge Journals Online. Temple has also entered into agreement to provide 1500 Elsevier online journals, almost the entire Elsevier ScienceDirect collection, on a trial basis until the end of 2007.

ScienceDirect

Temple University has reached an agreement with Elsevier to provide access to nearly all of the ScienceDirect journal titles–with the exception of certain society publications–on a trial basis until the end of 2007. ScienceDirect journal content focuses on the scientific, technical, and medical fields but includes a significant number of titles in the social sciences as well. We previously enjoyed access to about 550 titles on ScienceDirect. Approximately 950 additional titles will now be available to Temple University researchers. Coverage extends back to 1995. See a list of titles here. Titles showing a green icon have online content available to Temple. We will evaluate the titles over the next two years to decide on permanent subscriptions after 2007.

Blackwell-Synergy

Temple University now has online access to all journals published by Blackwell Publishing (with a few exceptions) via the Blackwell-Synergy platform. Blackwell’s journal collection includes scientific, technical, medical, social sciences, and humanities titles. A total of approximately 750 titles, with access extending back to 1997, are now online. Prior to this, Temple had subscriptions to approximately 260 Blackwell titles, not all of which were online. See a list of available titles.

Cambridge Journals Online

Temple University now has access to all online journals from Cambridge University Press via Cambridge Journals Online. Cambridge journals are in the sciences, social sciences, and humanities. See a list of titles here. There are a total of about 200 journal titles, only 80 to which we previously had access. New titles generally extend back to 2003. For titles to which we previously subscribed our access may extend back farther.

To access these important new resources, use Journal Finder to locate individual titles, or select the resource: ScienceDirect, Blackwell-Synergy, or Cambridge Journals Online from our list of full-text databases on the Library website.

Please feel free to contact me or Ask A Librarian about questions or for assistance with these resources.

Gretchen Sneff
Head, Engineering & Science Libraries

More new electronic resources for the New Year:

• Biblical Archaeology Society Archive: The BAS Archive contains the editorial content of each issue of the bimonthly magazines Biblical Archaeology Review (1975-2003), Bible Review (1985-2003) and Archaeology Odyssey (1998-2003), as well as five books published by the Biblical Archaeology Society.
• World Development Indicators: Provides direct access to more than 600 development indicators (full list of indicators), with time series for 208 countries and 18 country groups from 1960 onward.
• Oxford Digital Reference Shelf : 10 more e-books have been added to this collection. They are individually searchable or accessible through our new Oxford Reference Online service.
  • Encyclopedia of Evolution
  • Encyclopedia of Global Change
  • Encyclopedia of the Enlightenment
  • Encyclopedia of the Middle Ages
  • Oxford Dictionary of Byzantium
  • Oxford Dictionary of the Renaissance
  • Oxford Encyclopedia of American Literature
  • Oxford Encyclopedia of Ancient Egypt
  • Oxford Encyclopedia of Economic History
  • Oxford Encyclopedia of the Reformation
• Smithsonian Global Sound: Includes the published recordings owned by the non-profit Smithsonian Folkways Recordings label and the archival audio collections of Folkways Records, Cook, Dyer-Bennet, Fast Folk, Monitor, Paredon and other labels. It also includes music recorded around the African continent by Dr. Hugh Tracey for the International Library of African Music (ILAM) at Rhodes University as well as material collected by recordists on the South Asian subcontinent from the Archive Research Centre for Ethnomusicology (ARCE), sponsored by the American Institute for Indian Studies. Recordings can be streamed (requires Macromedia Flash Player and Windows Media Player [PC] or Macromedia Flash Player [Mac]) at either 22kbps (default) or 64kbps. Users can create their own playlists after free registration.
• Encyclopedia of African American Society: This two-volume reference work details the ways in which the tenets and foundations of African American culture have given rise to today’s society. Approaching the field from a “street level” perspective, these two volumes cover topics such as rap music, sports, television, cinema, racism, religion, and literature, among others.
• Worldmark Encyclopedia of Religious Practices: Worldmark Encyclopedia of Religious Practices presents detailed information on current religious practices around the world, with an emphasis on how religion impacts the daily lives of its followers. Entries cover everything from central doctrines and sacred texts to dietary customs and significant holidays. The three-volume set explores 13 major religions, plus 24 sects, and spans Asia and Oceania, Europe, the Americas, Africa, and the Middle East. Also includes 300 illustrations, belief tables showing how individual religions are unique and what they share with other religions, a glossary, maps, a cumulative index, and much more.

All these items are listed and linked on our new New Electronic Resources page.