Reference USA Webinar

Date: Tuesday, Nov. 18th
Time: 3:00 p.m.
Location: Axe Library Computer Classroom

Do you need to verify names and addresses? Do you ever have a need for a customized list of names and addresses for a community or a zip code area? Do need to find what services/products are available in a community, state, or zip code?

This coming Tuesday, Axe Library is hosting a webinar to highlight the use of the Reference USA database. The database contains addresses and basic information for 14 million businesses and over 135 million households. There are many customizable features that help make the data helpful in many applications. All are invited.

New JSTOR Arts & Sciences Databases

JSTOR was founded in 1995 for the purpose of providing “trusted digital archives for scholarship.” Axe Library has had the JSTOR Arts & Sciences I database for several years now. The Library has recently acquired two more JSTOR databases, JSTOR Arts & Sciences II and III, for use by students and faculty.

JSTOR Arts & Sciences II contains 124 titles, covering subjects such as history, economics, archaeology, classics, and Asian, African, Latin American, Middle Eastern, and Slavic studies, among other areas. JSTOR Arts & Sciences III contains 150 titles, including journals in languages and literature, music, film studies, folklore, performing arts, religion, architecture, art, and art history. To see a list of journals now available to you from JSTOR, access JSTOR by clicking on “Databases by Title” on the Library’s home page.

As with all of Axe Library online journals, you may access the journal content through Serials Solutions by going to the Axe Library home page and clicking on “Serials Solutions”. You may search for a specific journal title, title words, or browse by subject. Alternatively, you may search the Library’s online catalog by journal title or subject. In addition, if you are searching another database and find a JSTOR article that you would like to access, click on Article Linker and then click on Article. Article Linker brings together all of the Library’s journal resources in one place, making it easier to find needed articles without having to do a second search of the online catalog.

If you are off-campus or using a laptop with wireless access, you will be prompted for your GUS ID and PIN when accessing JSTOR.

If you have any questions or comments regarding any of Axe Library’s journals or databases, please do not hesitate to contact the Library at ext. 4884 or 4894.

PubMed and Article Linker

The PubMed database is a fabulous open access resource for locating research and review articles in the areas of medicine, pharmacy, life sciences, and related areas back to the 1950s. For those of you who search the PubMed database on a regular basis, it is a somewhat difficult and laborious process because you must then search the database and find a citation to an article. Then, you must search to find out if Axe Library has the journal.

As of now, Article Linker is now available while searching PubMed, which will save you a considerable amount of time and energy by being able to know immediately whether Axe Library has the needed item. After doing a PubMed search and retrieving a list of citations, click on the link for the article’s author for an article. By default, you will see the abstract view here. In the upper right corner of the screen, you will see a GUS icon which links you to Article Linker:


Article Linker allows you to find out if Axe Library owns the needed journal in print, microfilm, or electronic format. In the event that the library does not have the needed article, there is a link to the interlibrary loan form. In addition, when you log into the new ILLiad Interlibrary Loan form, the form will be pre-populated with the article’s data from PubMed. Click here for an earlier blog about ILLiad. If you would like to include a link to PubMed in a handout, the Angel course management system, or other resource, please use the following unique URL to ensure that you are able to link to Article Linker:

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/sites/entrez?otool=papitsulib

Because it is an open access resource with no login necessary, there is no need to precede this URL with the proxy string, as is described here under Linking Library Resources to ANGEL.

If you have any questions or concerns about PubMed or Article Linker, please do not hesitate to contact Axe Library at ext. 4884 or 4894.

New Online Encyclopedia on Environment Issues Added

The Encyclopedia of Environment and Society, a 5 volume set, has been added to the growing number of electronic reference sources in Axe Library. This set is unique in its emphasis on the intersection of environment and society. While explaining topics in a science point of view, the authors relate the issues to resulting society problems and challenges. In addition to searching by topic, the “Reader’s Guide” groups topics in fourteen broad categories such as agriculture, animals, biology and chemistry, climate, conservation and ecology . . .people, politics, pollution, and society. Clustered under each category are the many individual topics. Pollution includes 78 topics such as Agent Orange, acid rain, Alaska pipeline, Clean Air Act, Clean Water Act, nitrogen oxides, oil spills, urbanization and wastewater.

