Reference at Newman Library

Tag: Gale Virtual Reference

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…

 

Fix Coming This Week for Linking Problems in Gale Virtual Reference Library and Nexis Uni

Later this week, there should be a fix in place for the problems we’ve been seeing over the past few months with Gale Virtual Reference Library and Nexis Uni. This problem always starts with OneSearch records. When the user clicks the “full text available” link for some (but not all) records that are supposed to lead into Gale Virtual Reference Library entries or into Nexis Uni, the user is led to various dead ends.

Gale dead ends

  • a login page from Gale that looks like this one (users should only ever see our remote access login page, and that should only come up when they are off campus)
  • a remote access login page from another CUNY campus
  • a Gale page saying the item can’t be found

Nexis Uni dead ends

  • a login page from Lexis Advance (which we don’t even subscribe to)

Workarounds

Until the fix is in place this week, users should take note of the info from the OneSearch record for the item they want, go to our A-Z databases page, find the link for either Gale Virtual Reference Library or Nexis Uni, connect to the appropriate database, and re-run the search for that specific item.

About the Fix

The source of the problems lay in the updates made by Ex Libris to holdings info about Gale resources and Nexis Uni resources in the SFX system (a system that you also see when you encounter a “Find it! @ CUNY” button in a database record. When you click the “full text available” links in OneSearch, that action uses SFX to figure out what database has the full text and takes you directly from OneSearch to the item in the database (in some cases, the link takes to you to the search page for the database). Ex Libris is fixing errors it made in the way SFX translates incoming requests for full text linking for Gale and Nexis Uni resources into a URL made on the fly that transports the user into the appropriate database. CUNY OLS will apply this fix to our SFX server this week, and we should see the problems disappear thereafter.

Big Research Projects in PSY 4012

This spring, you’ll likely be encountering students in reference asking for help with an assignment in PSY 4012 (Evolution of Modern Psychology) where they are expected to write a textbook chapter on one of these five broad sets of questions:

  1. What is consciousness and how have psychologists dealt with it? Does psychology need biology to understand consciousness, or does biology merely provide a distraction and lead us into nonproductive directions about how to understand consciousness? Can psychology deal with both mind and body in a coherent way, or must one be basic and the other subservient? What alternatives have philosophy and psychology provided to deal with the issue?
  2. How important has evolutionary theory been in the history of psychology? Have psychologists really understood evolutionary theory and its implications, or have many of them worked from a distorted idea of what evolution theory is about?
  3. Has psychology been a more productive science when viewed in terms of reductionism or in terms of holism? What has been gained and what has been lost with each of these two competing perspectives? Should psychology finally choose one or the other of these perspectives, or is there an advantage to having a tension between the two among scientific psychologists? What is at stake when someone proposes that psychology should be eclectic and include both perspectives?
  4. Should there be a separate science of psychology, or did the idea of separate science of psychology emerge only because of historical and philosophical conditions in Germany at the time the first psychology lab was opened in 1879? Was this beginning merely an accident of history, or can one explain why such an event would have taken place then? What sense does it make for psychology to be both a science and a collection of applied practices, such as clinical psychology, school psychology, etc. Should we continue with the same set of boundaries between the separate sciences that we have today, or should we re-think the existence of a separate science of psychology that combines both the scientific and the applied?
  5. Does psychology require the assumption of determinism if it is to be a science? Can it include the notion of free will as well as determinism? Can it deal with both determinism and free will at the same time in a coherent way?

I just taught workshops for two of the sections of this class and want to share the strategy I was recommending to them and the handout I gave them:

  • Start with Gale Virtual Reference Library. Look up the big concepts (reductionism, free will, evolutionary psychology,  etc.) in multiple encyclopedias (especially ones in psychology and philosophy) to get intro to the topic, search words, names of leading researchers and theorists.
  • Go next to find literature review articles in PsycINFO. Also browse the Thesaurus in PsycINFO to identify preferred terms and to discover additional related ones.
  • Then search broadly across PsycINFO for articles, etc.

