Reference at Newman Library

Year: 2014

Four New Gale Databases

Now that NOVELNY is picking up the tab for the subscription to Opposing Viewpoints in Context, CUNY has been able to use those funds we had been using for that database for four new Gale databases instead. Here is a list of those new databases, the subject databases page they have been added to, and a brief description:

  • Global Issues in Context
    • Subjects: Current Events, Political Science, Public Affairs
    • Complements the Opposing Viewpoints in Context database. Less about pro/con and more news and reference info. Browsing by region/country yields a quick overview of issues for that location.
  • LitFinder
    • Subjects: English
    • Gale notes that it “includes approximately 140,000 full-text poems, 800,000 poem citations and excerpts, 7,100 full-text short stories and novels, 3,800 full-text essays, 2,000 full-text speeches and 1,700 full-text plays. It also includes biographies, work summaries, photographs and a glossary.”
  • Twayne’s Authors Series
    • Subjects: English
    • Another source of work overviews and criticism of novels, plays, poetry, and short stories.
  • World Scholar: Latin America and the Caribbean
    • Subjects: Black Studies, Caribbean Studies, History, Hispanic Studies, Latin American Studies
    • Offers primary source materials (especially documents and maps).

Revised Faculty Page on Library Site

A new version of the faculty page on the library website launched today. With the help of Wayne Cheng from BCTC, Arthur, and Alexa Hagen, a library school intern who has been working with me, we drafted and tested the new page with substantial feedback from the people who’ll use it the most: our faculty. During the user-driven design process, we:

  • analyzed comments from faculty in a campus-wide survey that asked about library services and resources
  • gathered suggestions from the members of the Committee on the Library via a survey and a meeting
  • tested the redesign with 6 faculty members (all three schools were represented) and incorporated additional tweaks to the redesign based on test results

It might be worth alerting faculty or departments you work with about this redesign. The testing revealed that faculty found it easier to complete tasks with this new page and, thanks to the increased browsability of the page, they learned about services and resources previously unknown to them.

If you have suggestions for pages or common library tasks that might merit this kind of usability treatment, let me know so we can work together.

 

New Features in Google Offers “About This Site” Info

If you run a search in Google today, you’ll see that many of the hits on the search results page (SERP)  have a bit of gray text next to them with the name of the site. If click on that gray link, you can learn more about who is behind the website. Here, for example is what you see on the SERP for a search for martin luther king:

Google--about this site feature in search results pages\

While many of the hits include the “about this site” feature, some don’t, such as the one about Martin Luther King that is actually the work of white supremacists. In its blog post about this new feature, Google mentions that it will take time for it to seen on more items on the SERP:

You’ll see this extra information when a site is widely recognized as notable online, when there is enough information to show or when the content may be handy for you. (If you have feedback, please let us know here.) The information you’ll see is based on the Knowledge Graph, Google’s interconnected understanding of the things that exist in the world. As we expand the Knowledge Graph, we expect to give you more information about more websites – making it easier for you to choose the right result.

Despite the incomplete rollout of this feature, it’s worth knowing about and sharing with our students.

h/t Daniel Russell at SearchReSearch

New Database for Streaming Video: Kanopy

We now have a subscription to a streaming video collection called Kanopy. At the moment, there are 136 videos in the collection that are mostly in the social sciences but also include some in the arts, sciences, and in business. Videos can be embedded in LibGuides, Blackboard, etc.

In addition to adding it to the A-Z list of databases, you can also find links for it on the following subject database pages:

  • Communication Studies
  • Current Events
  • Journalism
  • Public Affairs
  • Sociology

If you’d like to have it added to other subject database pages, please let Mike or me know.

Database Trial: NRC Ticker

Until January 29, we have a trial to NRC Ticker, which describes its content this way:

Ticker is the largest online healthcare survey in the US – polling 270,000 consumers annually in over 250 markets across the country. Each month, we track the healthcare opinions and behaviors of consumers to assist hospital leaders in better understanding Consumer Preference, Advertising Recall, Brand Perception, Quality/Image, Outmigration, and more.

Whether the need is for current or historical information, Ticker is the answer for hospitals looking to validate or optimize their strategy and spend.

Access to this trial will be via the “Trials” tab on the databases page. Login info for the database can be found in Databases Overview page in the Library Services wiki. Remote access is not available for this trial.

Please share any feedback here in the comments or using the online survey form on the Trials tab.

LexisNexis and Firefox Problem (fixed 22 January 2014)

If you are at one of the PCs at the front of the reference desk and try to open LexisNexis in Firefox, you’ll see that the lower half of the search screen is missing:

LexisNexis in Firefox

 

I’ve reported this problem to the BCTC Help Desk (ticket # 24353). My sense is that Firefox on these machines needs to be updated. If you encounter this problem at the desk, just switch over to Google Chrome or Internet Explorer.

22 Jan. 2014 update: BCTC has now fixed this problem