The Encyclopedia of Environment and Society would be a good starting point for papers and discussions on the overall topic of the environment. Additional readings are suggested at the end of each entry. The encyclopedia can be found in the Online Catalog or on the List of Databases by Title.

Grove Art Online—redesigned and now part of Oxford Art Online

Grove Art’s new look includes better searching capability to find images and image links from a search box on the opening page, or from a link at the top of the page. Find the more than 5,000 images in Grove Art as well as links to the 40,000 links from partner sites such as the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Museum of Modern Art (MOMA), Art Images for College Teaching (AICT), and the Artists Rights Society.

The newly designed of Grove Art as part of Oxford Art Online includes the contents of Encyclopedia of Aesthetics, The Oxford Companion to Western Art, and The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Art Terms. These sources can be searched simultaneously or individually.

Also new are subcategories to locate results with the same theme. For example, click on the + sign by Grove Art. The cascade reveals several broad topics, including “Styles and Cultures.” Open Styles and Cultures and find African American. Search and find links to African American artists.

In addition, “Learning Resources” have been added that provide timelines of world art and art history thematic guides on major topics.

Try it and let us know how you like the redesign and added content. Send us your comments!

Access Grove Art Online and/or Oxford Art Online via the library homepage:
(http://library.pittstate.edu) and select "Database by Title".

Or; Research Guides by Major > Art

Grove Music Online now Oxford Music Online

Grove Music Online - new look, better searching and, now, part of a new music gateway, Oxford Music Online. Grove Music Online is now the major source of a new online music gateway: Oxford Music Online. Oxford Music Online will be the access point for Grove Music as well as new and forthcoming Oxford music titles. Currently The Oxford Dictionary of Music and The Oxford Companion to Music can be searched simultaneously with Grove Music or as individual titles. And , the contents of New Grove Dictionary of Opera and The Grove Dictionary of Jazz are also available as links from search results.

The new search interface is user-friendly, with better biography searching, topical subcategories to refine searching, and contents for the longer articles for easier navigation. Also included are “Learning Resources” with music time lines, manuscript sources, topical essays and more. Try it and see if you like the look and feel. Give us your comments!

Access via the Library homepage > Databases by Title. Or, access via the Research Guide to Music.

Making of America Journals

Axe Library is now providing access to the Making of America journal collection, a collaborative open access effort between Cornell University and University of Michigan. The Cornell University's Making of America website notes that the collection is a "digital library of primary sources in American social history from the antebellum period through reconstruction."

The Making of America journal collection contains digitized pages of the journals and allows searching and viewing of the texts online. The collection is rich in education, psychology, American history, sociology, religion, science, and technology and contains over 100,000 articles from the mid 19th to the early 20th century.

The portion of the Making of America journal collection at Cornell University contains the full text of the following journals:

The American Missionary (1878-1901)
The American Whig Review (1845-1852)
The Atlantic Monthly (1857-1886)
The Bay State Monthly (1884-1886)
The Century (1881-1899)
The Continental Monthly (1862-1864)
The Galaxy (1866-1878)
Harper's New Monthly Magazine (1850-1899)
The International Monthly Magazine (1850-1852)
The Living Age (1844-1900)
Manufacturer and Builder (1869-1894)
The New England Magazine (1886-1900)
The New-England Magazine (1831-1835)
New Englander (1843-1892)
The North American Review (1815-1900)
The Old Guard (1863-1867)
Punchinello (1870)
Putnam's Monthly (1853-1870)
Scientific American (1846-1869)
Scribner's Magazine (1887-1896)
Scribner's Monthly (1870-1881)
The United States Democratic Review (1837-1859)

The portion of the collection available at University of Michigan contains the full text of the following journals:

