Reference at Newman Library

Year: 2014

Limited Access to Materials at Hunter College in January

Since some folks here aren’t on CULIBS, I’ll share a message that the chief librarian at Hunter College, Dan Cherubin, just posted on that list:

The next phase of our renovations have begun in which the top two floors of our main Library will be taken for other usage. As such, we are now shifting one third of our collection to an offsite location (which, when set up, will be available via CLICS) and reshelving the remaining collections on our remaining floors. During this time, several floors will be closed and material will be unavailable as it is shifted and reshelved.

As of this Friday, January 17th, all material at the Cooperman Library (our Main Library), will be unavailable until the beginning of the Spring Semester.

Materials at the Zabar Art Library, The Schools of Social Work & Public Health Library and the Health Professions Library will remain available for borrowing and browsing.

We apologize for the inconvenience and thank you for your patience in this matter.

Finding Case Studies

I started a new page in the Library Services wiki for “Case Studies” so we can pool our collective wisdom about them. Please share what you know about finding them, access issues, etc. The content of this page doesn’t have to be limited to case studies for business; it could be any kind (although it’s the business ones that give us the  most questions from our users).

Harvard Business School Case Studies

To help chip away at the problem of people looking for Harvard Business School case studies in our online collections, I’ve added a trigger in Bearcat Search (what is behind the scenes on the “Articles” search on the library home page) so that if the user searches for them there, they’ll get this canned message at the top of their search results:

Harvard Business Case Studies

  • Not available in any library or database
  • Publisher requires each person must purchase their own copies direct from the publisher’s website

Here’s how it looks on the search results page:

Bearcat Search--best bet--Harvad Business case studies

 

In the admin settings for Bearcat Search, we’re able to create these custom messages and make them appear when users enter search terms that match ones we’ve decided will trigger the message. Here are the search terms that are currently set to trigger this message:

  • harvard business case studies
  • harvard case studies
  • harvard case study
  • case study
  • case studies

If anyone has suggestions about additional trigger search words we should be using, please add them to the comments section of this post.

New Web of Science Interface

Web of Science has finally updated its interface, something that has been long in coming. Here are the most notable changes:

  • the default search screen is the basic search
  • the interface has a much more modern and clean design
  • the Web of Knowledge brand has been retired (that was the name of the platform, which included Web of Science, MEDLINE, and other databases); now the who thing is just referred to as Web of Science

More details can be found on this blog post from Thomson Reuters.

New Census ACS Data and Maps

The Census Bureau finished its roll-out of the latest American Community Survey (ACS) estimates in December. I’ve updated the neighborhoods tab of the NYC Data guide to point to the latest summary profiles:

  • Google map of NYC ZCTAs (ZIP Code Tabulation Areas) points to the latest five-year estimates: 2008-2012
  • Google map of NYC PUMAs (statistical areas with 100k people that approximate groups of neighborhoods) points to the latest three-year estimates: 2010-2012
  • Links for the city as a whole and each individual borough / county point to the latest one-year estimates: 2012

The PUMA-level data for the 2012 ACS uses new PUMA boundaries that were redrawn for the 2010 Census; previous editions of the ACS (from 2011 back) used 2000 Census boundaries. While the boundaries are only slightly different, the biggest change is that the Census has assigned names to the PUMAs based on local government input; previously the PUMAs were numbered but not officially named. The Google Map has been updated to reflect this change, and Joe Paccione has created a series of static PDF maps (avaliable on the same page under the link “PUMA Maps”) that depict the PUMAs with their numbers and new names.