Reference at Newman Library

Author: Stephen Francoeur

New Database: Military & Government Collection (HeinOnline)

This database from HeinOnline offers ebooks, journal articles, special reports, government documents, and legal documents, all relating to the history and administration of the armed forces in the United States. A link to it can be found on the A-Z databases page and on the Government – Databases page. The contents of the database aren’t yet indexed by Alma or Primo, which means the only way to find and use the content is by searching directly in the database.

Here’s a video overview from HeinOnline about this new database:

Facets Now on Left Side of Search Results in OneSearch

Last week, the CUNY Office of Library Services moved the facets that appear on the search results pages from the right side to the left side. By placing the facets on the left, the layout of search pages now is similar to the layout of most of our databases (EBSCO, ProQuest, etc.) as well as to search results pages on shopping websites.

It is hoped that by putting the facets in  OneSearch this familiar location, our users will be more likely to use them. Using reports in Alma Analytics, we should be able to spot any change in facet usage in the coming months.

New Names for Seventeen Gale Databases

On Thursday, June 24, seventeen Gale databases will be renamed on our A-Z databases page. This work will bring our naming convention for Gale databases in line with the names that Gale actually uses in their interfaces; it also parallels the work that the CUNY Office of Library Services has recently completed in Alma so that the correct names display in OneSearch records.

As you can see from the table below, the new names stick the word “Gale” in front of either the old name (“Academic OneFile” becomes “Gale Academic OneFile”) or in front of a slightly modified name (“Opposing Viewpoints in Context” becomes “Gale in Context: Opposing Viewpoints.”) Gale has been trying to corral their many databases into a handful of branded platforms: Gale OneFile, Gale in Context, and Gale Literature.

Current Name New Name
Academic OneFile Gale Academic OneFile
General OneFile Gale General OneFile
Health and Wellness Resource Center Gale Health and Wellness
Biography in Context Gale in Context: Biography
Global Issues in Context Gale in Context: Global Issues
Opposing Viewpoints in Context Gale in Context: Opposing Viewpoints
Science in Context Gale in Context: Science
U.S. History in Context Gale in Context: U.S. History
World History in Context Gale in Context: World History
Literature Criticism Online Gale Literature Criticism
Literature Resource Center Gale Literature Resource Center
Book Review Index Gale Literature: Book Review Index
Dictionary of Literary Biography Gale Literature: Dictionary of Literary Biography
LitFinder Gale Literature: LitFinder
Contemporary Women’s Issues Gale OneFile: Contemporary Women’s Issues
LegalTrac Gale OneFile: LegalTrac
Popular Magazines Gale OneFile: Popular Magazines

On the A-Z databases page, temporary redirects will be put in place for the handful of Gale databases that are most used (as determined by clicks in 2020 from the LibGuides system).

If you have any questions, please reach out to Michael Waldman or me.

Finding Online Theses from Baruch Students

It’s that time of year when theses written by Baruch students start to trickle in to the CUNY Academic Works system. I’ve been processing them as they come in and thought it might be useful to provide a quick summary of what is actually online.

  1. Our online collections include only two kinds of theses: theses written for undergraduate honors and theses for the masters in corporate communication.
  2. Not every thesis is online. Each year, some students elect not to put their work online for various reasons (such those undergraduate honors thesis writers whose thesis is a work of fiction or a collection of short stories).
  3. The online collection of undergraduate honors theses goes back to the 1986, while the online collection of masters theses in corporate communication only go back to 2019. We do have a microfilm collection of older masters theses in corporate communications as well, which can be found via searches in OneSearch.
  4. Both kinds of theses are lumped together in the “Student Theses” collection in CUNY Academic Works. If you want to find just one kind of theses, you can search for them by using these specific search queries:
  • “corporate communication” will find all the digital versions of masters theses in that program we’ve received since 2019
  • “honors” will find all the digital versions of undergraduate honors theses we’ve received since 1986

Remote Access Down on Morning of June 15 (updated)

UPDATE (6/15/2021 8:56 AM) The EZproxy software upgrade was successful. Remote access is working as expected.

As part of a planned upgrade for our EZproxy server software, remote access will be down for all databases that use it on Tuesday, June 15, between 7 AM and 9 AM (it’s likely the actual downtime will only be 20-30 minutes). This work will only affect the databases that use EZproxy for remote access (if you see this specific login page after clicking a link, that resource is one using EZproxy):

Login page for EZproxy

New Database: Roper iPoll

Roper iPoll provides access not only to polls conducted by the Roper Center but also hundreds of other organizations (corporations, nonprofit groups, research institutes, news organizations, etc.) Not only will the database be useful for anyone looking for data about political attitudes and opinions, it may also be useful for those looking for marketing info (including consumer preferences) and for those who just need a dataset that they can download, manipulate, and analyze.

To give a snapshot of what’s in the database, here’s a quick run through of what happens if you type something like “religion” into the search box:

  • Type in a keyword like “religion” and your search results page may suggest a controlled vocabulary term to re-run your search with
  • Search results displayed in two tabs: one has the data on specific survey questions that match your keyword and the other has links to the complete survey or study where those questions matching your keyword appear
  • You can filter your search results by “Contents” if you want to isolate just the items with crosstabs, downloadable datasets, CSV files, SPSS data, etc.
  • Filter by “Decades” to get to surveys conducted as far back as the 1930s
  • Filter by “Countries”
  • Filter by the organization that did the survey or study (for my “religion” search, that turned up 548 organizations)

Occasional Link Errors from OneSearch to EBSCOhost Databases (resolved)

There’s a known issue with the way EBSCOhost databases handle incoming links from OneSearch. In some cases (but not most), the link in OneSearch that leads to an EBSCOhost database will lead you to an “EBSCO OpenURL Connection” page that is essentially a dead end (see below for the simple workarounds).

Here is a link to a sample OneSearch record where this EBSCOhost problem occurs:

Bennett, L. K., Scruggs, X., & Woods, J. M. (2020). Surprise, Hurt, and Anger as Emotional Responses to Expectancy Violations Following Feedback Messages. Communication Research Reports, 37(1-2), 22–33. https://doi.org/10.1080/08824096.2020.1737000.

Here is an annotated screenshot showing which database link in that record is the problem one:

Database links in OneSearch record

If you click the “Communication & Mass Media Complete” database link, you get to a dead-end error page from EBSCO that looks like this and has options that you’ll want to ignore:

Error page from EBSCOhost

Workarounds to this problem

Until EBSCOhost can fix this occasional problem, try one of these workarounds:

  1. Look for a link in the OneSearch record that goes to something other than an EBSCOhost database (in the above example, that would be the link for “Taylor & Francis Online”)
  2. Use the A-Z list of databases to get to a link to the relevant EBSCOhost database and then run the search for the article within that database.

OneSearch and Alma Down for Scheduled Maintenance May 29-30

Beginning on Saturday, May 29, 2021, at 9:00 PM, and lasting until Sunday, May 30, 2021, at 9:00 PM, OneSearch and Alma will both be down while the vendor (Ex Libris) migrates these systems to a new data center.

Workarounds during downtime:

ReferenceUSA Is Now Called Reference Solutions

I just renamed the database asset for “ReferenceUSA” to “Reference Solutions.” The interface remains the same, although the branding of the parent company, Data Axle, is more prominent than ever in the header.

For now, the historical ReferenceUSA data that is also listed as a database (it’s available only special request, as it is a local data file), will remain with the original name.