American Jewess (1895-1899)
Appletons' Journal (1872-1881)
Appletons' Journal of Literature, Science and Art (1869-1872)
Biblical Repertory (Philadelphia, Pa.) (1833-1834)
Biblical Repertory and Princeton Review (1838-1871)
Biblical Repertory and Theological Review (1830-1832)
Biblical Repertory and Theological Review (1835-1837)
Catholic World (1865-1901)
De Bow's Commercial Review of the South & West (1846-1850)
DeBow's Review (1853-1869)
DeBow's Review of the Southern and Western States (1850-1852)
Garden and Forest (1888-1897)
Journal of the United States Association of Iron Workers (1880-1891)
Ladies' Repository (Cincinnatti, Oh.) (1841-1876)
Old Guard (New York, N.Y.) (1863-1867)
Overland Monthly (1868-1900)
Presbyterian Quarterly and Princeton Review (1872-1877)
Princeton Review (1878-1882)
Southern and Western Literary Messenger (1846-1847)
Southern Literary Messenger (1834-1835)
Southern Literary Messenger (Richmond, Va.) (1848-1864)
Southern Quarterly Review (1842-1857)
Vanity Fair (1860-1862)

According to the website at Cornell University, plans are underway to integrate the two parts of the collection in order to provide access to over 1.5 million page images from a single point.

The Cornell University's website for the collection emphasizes that the project ". . . represents a major collaborative endeavor to preserve and make accessible through digital technology a significant body of primary sources related to development of the U.S. infrastructure." It will also be a significant important addition to Axe Library's collections in art, history, social sciences, technology, and religion.

To access the Making of America Journals Collection, go to the Library's website at http://library.pittstate.edu/ and click on "Serials Solutions." Type in the journal name and a link to the online content will be displayed. In addition, you may link to the online content if you are in another database and click on "Article Linker" or "360 Link."

Please call ext. 4884 or 4894 if you have questions or comments about the Making of America Journals Collection.

A New Journal in ACS Publications Database

A new journal, titled ACS Nano, is now available in the ACS Publications database. An email from the American Chemical Society notes that:

"ACS Nano is a new international forum for the communication of comprehensive article on nanoscience and nanotechnology research at the interfaces of chemistry, biology, materials science, physics, and engineering."

In addition to research articles, ACS Nano also contains reviews and other types of articles of importance in this area. The first issue of ACS Nano features articles by Drs. David Allara, Hongjie Dai, and Prashant Kamat, along with a conversation with Nobel Laureate Heinrich Rohrer and a special editorial by Editor-in-Chief Paul Weiss. To access ACS Nano, go to the Axe Library homepage and click on the "Serials Solutions" link. The journal content is also accessible in Article Linker if you searching in a different database.

-BP

NCBI Bookshelf

Axe Library is now providing access to freely accessible e-books available on the NCBI Bookshelf. As of July 3rd, the growing collection contains more than 70 books on subjects such as neurochemistry, hematology, cancer, cardiology, biology, endocrinology, genetics, and microbiology, among other topics. To search for the books, you may access the library’s catalog on the library’s website at http://library.pittstate.edu/ by subject, author, title, or title keyword. Alternatively, you may search the NCBI Bookshelf by entering a search term or phrase at http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/sites/entrez?db=Books. Each book page has a navigation bar that functions like a table of contents while others have a search box so you may search the contents. All figures, tables, and boxes are hyper linked where cited in the text, as well as in the navigation bar of the section they are first cited. Some illustrations are in color. The books are full text and pages may be printed or downloaded. As the NCBI Bookshelf is freely accessible, there are no restrictions on use and no user id or password is required to access.

For assistance in accessing the e-books or doing a search, you may access the online help page at http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query/Books.live/Help/bookhelp.html.

If you have questions about this or any other library resources, please contact Axe Library Reference Desk at ext. 4894.

BP

Academic OneFile added to Database Pages

The Library has just added Academic OneFile to it's ever growing list of online databases. Academic OneFile contains 8,000 journals, some reference books (in medicine, science, and biography for example), the New York Times, etc., for a total of 10,000 sources in all disciplines.

You may limit search results to peer reviewed journals or to full text items. Citations may be generated in MLA and APA styles.

Chemical Information: SIS

Chemical Information : SIS (Specialized Information Services) is a division of the National Library of Medicine and contains links to many free resources on chemistry, including ChemIDplus, TOXLINE, HSDB, DART, GENETOX, IRIS, ITER, LactMed, TOXMAP, and many others.

