Reference at Newman Library

Tag: Databases

Trial to East View LandScan Global

Mike has set up a trial to the LandScan database from East View.

LandScan is a mapping application that provides gridded population data for the world. They’ve used satellite data to calculate population for small grid cells for the entire planet. This gives population researchers the ability to work with areas of a uniform size with data that is collected using one methodology, as opposed to working with census data from hundreds of countries that is collected using various methods for different time frames for places of widely varying size.

The product provides researchers with the ability to access the maps directly in GIS via the company’s servers, and also locally from individual files the vendor would provide us. Researchers can use the maps in GIS to extract data and overlay the population grid with layers of their own.

East View also provides a user-friendly web browser application that anyone can use. You can view population data broken down by age and gender for individual cells, countries, and first level subdivisions (states and provinces). There are a number of base maps for streets and topography that you can overlay the population data on.

The trial works on campus (without a password) from now until Sept 14th. Once you’re in the interface there is a link to a short video that gives you an overview of how it works. Access the resource here:

http://wms.cartographic.com/LandScan2011/

New database: PrivCo

We now have access to PrivCo.

PrivCo is a source for business and financial data on major, non-publicly traded corporations, including family owned, private equity owned, venture backed, and international unlisted companies. They cover over 30,000 companies, including financial data, M&A and funding activity, ownership structure, and more. They also have over 10,000 investors, and advance search options by company and investor, giving us the ability to generate fields of data within seconds based on criteria such as location, sub-industry, revenue and employee sizes, financial backing and more.

All the data is easily exported to Excel. The research reports can be printed in PDF.

Trial to Statista

We have a short trial (until May 3rd) to Statista. It is available on-campus only for the trial.

Statista is a statistical portal that integrates over 60,000 topics from over 10,000 sources onto a single platform. It has been reviewed favorably by Library Journal in their January 1, 2012 issue and by the Center for Research Libraries.

Please take a look and let me know what you think of the interface, search capabilities and its usefulness to supporting the curriculum at Baruch.

 

 

 

New Database: Counseling and Therapy in Video

This database from Alexander Street Press features more than 600 videos for the study of social work, psychotherapy, psychology, and psychiatric counseling. You can narrow searches by type of video:

  • Consultations
  • Counseling session
  • Demonstration
  • Documentary
  • Dramatized scene
  • Interview
  • Lecture/presentation
  • Personal narrative

As videos play, a highlighted transcript scrolls along the right side of the screen.

Records for the videos will be loaded into the catalog shortly.

Ethnographic Video Online

We have a trial from Alexander Street Press’ Ethnographic Video Online until May 8, 2012. Access is on campus only for the trial.

Ethnographic Video Online is a comprehensive resource for the study of human culture and behavior.

Thematic areas include: family and race, material culture, language and culture, kinesthetics, body language, food and foraging, cooking, economic systems, social stratification and status, caste systems and slavery, male and female roles, kinship and families, political organization, conflict and conflict resolution, religion and magic, music and the arts, culture and personality, marriage, gender, and family roles.

All videos offer accompanying written transcripts where the spoken word is highlighted as it is spoken.

Please leave your comments about this database below or email me directly.

EBSCO’s Ebook Academic Collection trial

We have a trial to EBSCO’s Ebook Academic Collection trial until June 30, 2012.

This is a new product from EBSCO, comparable to the collection we have from ebrary. Like ebrary, there are over 70,000 titles (only about 51,000 for this trial), unlimited simultaneous users and downloads. Because this is a trial, we will not add the records to the catalog, but if we were to subscribe, they would be added.

We will be actively comparing this product with ebrary’s so please share your comments in the comments below or email me directly. In particular, I would like comments on ease of downloading, search capabilities, on-screen display, marking, saving and emailing capabilities, and any other feature you may consider important.

Google Scholar Now Listed on Databases Page

We’ve recently added Google Scholar to our list of databases on the library website and in the set of reusable database links in LibGuides. After looking at the database listings for 66 schools (all the libraries in CUNY, SUNY, the CIC, and the Cal State and UC systems), we found that 48 of those institutions had Google Scholar on their A-Z database lists.

Given that many of our students and faculty already use Google Scholar, we decided that it was worth adding so that we can ensure that our users get the most out it. With that in mind, we created a special link to it that runs the user through our EZproxy system AND sets up the Google Scholar advanced preferences option so that our users will see links to SFX next to most items on the search results page.

As you can see from this screenshot, Google Scholar won’t display the usual “Find It” icon we see in our library databases but instead offers a link labeled “Find Full Text at Baruch.”

New database: WestlawNext Patron Access

We now have access to West’s new platform for their traditional print material, called WestlawNext Patron Access. This will be replacing our print subscriptions, which have been cancelled (and were not getting much used).

In this platform, you can search United States federal and state laws, court cases, rules, regulations, selected forms, and topical secondary publications in one search field. Advanced search works best after selecting jurisdiction(s) or content. West Key Numbers, under Tools, offers detailed index of case law materials.

One unfortunate aspect of this database is that searching will retrieve content not in our subscription, which may lead to confusion. We have not lost any content compared to the print subscriptions we had.

Training is being arranged for early December.