Reference at Newman Library

Year: 2022

Three Ways to Get a List of Subsidiaries

A recent reference question forced me to re-learn how to find a list of subsidiary companies and their addresses. In the past, Corporate Affiliations was my go-to for this question, but now that that database is defunct, I had to look for other options. Here are three to try out:

Business Insights: Global

Once you find the detail page on a company, look for the “View Company Hierarchy” icon:

Screenshot of sample company detail page in Business Insights: Global

Reference Solutions

Look for the “Corporate Tree” icon on a company detail page:

Screenshot of company detail page in Reference Solutions

Uniworld Online

Thanks to Harold Gee for reminding me of this database! This one offers the most search options, info, and functionality (e.g., you can download results in an Excel file and have the foreign and domestic subsidiaries broken out separately).

Screenshot of Uniworld Online

UPDATE: See the comments to this blog post for more options, including “Corporate Affiliations” within the Nexis Uni database.

New Content in HeinOnline on LGBTQ+ Rights

HeinOnline just expanded our access to include a collection of legal and historical materials that surrounding the efforts in the United States to define and defend LGBTQ+ rights:

LGBTQ+ Rights charts the gay rights movement in America, showing the civil rights codified into law in the 20th and 21st centuries, as well as the inequalities that still exist today. Topics covered include the Defense of Marriage Act, the AIDS crisis, military service by gay and transgender service members, “bathroom bills,” and more. A separate subcollection presents historical texts whose views some readers may find offensive today, showing the prejudicial beliefs that permeated society and helped formed the laws of their time.

Over the years, HeinOnline has been adding all kinds of topical legal materials and government documents that offer a historical perspective on key issues in American history. When you first go to HeinOnline, you can drill down to one of these specific collections by selecting from the dropdown menu in the search bar or by clicking the collection from the list lower down on the page:

HeinOnline landing page listing collections.

Please share news of this new collection with faculty in relevant departments.

New Database: Chicago Defender

We now have access to the Chicago Defender on ProQuest’s Historical Newspapers platform. Coverage for this important newspaper goes from 1909-2010. As is the case with other newspapers that we have on this platform (New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Amsterdam News), coverage includes not just the articles but also ads and all the images in the articles and ads.

A link to the database may be found on the A-Z databases page and selected subject database pages (News, Black Studies, and History).

Although you can look up a journal record for the Chicago Defender in OneSearch, you won’t be able to find articles from it there. Instead, you’ll need to connect to the database itself and search within it. This is due to limitations in way that Ex Libris has made this collection available within Primo (our OneSearch system).

Please let faculty in relevant departments know about this valuable new resource.

New Databases on the EBSCOhost Platform

We’ve recently acquired seven new databases on EBSCOhost. Some of these new acquisitions give us deep access to archives of important magazines:

  • Ebony Magazine Archive
  • Fortune Magazine Archive
  • JET Magazine Archive
  • The Nation Archive
  • Time Magazine

Two other acquisitions provide access to a mix of serials:

  • African American Historical Serials Collection offers the full text of magazines, newspapers, reports, and annuals from 1816-1922 from churches and educational and service institutions.
  • Fuente Académica provides the full text of 450 scholarly journals from Latin America, Portugal and Spain.

Links to all of these databases can be found on our A-Z databases page if you want to access them and search them directly within the native EBSCOhost interface. Links to them will also be added soon on various subject database pages.

The content for these collections is also being indexed in OneSearch; some of it may already be discoverable at the article and journal level while others (such as JET and Ebony will take some time, as Ex Libris hasn’t yet set up discovery access to these newer collections yet in Alma and Primo). As soon as the content is fully discoverable within OneSearch, I’ll post a new item to the reference blog.

Please alert faculty in relevant departments you work with about these new acquisitions.

What “Time to Complete” Really Means in O’Reilly Ebooks

On the landing page for books on the O’Reilly ebook platform where you see the jacket, author info, publication date, etc., there is a “Time to Complete” section that sometimes confuses students. Here is a screenshot of the landing page for one book that says “5h 13” in the “Time to Complete” section:

Sample ebook landing page in O'Reilly

All that “Time to Complete” means is how long it is estimated it will take the average reader to read the whole book. It does not mean that the book can only be used for 5 hours and 13 minutes. There is no loan period for O’Reilly ebooks and they can be accessed by more than one user at a time.

Remote Access System Is Intermittently Down

This is affecting both off campus and on campus access, as our EZproxy system isn’t able to load the login pages for our off campus users and our on campus users can’t get past any proxied link because the EZproxy system isn’t available.

I have a ticket into BCTC but haven’t been able to get any more info yet on whether network issues may be affecting our access to the EZproxy server.

Workarounds (only available for on campus users)

If you are are on campus, you can still get to our proxied resources as follows:

  1. Copy the full link of the resource you are trying to connect with.
  2. Paste that link into Notepad on your computer. Delete the initial portion of the link that begins with https://remote.baruch.cuny.edu/login?url= and then copy the remainder of the link.
  3. Paste that remainder of the link into a new browser tab or window. That should take you directly to the resource instead of having it go first through the EZproxy server here on campus.

Example: You want to go to Academic Search Complete. Copy the link to the database and paste it into Notepad. The URL will like this:

https://remote.baruch.cuny.edu/login?url=https://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?authtype=ip,uid&profile=ehost&defaultdb=a9h

Delete the portion at the front that begins with https://remote.baruch.cuny.edu/login?url=

That leaves you with something you can copy and paste back into your browser as long as you are on campus:

https://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?authtype=ip,uid&profile=ehost&defaultdb=a9h

Summer Library Hours Are Now Posted

This week, I updated the hours page on the library website to include the period from our re-opening next week through the intersession period that stretches from the end of the summer semester to the start of the fall semester.

Please note that there are two anomalies in the summertime 4-day work week. On Monday, June 20, we will be closed for Juneteenth. Later that week, we will be open on Friday. On July 4 (another Monday), we’ll be closed and then open on the Friday of that same week.

Dissertations & Theses Databases Page Created

A Dissertations & Theses – Databases page was created.

It can be found by browsing the Databases by Subject page. It is listed within the General & Reference box.

Dissertations and Theses Databases

The Dissertations & Theses – Databases page includes links to:

  • ProQuest Dissertations @ Baruch to access the DBA dissertations
  • Baruch’s Institutional Repository to access the DBA dissertations, master’s theses, and undergraduate honors theses uploaded by students
  • OneSearch to help users identify the microfilm number for older Baruch master’s theses
  • CUNY Academic Works to search for CUNY-wide dissertations and theses
  • and other recommended sources, such as Google Scholar and ILLiad

Problems with Linking from OneSearch to EBSCOhost Databases (resolved)

2 June 2022 update: This issue has been resolved (EBSCO’s new URL for its OpenURL service needed to be shared with Ex Libris and set up in Alma for all Ex Libris customers).

Links going from OneSearch to EBSCOhost databases are failing, generating a “connection timed out” message that, depending on your browser, will look something like this one from Firefox:

Time out error messageThis problem has occurred in the past (see this August 2021 blog post) and then got fixed by EBSCOhost. As a workaround, when you are in OneSearch dand need to get to an item that is on an EBSCOhost database, use our A-Z database list to go to the main search page for that database and do a search to find that specific item in the relevant database.