Reference at Newman Library

Dissertation Abstracts on First Search going away

Just a heads up …

OCLC has announced it will stop supporting Dissertation Abstracts (among others that do not affect us) on First Search as of February 28, 2011. CUNY is working on some alternatives but at this point it nothing is certain so there might a time where we do not have access to any dissertation information.

As possible alternatives, the Graduate Center and John Jay subscribe to the full-text Dissertation abstracts. It will still be possible to Inter-library Loan dissertations.

JSTOR Current Scholarship Program

You may have heard that JSTOR has added current content to its holdings. They are calling it their Current Scholarship Program (CSP).

While JSTOR is offering many different subscription models to their CSP, what affects us at this time is the move from many smaller publishers to move their current content from their own platform to JSTOR’s.

There are a number of titles that we subscribe to as individual titles that are now going to be available on the JSTOR platform with current holdings. You can find a list of publishers involved here; most of our titles are coming from the University of Chicago Press and the University of California Press.

The platform changes will launch on January 1, 2011. I will be changing our links the first week of January.

WRDS access changes

WRDS has made it easier to access their data.

It is NOT necessary for library-based users to apply for individual accounts.

The new process is as follows:

The user connects to WRDS via the Databases page.

There,  s/he will be asked for their Baruch email address; the WRDS system will then immediately send an email to that address, containing a  one-day access ticket (actually a customized URL).    (Both “Baruchmail” and “Baruch” are working).

Faculty and those working continuously with data will still probably want to create their own account so they don’t have to ask for a one-day pass, but for others this might be enough.

Please let me know if you have any questions or concerns.

EBSCO not working in Bearcat

Per Serials Solutions:

“searches conducted against EBSCO databases using 360 Search are not returning results. It appears that EBSCO made changes to how federated search queries are handled against their databases, which in turn broke 360 Search connections. Unfortunately, we learned of this earlier today.

We are working as quickly as possible to resolve this issue, and will provide you with an update by the end of today. ”

Please let me know if you run into anything else.

WRDS updated access information

WRDS has updated their platform and how we can access the data.

In particular, they are requiring that each user create an individual account. When users go to register their account they must select their school (Baruch College), select a type of account and enter a Baruch email. They will then receive an email back to confirm that the email address is valid. This email will contain an “Access Pass” link which the user can click on to get direct access into the WRDS system.

Users might not get an account immediately so it might lead to some frustration at the reference desk.