Reference at Newman Library

Year: 2015

Trial Access to Two Additional Journal Collections from JSTOR

Database descriptions from the vendor

JSTOR Arts & Sciences XIII

The Arts & Sciences XIII Collection adds an increasingly international set of journals in disciplines including Language & Literature, Art & Art History, Philosophy, and Religion. Represented subdisciplines include European church history and the literature of the American West.

The collection offers a global scope. European countries including Germany, Italy, and the Netherlands each contribute several titles, with an additional title published in South Korea, the Journal of Korean Religions.

The Arts & Sciences XIII Collection also complements JSTOR content in History, Music, and Classical Studies. The collection will contain at least 125 titles by completion.

Title list and bar chart of top disciplines in the collection

JSTOR Arts & Sciences XIV

The Arts & Sciences XIV Collection brings together more than 140 journals devoted to the study of culture and communication, from civilization’s earliest traces to the growth and governance of peoples. A group of titles in science and technology also cover aspects of STEM education, and explore the legal implications, cultural impact, and historical development of science and technology. All titles are new to the JSTOR platform at the time of launch. Journals in the collection span 17 countries, 23 disciplines, and date back to 1839. They are drawn primarily from the fields of Archaeology, Language & Literature, Communications Studies, Asian Studies, Political Science, and Education.

Title list and bar chart of top disciplines in the collection

Trial ends

15 December 2015

Access

On and off campus access. Use the main JSTOR link on the A-Z databases page.

There is no way to browse the collections on their own in JSTOR, as the content all mixed in with our existing JSTOR subscriptions. The title lists available from JSTOR (see section above for links) may be the best way to determine the value to us of these collections.

Feedback

Please share with any faculty who might be interested and recommend they use the trial feedback form (also linked to on the Trials tab on the databases page)

 

Assignment to Find Biographical Sketches

In PSY 3064 (Personality and Individual Differences) there is an assignment that students are asking us for help with this week. The students are looking for a single “biographical sketch” of specific psychologists. Some of those psychologists they are looking for are still alive, which can make finding the biographical sketches. Here are some suggestions:

  1. Start with Gale Virtual Reference Library
  2. Move on to the biography databases if GVRL turns up nothing
  3. If all else fails, try a Google search, as it may be that the person being looked for is still alive and that person may have profile page at some university or college where they currently work

New Tutorials for Census Data

My team in the GIS Lab has just finished writing two new tutorials to help students and faculty find neighborhood census data. The tutorials are in a PDF format and can be used either for hands-on exercises in class or as handouts for self-directed learning.

1. Anastasia has written a tutorial on using the City’s NYC Census Factfinder. She demonstrates how to look up current census profiles for neighborhood tabulation areas and census tracts, and how to combine census tracts to create profiles for user-generated neighborhoods.

2. Janine has written a tutorial for the Social Explorer database. She demonstrates how to navigate the interface, make good looking maps, and how to download data tables for census geographies or user-generated geographies (also built by using census tracts).

These tutorials as well as others previously mentioned (on finding NYC Census data and on using the American Factfinder) are hosted in two places. I’ve created individual boxes for each one on a new Tutorials tab in the NYC Data Guide here: http://guides.newman.baruch.cuny.edu/nyc_data/tutorials. Since each tutorial is in its own box, you can easily embed the ones you want in your own guides. The PDF files themselves are stored on the Baruch Geoportal’s server, and can also be accessed centrally from there.

Bridge Assignment from Baruch College Campus High School

As discussed this week on our internal mailing list, we’re seeing students from the Baruch College Campus High School asking for help finding books on bridges. I’ve now helped a few students here at the ref desk and have a better sense of what they are doing. They are building bridges out of popsicle sticks and need to research different bridge types and construction methods. In the past year, we had students researching specific bridges. Now, we’re seeing them ask about things like truss bridges and suspension bridges.

One resource that you might want to steer them to is Gale Virtual Reference Library, where are entries in engineering and general science encyclopedias about different kinds of bridge construction. You’ll need to get the students a guest login for the computers so they can search in Gale Virtual Reference Library. They may also find some titles in ebrary.

For off campus research, these high school students can use the library ID number on their Baruch ID card to access CUNY-wide databases from CUNY OLS.

They may also have better luck at NYPL’s SIBL finding works on bridge construction.

SFX and OneSearch Problems at the CUNY SPS Computer Lab

If you are in chat or email reference, you may run across students from the CUNY School of Professional Studies who are reporting problems accessing full text of articles (you can easily spot students in chat and email from CUNY SPS, as their email addresses end with @spsmail.cuny.edu). If you get one of these questions, ask if the student is in the SPS computer lab (which is not on the Baruch campus but over on West 31st Street). If they are, the problem is probably related to an issue with the way the computer network is configured there. At the moment, the lab’s network blocks SFX from working properly (SFX is what’s makes the Find It button in databases work and is the system that also is behind the scenes in OneSearch whenever you click the “Full text online” link in search results).

Please note that this problem is not affecting anyone here on the Baruch campus or who is off campus (except that one SPS computer lab on W. 31st St.)

Workarounds:

  • If it’s a specific article or ebook that the student is trying to access, help them figure out what database has full text access (use the A-Z journals page for articles or the library catalog for ebooks) and tell them to use that path to do an end run around SFX and OneSearch.
  • If they’re just searching generally, point them to a specific database or the library catalog.

The CUNY Office of Library Services is working with CUNY SPS to make sure that SFX works properly in that lab and should have this solved soon.