Reference at Newman Library

Database Trial: PolicyMap

Description (from the vendor)
An online U.S. national data and mapping tool and analytics platform with multidisciplinary applications for college students and faculty. Undergraduate and graduate schools use us in their curriculum and research related to social sciences, urban studies, real estate and housing analysis, community and economic development, public administration, public health, policy and political science, education, business, economics, statistics, and geography, among others. Users can leverage thousands of U.S. data indicators in PolicyMap to perform demographic and socioeconomic analysis, from a neighborhood census block group in many cases, up to a national level, as well as create custom regions, for their research and studies.

Trial Ends
October 31, 2019

Access
On and off campus. Use the link on the Trials tab on the databases page.

Feedback
Please share with any faculty who might be interested and recommend they use the trial feedback form (also linked to on the Trials tab on the databases page).

Gale Virtual Reference Library Is Now Called Gale eBooks

Last week, Gale changed the interface for Gale Virtual Reference Library with the product’s new name: Gale eBooks. I’ve updated the A-Z list with the new name and added a link for the old name (both links go to the same database URL).

Listings on A-Z page

If you’ve re-used the main database link for “Gale Virtual Reference Library” on one of your guides, it will now show as “Gale eBooks (formerly Gale Virtual Reference Library).”

Please take a look at your research guides for any text you’ve typed in that mentions “Gale Virtual Reference Library” and consider updating it. Here’s a handy search for all guides that have that phrase on them. Please note that  with that search you’ll get some false hits for “Gale Virtual Reference Library” in the next 24 hours, as it takes a day for Springshare to re-index the content of our guides.

Gale has also just renamed a handful of other databases that may not merit the same treatment on our A-Z list. Those databases are the ones on the “In Context” and “OneFile” platforms.  Basically, Gale redid the names on these databases so that the company name is clearly a part of the database name. For example, the logo for “Academic OneFile” used prominently atop every page in the database now shows as “Gale Academic OneFile.” Stay tuned…

 

Library Website Down for Server Maintenance on September 12

From 8 am – 9 am on Thursday, September 12, the library website will be down as BCTC does essential upgrades to the server where the site resides.

The following key systems will still be accessible during the outage, as they are not hosted on the same server at Baruch where our WordPress website lives:

New Industry Surveys in S&P NetAdvantage

Have a look at the current Industry Surveys in S&P NetAdvantage. Two new features have been added that are targeted to business students. First, there is a Porter five forces analysis in the section of the report that covers “Industry Trends”. This will be something that students taking BPL5100 can use.

For accounting and finance students, the other addition is forensic accounting information in the “How to Analyze a Company” section of the report. Boxes labeled “Watch Out” point out accounting gimmicks that companies can use to make their earnings look better than they actually are. They also identify items on the income statement or balance sheet that are key industry metrics that students should understand.

CFRA, the provider of the Industry Surveys to S&P, now offers coverage of 44 industries including new in 2019: Asset Management and Alternative Energy.

What To Do When SFX and the Catalog Are Down

This weekend, from 6 pm on Saturday (September 7) to 6 am on Sunday (September 8), the servers hosting both SFX and the library catalog will be down for planned maintenance. This will affect not only on the library catalog and the “Find it! @ CUNY” button that pops up in databases but also OneSearch. Here’s how it will change things temporarily and how to work around it.

SFX and the “Full text available” links

Say you’ve just run a search on “turtles’ in OneSearch. In this screenshot of the first four search results in OneSearch, you can see there are green “Full text available” links for each item; these links won’t work at all because SFX is down.

OneSearch results for turtles

(click image to enlarge)

Although SFX is down, that doesn’t mean we can’t get to the full text. Here’s the workaround for each of the four items in the screenshot.

Item #1: Morphology and evolution of turtles

  1. This is an ebook. Click the title of the book to get to the OneSearch record that has the full description of the book.
  2. On the OneSearch record for the book, you can see references to “SpringerLink.” That’s a database we have at Baruch.
  3. Go back to the previous screen to see the OneSearch page with the search results.
  4. Click “Databases A-Z” at the top of the OneSearch page.
  5. Look for “SpringerLink” on the list of databases and click to launch it.
  6. Search in SpringerLink for the book using the book title.

Item #2: Turtles

  1. This is a “reference entry,” which means it’s an entry in one of our encyclopedia databases. Click the title (“Turtles”) to get to the OneSearch record that has the complete description of the reference entry.
  2. On the OneSearch record for the reference entry, you can see a mention near the bottom of “Gale Virtual Reference Library” as the source.
  3. Go back to the previous screen to see the OneSearch page with the search results.
  4. Click “Databases A-Z” at the top of the OneSearch page.
  5. Look for “Gale Virtual Reference Library” on the list of databases and click to launch it.
  6. Search in Gale Virtual Reference Library for the reference entry using the title “turtles.”

Item #3: Turtles

  1. This is an article from a journal. Since you can see the name of the journal, the Journal of the American Mosquito Control Association, you don’t need to click through to get more info. All you need is here (the name of the journal and year of publication).
  2. Click “Journals A-Z” at top of the screen.
  3. When the “Journals, Newspapers, & Magazines” page opens up, search for the name of journal to see what database(s) have access to it and what years.
  4. Click to connect to the database that has the year you need and then search within that database for the article.

Item #4: The Turtles

  1. This is another journal article. Use the same steps as for previous item (#3).

The catalog and the real-time availability info in OneSearch

The other part of OneSearch that will be affected by this weekend’s maintenance is connected to the catalog being down. You’ll still be able to find print books and other physical items in our collections by searching OneSearch, but you won’t be able to tell if it is checked out or not. The only workaround is to look for the book on the shelf.

 

 

New Sign On Method for Safari Ebooks

There’s a new method of sign on for Safari that you will encounter when clicking the database link on our website or clicking on a “full text available” link in a OneSearch record for a specific Safari ebook. You’ll first see a glimpse of the Safari website or a landing page in Safari for a specific ebook and then you’ll be redirected to this new kind of login page:

Safari sign on page

This page asks for the same set of credentials that any student or staff or faculty member of Baruch or SPS should have: a Baruch username and password (similar to the ones entered in the proxy page). Once those credentials are entered, the user will be taken back to the Safari site and have access.

As you can see from the screenshot of the login page, it mentions “O’Reilly.” That is the company that owns the Safari ebook platform.

If you encounter any problems with this new system, please let Mike Waldman or me know.

Reading the Mueller Report

For students or faculty who want to read a copy of the Mueller report whose official title is the Report on the Investigation into Russian Interference in the 2016 Presidential Election, we have two print copies in our collection. Call number: E911 .M84 2019.

A copy of the redacted report from the U.S. Government Printing Office can be found online.

The New York Times has posted a searchable and indexed version of the redacted report online with their “Key Takeaways” and list of who’s been charged.

In addition, DPLA, the Digital Public Library of America, has published an enhanced version of the report which is freely available in ebook format to read or download. This version has links to more than 740 of the original documents referenced in the footnotes.

A brief summary of the report from Attorney General William Barr was released in a letter to Congressional leaders and can be found on the House Judiciary Committee website.