Thanks to CUNY, we’ve had a trial to Past Masters, a collection of classic e-books.
Please let me know what you think of it.
Command Code Searching the Catalog for Collections
In response to a question asked the desk today from a student who wanted to browse the titles in the MTA Collection, Jin and I figured out use the command codes to find all the items from a collection:
- In the catalog, click “Command Search”
- Use the code, WCL, to find words in the name of a collection; to find all the MTA books, type in WCL=MTA
There are other commands you can use that work all sorts of wonders.
bX Recommender trial coming to CUNY
CUNY librarians have agreed to a 60 day trial of bX Recommender starting Monday April 11.
bX Recommender works with SFX and with the universe of SFX user-choices across the world to generate citations similar to the one that generated the first SFX link. In other words, when the user has found a citation they like, bX Recommender will suggest other citations that other people who looked at the first citation have also looked at. It’s a version of “others have also liked…” that appears in a variety of other websites.
This additional information will appear in the SFX menu – it will separate the additional citations into those we have access to full-text and those we don’t. This post from the University of Minnesota Libraries might give you an idea of how it will look.
Worldscope subscription cancelled
Our Worldscope subscription has been canceled. We have access until June 15, when I will remove it from the list of databases.
Company Ratios
Students in one of the BPL5100 classes are looking for ten year trends for their company financial analysis. Several databases include historical ratio data:
Mergent Online – under the Company Financials tab
Edgar Online – click the green arrow for Ratios on the company page
MSN Money – KeyFinancial Ratios – Under the Fundamentals tab
Balance in Databases
Over the weekend, an interesting conversation thread was started in FriendFeed by a number of librarians over the implications of far-right publications being included in library databases. Among the publications spotlighted were American Renaissance (we have it in Academic Search Complete) and Mankind Quarterly (found in Social Sciences Full Text).
QuestionPoint Backup Librarian Wins Business Reference Award
The QuestionPoint chat service relies not only on the efforts of librarians from subscribing institutions around the country but also on a team of librarians (paid by OCLC) to cover the late night and weekend hours, as well as provide around the clock coverage to handle any overflow of chat sessions that coop librarians are unable to get to. One of those backup librarians, Nicolette Warisse Sosulski, just received an award this week from the Business Reference & Services Section of RUSA (a.k.a, RUSA BRASS): the Sosulski Gale Cengage Learning Award for Excellence in Business Librarianship. A public librarian by day in Michigan, Sosulski is someone who has helped lots of Baruch students over the years in chat. Congratulations to her!
QuestionPoint Group in CUNY Academic Commons
Recently, I created a group in the CUNY Academic Commons for any librarian in CUNY who either helps staff our shared subscription to QuestionPoint or is interested in keeping tabs on it. Given the ephemeral nature of email and the challenges in finding old messages that might be useful or even essential, I’ve been trying to move away from email as the main means of communication about the service. I hope that this space on the CUNY Academic Commons proves to be an improvement in the way that information about the service is shared and discussed.
Resource Sharing
The New York Public Library and the libraries of Columbia University and New York University have announced the formation of a new collaboration,called the Manhattan Research Library Initiative, or MaRLI. The press release says, in part, that –
MaRLI will enable NYU and Columbia PhD students and faculty, as well as scholars whose work is based at NYPL, to check out materials from all three libraries, a first step to improve access to collections among the three institutions. The model is a departure from NYPL’s historical practice, whereby research materials have not been allowed to circulate.
New York Public Library users unaffiliated with NYU or CU can obtain borrowing privileges by demonstrating that they have exhausted the available resources for their projects and need sustained access to the resources of the three institutions. A research consultation with an NYPL librarian and a completed form are required.
Read the full press release here.
Trial to Cambridge Collections Online
We have a trial to the Cambridge Collections Online until April 26, 2011. On-campus access only.
Cambridge Collections Online offers subject or theme based collections of content within a richly functional, fully cross-searchable online environment.
The Complete Cambridge Companions is available as a complete collection and as two sub-collections comprising the Cambridge Companions in Literature and Classics and the Cambridge Companions in Philosophy, Religion and Culture.
Also available through Cambridge Collections Online, Shakespeare Survey Online, makes the distinguished 60 year history of the print series available online for the first time and exclusively.
Please let me know what you think of this product, either via email or here in the comments.