ChemIDplus alone contains more than 379,000 chemical records with 257,000 having the chemical structures displayed in the record. ChemIDplus is searchable by name, synonym, Chemical Abstracts Registry Service Number (CASRN), molecular formula, NLM and Superlist classification codes, NLM and government identifier locator code, and structure. ChemIDplus is easily searchable with any special plug-ins for simplified searching and increased access. Search results return results pointing to databases on toxicology, cancer research, genetics, hazardous materials handling, links to journal article citations, Internet resources with biomedical data, and pointers to federal and state regulatory agency lists that contains information about the search compound.

Other databases in Chemical Information : SIS include HSDB, or Household Substances Data Bank, which contain comprehensive, peer-reviewed toxicology data for about 5,000 chemicals, and TOXLINE, which contains References from toxicology literature.

Another database within in Chemical Information: SIS is LactMed, a peer-reviewed and fully referenced database of drugs to which breastfeeding mothers may be exposed. Among the data included are maternal and infant levels of drugs, possible effects on breastfed infants and on lactation, and alternate drugs to consider.

Further information about the Chemical Information: SIS website is available at http://sis.nlm.nih.gov/chemical.html. For Axe Library sources and more websites in chemistry, please visit Axe Library’s Research Guide in Chemistry. Please do not hesitate to contact the Reference Desk at Axe Library (ext. 4894) if you have any questions about this or other resources.

-BP

Gale Virtual Reference Library

The Gale Virtual Reference Library is one of the new services provided by the Axe Library. This virtual reference set covers a wide variety of subjects: Poets, novelists, drama, small business, medicine, economics, popular culture, biology. It includes encyclopedias on cancer, genetic disorders, medicine, and alternative medicine.

More sources will be added over time. The following titles are currently reflected:

Beacham's Guide to the Endangered Species of North America , 6v, 2000
Biology , 4v, 2002
Contemporary Novelists , 7th Ed., 2001
Contemporary Poets , 7th Ed., 2001
Drama for Students , Vol. 17, 2003
Drama for Students , Vol. 18, 2003
Drama for Students , Vol. 19, 2004
Drama for Students , Vol. 20, 2005
Encyclopedia of Small Business , 2nd Ed., 2v, 2002
Gale Encyclopedia of Alternative Medicine , 2nd Ed., 4v, 2005
Gale Encyclopedia of Cancer , 2v, 2002
Gale Encyclopedia of Genetic Disorders , 2v, 2002
Gale Encyclopedia of Medicine , 2nd Ed., 5v, 2002
Gale Encyclopedia of Multicultural America , 2nd Ed., 3v, 2000
Gale Encyclopedia of U.S. Economic History , 2v, 1999
Nonfiction Classics for Students , 5v, 2001
St. James Encyclopedia of Popular Culture , 5v, 2000
World of Earth Science , 2v, 2003

You may search the entire set, or an individual title. Browse through the table of contents, index, or actual contents of an individual source. Various citation formats are available.

A New Universe to Explore

The Library has recently added a new reference service called ReferenceUniverse. This new tool allows you to search back-of-the-book indexes of 10,000 reference works going back to 1985. About 85 percent of the titles are printed reference works, not available for federated (collective) searching any other way. Many of the titles are located in the Axe Library collection.

ReferenceUniverse bases it's selection of titles from sources such as the American Reference Book Annual (ARBA) and Choice Magazine. The titles span all disciplines and an extensive list is available (PDF, ~150 pp), showing titles, publishers, and amount of content available from online sources.

You Don't Have to Come to the Library to Crack Your Favorite Dictionary or Encyclopedia Anymore

On February 4, 2007, in blog in the New York Times, former talk show host-turned-newspaper-columnist, Dick Cavett, castigated our President for his "goofy inability" to pronounce the word "nuclear", scolding our Leader with the words: "What is so hard? A school kid botching it Bush's way - "nuke-you-lur" - would have to stand in the corner. Fortunately, an oval office has no corners."

