Reference at Newman Library

Year: 2022

Business Insights: Global Is Now Gale Business: Insights

Gale has rebranded “Business Insights: Global” to “Gale Business: Insights.” With the new name also comes a whole new design that follows the style of most of the other Gale databases we have.

The design is a big improvement. To orient yourself to the new way of navigating to content in the database, you’ll want to look at this overview from Gale about the new layout.

Through the spring 2023 semester, the A-Z databases page will feature a link in the Bs that is labeled with the old name as well as a link in the Gs for the new name; both links will take you to the new interface. At the end of spring, that old link in the Bs will be removed.

If you have a database link to “Business Insights: Global” on one of your research guides, you’ll find that the has been already renamed for you today (the same goes for links to the database on various subject databases pages).

Database Trials for Two Collections from the British Online Archives

Description

We have access to two collections of primary sources from the British Online Archives:

  • British Communism through Committee Work, 1926-1992
  • Secrecy, Sabotage, and Aiding the Resistance: How Anglo-American Cooperation Shaped World War II

Trial Ends

January 13, 2023

Access

On and off campus. Use the links on the Trials tab on the databases page.

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).

New in OneSearch: Direct Linking

All instances of OneSearch across CUNY now feature a shortcut to the full text (or streaming content). From the search results page, clicking the green “Available Online” link will open a new tab that takes you to the content itself. Clicking on the item title in the search results page will continue to open up a display of the full item record.

In an email to the Library UX Committee today, Allie Verbovetskaya, the University Director of Library Systems at the CUNY Office of Library Services, added important additional information about this new feature:

If there are multiple full text options for a record, the system chooses the first one on the list of links in the “View Online” section. The list of links is ordered: the E-Resource Management Committee ensures that resources with dependable, item-level links are near the top and resources with poor linking (looking at you, Lexis Nexis!) appear near the bottom of the list.

There are some exceptions to this behavior:

(1) When the record’s services contain a note, the “Available online” link won’t open the full text but will, instead, take patrons to the full record display in OneSearch. The notes provide additional information (e.g., “This is an open access title and full text may not always be available” or “This link will take you to a search box in Nexis Uni where you can run searches for articles from this source”) that we want the user to review because it may impact their experience in the target database.

(2) Records for journals (not articles) will aways open the full record display in OneSearch (and not take the user to the full text) because there may be multiple options with various coverage dates—and we want the user to decide which link works best for them.

As an example of exception (1), look at how this search results page for Oxford World’s Classics: Thucydides: The Peloponnesian War offers an “Available Online” link that takes you to the full item record instead of the full text because there is a note in our record on the database link alerting users that the ebook is limited to one concurrent user.

New Database: Health Poll Database

We now have access to a second database from the Roper Center called Health Poll Database. Here is their description of it:

The Health Poll database is the most comprehensive database for health-related U.S. survey questions, covering eighty years of national polling. Searchable questions and results, demographic crosstabs, and trends are available on every topic related to health, from social determinants and influences on health to insurance, costs and health-care utilization.

Access to this database is available on and off campus via links found on the following pages of the library website:

Please share news about this new resource with faculty and students you work with.

New Database Subscription: African American Newspapers (Readex)

We now have access to a great collection of primary sources that offers newspaper articles from hundreds of papers from 1827-1998. Links to this database can be found on these pages:

Please share the news of this with faculty and students you work with.

Updates to the Technology Loan Service Page

Jeff Lynch and I just finished updating the Technology Loan Service page on the library website so that it reflects current policies and inventory. Here are some notable changes:

  • Chromebooks are now featured on the page
  • Loan periods have been simplified (there used to be a lot of loan periods for the laptops)
  • We’ve put more of a spotlight on how some items have semester-long loan periods while others have shorter ones
  • New FAQ about returning items sent by mail during the period when the library was closed during the pandemic

Study Rooms Page Is Updated

With guidance from Access Services (especially Jeffrey Lynch), Arthur Downing, and Joseph Hartnett, I’ve updated the Study Rooms page so that the current COVID-era policies are integrated into the page instead of being tacked on at the top of the page:

  • No reservations (first-come, first-served only)
  • Keys checked out for 2 hours
  • Rooms have no minimum number of users (this is to allow more people to use the rooms for things like taking online courses and job interviews)
  • CUNY SPS students can check out keys for any room just as Baruch students can (although there is one room set aside for them that will get used first for CUNY SPS students needing a room)

This week I hope to have the “STUDY ROOMS” box on the home page updated so that it no longer links to the defunct room reservation system.

Service and Policy Updates on the Library Website for Fall 2022

This fall, you’ll want to look on relevant library web pages for the latest policies regarding library services instead of going to a semester-specific post on the library news blog. I am working with lots of different folks to draft those page revisions and will be publishing the updates in the coming days.

One notable change that is already live on the site is that Baruch alumni can now come into our library again. Please note that proof of vaccination status will be required and the protocols of the CUNY visitor policy will apply. See the current Alumni page for details. [NOTE: This policy just changed again. Baruch alumni will not have access this fall.]

Another notable change is that the login page for remote access to databases and licensed content has changed so that all Baruch and CUNY SPS users will enter their CUNY Login. There is no longer an option for those users to enter a Baruch username and password or an SPS-issued username and password. I have updated the Logging in to Library Resources page to reflect this change.

We are nearly done testing the remote login for the O’Reilly database that will also begin using the CUNY Login (remote access has long been handled not through our proxy server but instead a SAML connection). As soon as we make the switch from Baruch username/password to CUNY Login, I’ll post that here on the blog.

If you see any website content that doesn’t accurately reflect how we are currently offering services and resources, please let me know. The next pages to see updates will be the Study Rooms and the Technology Loan Services ones.

Browsing Headlines in Factiva

Last year, Factiva moved the feature that let you browse the daily headlines for major publications from its own standalone page (“News Pages”) to a box on the “Home” page. When you first click into Factiva, you land in the “Search” page. To view the “Newsstand,” click the “Home” navigation option at the top and then scroll down the page.

Instructions for how to get to this handy display has been updated on the following research guides: