2013 – Page 16 – Reference at Newman Library

Reference Services Schedule For The Week Of February 11, 2013

this schedule is now confirmed and posted to the Reference Desk LibGuide.

TRIAL: Oxford Handbooks

We have a trial to the new redesigned Oxford Handbooks. It runs until March 6. It is available on campus only.

Oxford Handbooks Online brings together the world’s leading scholars to write review essays that evaluate the current thinking on a field or topic, and make an original argument about the future direction of the debate. 14 subjects are available:

Archaeology
Business and Management
Classical Studies
Criminology and Criminal Justice
Economics and Finance
History
Law
Linguistics
Literature
Music
Philosophy
Political Science
Psychology
Religion

I am very interested in any feedback you may have. Please fill out our new form, leave a comment below or email me directly.

Trial: Statistical Abstract of the United States

Proquest is now offering the Statistical Abstract of the United States in electronic format.

The online ProQuest Statistical Abstract of the U.S. includes monthly updates to tables, deep searching at the line-item level, powerful facets for narrowing search results, image and spreadsheet versions of all current and historical tables, along with links to provider sites.

Proquest has published a LibGuide with searching and other information that might be useful as you evaluate this databases.

I am very interested in any feedback you may have. Please fill out our new form, leave a comment below or email me directly.

GIS Practicum Spring 2013

This semester’s GIS (geographic information systems) Practicum, Introduction to GIS Using Open Source Software, will take place on the following Fridays:

March 8th
April 26th

The day-long workshop runs from 9am to 4:30pm. CUNY graduate students, faculty, and staff are eligible to register; Baruch undergrads may register with permission from the instructor. Advance registration is required; the fee is $30 and includes a detailed tutorial manual and a light breakfast. Visit the GIS Practicum page to learn more and to register: http://guides.newman.baruch.cuny.edu/gis

Feel free to circulate this info to students and faculty, but please do not post via listservs. I have fliers in my office if anyone would like some to distribute.

Counseling Therapy and Video Is Now Alexander Street Counseling

Counseling Therapy and Video has now been renamed as Alexander Street Counseling. For the rest of the spring semester, there will be links to it under both names on the Databases page; at the end of the semester, we’ll just keep the link for Alexander Street Counseling. There is a note in the database description for both versions that mentions the name change.

NYC Geodatabase

The NYC Geodatabase (nyc_gdb) is a new resource I’ve created, designed for mapping and analyzing city-level features and data in GIS. The database comes in two formats: a Spatialite geodatabase built on SQLite that can be used in open source software like QGIS, and a personal geodatabase built on MS Access that can be used in ArcGIS.

The contents of the databases are identical and include geographic features and statistical areas from the US Census Bureau, transit and public facility point features from the City, and neighborhood-level census data. All features share a common coordinate system.

The databases will be updated bi-annually each winter and summer. While primarily designed for use with GIS and spatial database software, they can also be used to a limited extent with relational database software like MS Access and the SQLite Manager. I plan on creating a workshop around this resource in the near future.

The databases and associated documentation (including a tutorial and detailed metadata) are available through the Baruch Geoportal at http://www.baruch.cuny.edu/geoportal/nyc_gdb/. It is a public resource, licensed under Creative Commons, that anyone can access and download.

American Factfinder – New Interface

As of today, the Census Bureau has revised the American Factfinder Interface (at http://factfinder2.census.gov/) once again, and this time it’s a good improvement. Previously users had everything and the kitchen sink thrown at them – now there is a choice of paths to follow that range from novice to advanced:

The Community Facts lets you type in the name of a state, county, city, or ZIP Code to get basic profiles from several datasets
The Guided Search gives you a basic set of options and a simple path to follow for viewing and downloading comparison tables for the most common census geographies
The Advanced Search is essentially the previous Factfinder2, and gives you access to the entire range of census datasets and variables for all geographies
The FTP site provides power users with a way of downloading tons of data at once

I’ve updated the PDF tutorials / handouts that I mentioned in my post a few days ago to reflect these changes (they’re in the NYC Data and US Census Data LibGuides).

Reference Services Schedule For The Week Of February 4, 2013

This schedule is now confirmed and posted to the Reference Desk LibGuide.

Trials: new look and new trials

With the new website, we have implemented a new way to share our trials. They can be found in a separate tab in the alphabetical Databases listing. We have a couple of current trials going on.

Historical Periodicals:

African American Historical Serials Collection

Gateway to North America: People, Places, and Organizations of 19th-Century New York

Revolutionary War Era Orderly Books from the New-York Historical Society

These are from EBSCO. These are potential purchases, not subscriptions.

Psychology:

PsycCRITIQUES and PsycEXTRA offer book reviews, technical reports, government documents and other such material relating to Psychology. Also on the EBSCO platform. This is a subscription.

It would be very helpful if you could let me know here or via email if you think these can be used to support the curriculum and how they would fit within our current holdings.

Year: 2013