Very funny, Dick, but lighten up! Mr. Bush's problem is that he doesn't have access to the American Heritage Dictionary Online as we do here at Pitt State. Our online version is not only available to us here but at home, if you sign in with your "user name" (student ID) and "Pass word" (GUS Pin). And it has something that the paper version does not. If your computer has a speaker, just turn it up and click on the tiny speaker next to the definition (In our example, "Of or relating to atomic nuclei") and you will hear a smooth, well educated voice pronounce the word the way it should be pronounced (Nuke-Lee-Ar). If one of our students becomes the first Kansas President to inhabit the White House since Eisenhower ("American general and the 34th President of the United States (1953-1961)." American Heritage defines famous people, too.) that person will never make the same mistake.

But that's only my favorite dictionary. How about your favorite encyclopedia? Let's say you are putting together a report on a President (Ford) or another world leader (Saddam Hussein). And let's say that you think these two public figures have just died, but can't remember the date. And "googling" it is out because the teacher has asked you to use a reliable [translation: Non Web] source. Well, there is good news, here. Two of the best encyclopedias published in the United States, the Encyclopedia Britannica Online and the WorldBook Online, are available to our students. Both of these encyclopedias have unique features, such as a clickable atlas, and both are updated everyday. (Gerald Ford's death date is December 26th, 2006; Saddam Hussein's, December 30th). Oh, and at two in the morning, you remember that your teacher said "don't forget to put your citations in MLA (Modern Language Association) or APA (American Psychological Association) format." No problem. Both encyclopedias give MLA format. Britannica, not to be outdone by an arch rival, gives both. Just go down to the end of the article.

And we now have a whole library of reference books in the form of Oxford Reference Online, brought to us by Oxford University Press. Oxford has assembled about 230 of its premier reference books and made it possible for a student to search them all at once. One realy nice feature they provide is called the "Search Oxford Reference Button", a bit of javascript code that can be added to your browser's toolbar. You may search the suite of Oxford Reference works by highlighting a section of text on any web site and clicking on the Oxford Reference Button. Languages translated, words defined, biographies found... life is good.

In honor of President's Day, let's run a search on John Fitzgerald Kennedy. Twenty six entries come up, in such varied sources as A Dictionary of Space Exploration (because of his pledge to put a man on the moon in a decade), A Dictionary of World History, The Oxford Essential Dictionary of the U.S. Military, The Oxford Guide to the United States Government and the Oxford Companion to United States History, to name a few. Several of the other famous Kennedy relatives, such as his parents, Joseph and Rose, his wife, Jacqueline and his brothers, Robert and Edward also show up in the same search. And, yes, at the end of the article you are given the citation in MLA format.

One more perk. If you are using the reference works in the Library, you can send the articles to yourself via e-mail. So, maybe those "all nighters" can end at 11PM instead of 2 AM. And you won't need any "Red Bull".

-JV

Opposing Viewpoints Database Now Available

Opposing Viewpoints Resource Center is now available on the Library's database pages. Over 500 book titles discuss the pros and cons of current issues. In addition a library of magazine, newspapers, statistical sources, court cases, biographies, and primary documents help round out the "viewpoints." The "Resource Center" concept pulls a variety of sources into one seamless search for the user.

The "Toolbox" gives guidance on judging information and organizing an essay, and the "Research Guide" helps the user analyze and interpret the the essays.

Students in speech, debate, writing, or studying social issues should find the database content helpful and stimulating.

Try it and let us know what you think. We would like to know how you view its usefulness, its content and how it might fit into the overall curriculum. Send your comments to cynthia@pittstate.edu or call the Reference Desk at 4894.

Opposing Viewpoints Available until Dec. 31st

Most of our students love the series Opposing Viewpoints. They are those conveniently sized, shiny books located mostly on reserve and occasionally in circulation which grab hold of immensely polarizing issues in the U.S. or abroad, such as Abortion, Domestic Violence, Education, Gangs, Juvenile Crime, the Patriot Act and many, many others and assemble several essays, pro and con, written by people, some very famous, some prominent in a relevant field, some with first hand knowledge of the issue, who would like to express an opinion on the topic. This resource enables the students to look at the many sides of an issue and formulate their own opinion.

