News and tips by and for staff providing reference services at the Newman Library, Baruch College (New York, NY).
Another new resource we have access to thanks to NOVELny is Peterson’s Career and Test Prep. Here’s the description of it:
Create your own account to access test prep materials for GRE, LSAT, GMAT, MCAT, and as well as vocational exams.
A link to it can now be found on the A-Z databases page.
The statewide collection of databases from Gale that we get via NOVELny grew recently. We now have access to the following:
All of these are now listed on the A-Z databases page as well as relevant subject database pages.
Gale has rebranded “Business Insights: Global” to “Gale Business: Insights.” With the new name also comes a whole new design that follows the style of most of the other Gale databases we have.
The design is a big improvement. To orient yourself to the new way of navigating to content in the database, you’ll want to look at this overview from Gale about the new layout.
Through the spring 2023 semester, the A-Z databases page will feature a link in the Bs that is labeled with the old name as well as a link in the Gs for the new name; both links will take you to the new interface. At the end of spring, that old link in the Bs will be removed.
If you have a database link to “Business Insights: Global” on one of your research guides, you’ll find that the has been already renamed for you today (the same goes for links to the database on various subject databases pages).
The database link for New York State Newspapers has been removed from our database pages. Recent changes from Gale had left the New York State Newspapers database with just one paper in it, The New York Times, which we already have full text access to within many other Gale databases as well as within ones from ProQuest, Factiva, and Nexis Uni.
If you want to limit a search to just newspapers from New York state, that can be done within Nexis Uni (after running a news search, use the “Location” option in the “Narrow by” section on the left).
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.
Recently, Gale overhauled its interfaces for their databases, giving them a unified look as well as some new functionality. Now you can now search across all the key Gale databases that have literary criticism and author bios in a new database called “Gale Literature.” It searches across:
Chris Tuthill and I met recently to discuss these changes and have agreed that on the page listing English databases, we’d simplify the list of “Recommended” databases and put a spotlight on Gale Literature by listing it first. If you’re helping a student who needs literature criticism, work overviews, or bios of an author, please steer them to Gale Literature as their starting point. In some cases (such as a student who needs to search more deeply for works of literary criticism), you can also recommend MLA International Bibliography, which is now exclusively on EBSCO’s platform.
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).
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…
Through November 23, we have on and off campus access to the following three trials, all of which are linked to on the Trials tab of the databases page.
Gale Interactive: Chemistry
Vendor description: Users can manipulate and explore the periodic table, molecules, and other 3D models, allowing students to better visualize and understand concepts in chemistry. Reference and periodical content provide additional context for further understanding.
Gale Interactive: Human Anatomy
Vendor description: Users can manipulate and explore 3D models, allowing students to better visualize and understand human anatomy. Reference and periodical content provide additional context for further understanding.
Gale Small Business Builder
Note that you will have to create your own account to use the product. Look for the orange “Get Started” button in the center of the home page.
Vendor description: Gale Small Business Builder helps patrons interested in planning and optimizing their businesses or nonprofits. Built for aspiring entrepreneurs and those with existing small businesses, it provides a step-by-step process supported by a rich variety of recognized tools that enable users to produce complete business plans and other documents essential for gaining access to capital and growing their enterprise.
Please share these with relevant faculty and encourage them to use the feedback form linked to on the database trials page.
As part of an expansion across CUNY of Gale database coverage, we now have access to Contemporary Women’s Issues. Here is the vendor’s description:
Contemporary Women’s Issues (CWI), a multidisciplinary, full-text database that brings together relevant content from mainstream periodicals, “gray” literature, and the alternative press — with a focus on the critical issues and events that influence women’s lives in more than 190 countries. Contemporary Women’s Issues includes English-language titles from East and West Africa, Asia, and South and Central America, the Caribbean, North America and Europe. Contemporary Women’s Issues compiles into a single collection, often overlooked and hard-to-find newsletters and NGO research reports to which most libraries do not subscribe, plus ephemeral literature from leading research institutes and grass roots organizations that is rarely indexed or cataloged.
Contemporary Women’s Issues records are indexed by 17 categories, including subject, region, article type and publication type. Basic searching on the Internet is easy — using keywords, with options to search full-text, enhanced titles, author or book author. Advanced searching is done using convenient pull-down menus for selecting indexed terms.
Links to this database can be found on the A-Z page and the women’s studies databases page.
We’ve got access once again to TableBase (it is now a CUNY-wide subscription). In addition to adding a link to it on the A-Z list, links can be found on the following subject database pages: