Reference at Newman Library

New Interface for ProQuest Databases

Today we switched over to the new ProQuest interface. The look of this new interface is a lot cleaner and lightweight (this seems to be a mini-trend, as the new Factiva and Passport GMID interfaces feel lighter, too).

What’s New Here?

  • PAIS International is now in ProQuest instead in CSA
  • Links to SFX now include the “Find It” icon instead of just text
  • A “Figures & Tables” search in some databases
  • A “Data & Reports” search in ABI/INFORM Global
  • Historical and non-historical databases can be searched together

Bugs/Quirks

  • If you are looking at the item record for an article where there is no full text, you’ll see two “Find It” icons (see this example). ProQuest told me that they are working on this problem.
  • The link to our Ask a Librarian service went from the top right of the page in the old interface to the bottom right of the new one (but we now can have an icon instead of just a text link).
  • Please contact Mike or me with any problems you find in the new interface.

Fixing Links in LibGuides

The new interface has a new base URL (search.proquest.com). Using a find and replace feature in LibGuides, I was able to update some but not all of the links in LibGuides that went to the old interface (the search and find only works in certain kinds of boxes in the LibGuides system). Please check any links in your guides now to make sure they point to the new URLs.

New Database: GenderWatch

You’ll now find a listing for GenderWatch on the databases page and on the LibGuides page that has canonical links you can re-use in your own guides. Here’s a description from ProQuest about this database:

With archival material dating back to 1970, GenderWatch™ provides authoritative historical and current perspectives on the evolution of gender roles as they affect both men and women. GenderWatch supports gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender (GLBT) studies; family studies; gender studies, and women’s studies with a unique interdisciplinary approach. Combining more than 200 academic, gray, and popular literature titles, GenderWatch provides researchers with more than 100,000 articles on wide-ranging topics like sexuality, religion, societal roles, feminism, masculinity, eating disorders, day care, and the workplace.

The 200+ titles featured in the GenderWatch database offer unique, distinctive voices seldom heard in mainstream media. Sometimes outspoken, always informative, the collection represents multiple viewpoints from a wide variety of publications. From scholarly analysis to popular opinion, GenderWatch encompasses three decades of gender studies. Titles include: The Advocate, Columbia Journal of Gender and Law, Divorce Magazine, off our backs, Transitions, and many more.

Subject coverage

Women studies
Men’s studies
Evolution of the women’s movement
Transgendered community
(Changes in) gender roles
Femininity
Gender differences
Gender equity
Gender identity
Gender studies
Masculinity

Warning to Google Chrome Users in EBSCOhost Databases

I just created an image that appears in the upper right corner of the EBSCOhost interface that alerts users that PDFs will work in Google in fall 2011. If you click the logo, you are taken to an EBSCOhost support page that offers instructions for making PDFs work in Google Chrome (you have to turn off Chrome’s native PDF reader so that Adobe Acrobat can instead be the default PDF viewer in Chrome).

You can take a peek at the warning image in this screenshot:

netLibrary and EBSCOhost Books

As you may already know, EBSCO bought netLibrary about a year ago. Since then, they have been working to migrate netLibrary content onto the EBSCOhost platform.

This transition is almost over and they have alerted us that in the next few days users accessing a netLibrary title will be seamlessly forwarded to EBSCOhost.

There shouldn’t be any problems, but please do let me know if you encounter any.

PAF 9318 problems with e-reserve readings

Two students complained that two readings on e-reserve are too small to read.  The articles were reduced to 75% and the students also said they are older and don’t have young eyes.  I am going to ask Access services to redo the readings.  The first, by Jonathan Kozol, from the Dec. 2005 issue of Phi Delta Kappan, Confections of Apartheid, is available through JSTOR and some of our other databases.  The second, a chapter in Deborah Stone’s book, Policy Paradox: The art of political decision making, may be available in the 1997 edition of the book, of which we have two copies.  The 2002 edition is currently in transit.

 

Rita