Well, Thomson Gale, the publisher of this service, has decided to go online with its renowned service. And the online service not only has the famed Opposing Viewpoints series, but also the Current Controversies series, the At Issues series and the Contemporary Issues Companion Series. It also has articles from important reference works such as The Environmental Encyclopedia, Worldmark Encyclopedia of the Nations, Bioethics for Students, Current Issues: Macmillan Social Science Library and Special Interest Groups Profiles for Students, to name a very few. There are also primary sources, magazine, journal and newspaper articles, websites and photographs. But it’s only on a trial subscription. So, do us a favor, come and look it over and tell us your opinion. We would like to know what you think before we decide to subscribe. Thank you.

PsycARTICLES now available

Axe Library, continuing the expansion of its online collection, has added a new database. PsycARTICLES fills a gap in our journal collection for psychology, psychiatry and education, providing full text access to 58 journals published by the American Psychological Association, the APA Educational Publishing Foundation, the Canadian Psychological Association, and Hogrefe Publishing Group. The database includes all material from the print journals with the exception of ads and editorial board lists. There is a lag of about one month after an article appears on PsycARTICLES before it is posted full text. Almost all of the documents on PsycARTICLES are scholarly and peer reviewed.

PsycARTICLES is conveniently available through PsycINFO, there is a checkbox on the right hand side of the search screen.

If you need help with this database you can ask the librarians or the student computer consultants, use Silver Platter’s “help” or “database guide” features or just help yourself to one of the handouts we have made available to you in the racks next to the reference desk.

-JV

Research Library

New this fall is Research Library, a one-stop source for most academic topics. Research Library includes nearly 4,000 magazines and journals. Most are full text. In addition to a core set of titles, the database covers 15 subsets including arts, business, children, education, health, humanities, international, law, military, multicultural, psychology, sciences, social science and women's studies.

The ProQuest search engine is easy to use and provides numerous indexes to help refine and focus on a topic. Suggested topics give the user ideas on how to improve the search results. Tools include search tips, search history, and a way to browse topics. The articles can be emailed individually, or, a number of articles can be marked and sent as a hyperlinked web page. This makes a handy active link list in your email. For those items not full text, Article Linker will link out to full text in other databases or to our Interlibrary Loan request form. Research Library can be accessed from the Axe Library homepage. Click on “Databases by Title”. Or you may locate Research Library from any of the “Databases by Subject” categories.

Viewswire Database Training

Gary Weise of the Economist Intelligence Unit will be here next Friday (September 15, 2006) to do a training session on the Viewswire database. The session will begin at 1:30 in the Computer Classroom on the main floor of the Axe Library. Interested teaching faculty are invited to join us. Gary will also be available to answer specific questions about the databases after the presentation.

For more information, plese contact Robert Walter at ext. 4878, or Cynthia Pfannenstiel at ext. 4888.

Axe Adds Oxford Reference Online

Most of us probably know and appreciate the famous publisher of reference for the College and University market, the Oxford University Press. Oxford is famous for its huge collection of encyclopedias and dictionaries which cover the sciences (biology, mathematics, chemistry), social sciences (law, politics, geography), technology (computers, astronomy) the fine arts (literature, visual arts, music) and just about every other subject. Well, for a number of years, Oxford has been putting many of its fine reference books, such as the venerable Oxford Companion... series, the Oxford Guide to United States Supreme Court Decisions, the Oxford Dictionary of Sports Sciences and Medicine, the Oxford Encyclopedia of the Reformation, and many others online.

Oxford has made over 200 of its venerable reference works available online to libraries as well as to the public. And it is the privilege of Axe Library to make The Oxford Reference Online available to the students, teachers and members of the public who enjoy using our library. Brief Instructions on the use of the database are available on Axe Library’s Oxford Reference Online handout (ask at the reference desk.). Also, the Oxford Reference Online database has numerous easy to use help screens. Try it out. Instead of one brief encyclopedia article on George Washington for your English 101 paper, the Oxford Online starts you out with more than one hundred!

-J.V.