Here is the handout all the students in my workshops received. 

Let me know if you have any questions or if you want to refer any students to see me.

Connecting Users to Online Resources via QR Codes

This spring, you may begin to notice signs up in the stacks and in other locations (such as the graduate student carrels) that feature QR codes. For users that have phones or other mobile devices (such as a tablet) with a QR code app on them, the codes on these signs can be scanned with a phone, which then opens up the browser on the phone to a specific URL that the code is linked to. Linda, Mike, and I have begun identifying online resources and services that students in the library might want to be alerted about.

In the reference stacks, for example, you’ll now see a small 3″x5″ sign attached to the shelves where the print edition of the Oxford English Dictionary is located:

The sign alerts users that there is an online edition of the OED availabe and gives them a scannable QR code that they can use to get to it. The sign also features a short URL for those who just want to type in the address into a browser. Another QR code sign can be found on the 4th floor at HD30.28, where there many books on writing business plans; the sign at this location connects users to the Business Plans Handbook series in Gale Virtual Reference Library.

We hope to have more such signs in the stacks in the coming weeks. We don’t, though, intend to clutter up the stacks with too many signs.

Some sign ideas we’ve had so far include:

  • one in the 5th floor stacks in the computer science collection alerting users to the Books24x7 collection (we might even be able to have a sign in front of the books on, say, programming in PHP, that connects users to that set of books in Books24x7)
  • one by the print edition of the International Directory of Company Histories series that would connect you to the digital version from Gale
  • one by the print edition of the Market Share Reporter series (we have this online, too)
  • one by print resources used for the PUB 1250 assignment that would connect to Aisha’s LibGuide
  • a new “Reference Desk is Closed” sign that connects users to email and chat reference services

More details on the QR codes signs and links to pages where you can view stats on each code can be found on the QR code page in the reference wiki. If you have any ideas for other resources where there we have both a print resource and its online equivalent that merit the effort that goes into making a sign, please contact Mike, Linda, or Stephen, just leave a comment on this post on the blog.

Relevancy Ranking Options

Mike Waldman’s email message today about the upcoming change to the way EBSCOhost databases will show search results (a move from reverse date sorting to relevancy ranking) made me wonder which databases we have that show search results by date as the default and which ones sort by relevance by default. If there are some that sort by date by default, it is possible that Mike can change the settings to relevance.

Here’s a quick roundup of database sorting defaults. Please note that I haven’t included every database we have; just some of the big ones or the ones that use the same platform for access to multiple databases.

Sort by Date by Default

  • Bearcat Search
  • CUNY+
  • EBSCOhost (this will change to relevance soon; Academic Search Complete, Business Source Complete, etc.)
  • Factiva
  • Gale InfoTrac (for some but not all databases: Academic OneFile, New York State Newspapers)
  • ProQuest (ABI/INFORM Global, Alt Press Watch, Ethnic NewsWatchWall Street Journal, New York Times, etc.)
  • Web of Science (Social Science Citation Index, Science Citation Index, Arts & Humanities Citation Index)

Sort by Relevance by Default

  • Gale InfoTrac (for some but not all databases: Gale Virtual Reference Library, Opposing Viewpoints Reference Center, Literature Resource Center)
  • LexisNexis Academic
  • WilsonWeb (Library Literature, Reader’s Guide, etc.)

Should we make any changes to these default settings? Please post your comments here.

Ebooks MARC Records – possible duplicates

As we purchased some ebooks collection by packages, not by individual titles, it is possible that you may find duplicate records in CUNY+ from different vendors (books 24×7, ebrary, credo, Gale Virtual reference, etc.). Our initial thought was to suppress duplicate records to one record. However, as these collections are constantly updated, titles may be deleted in the near future. We decide to keep multiple records for now.

So, if in case you find duplicate records in CUNY+, it is not a mistake. Please let me know if it occurs to you.

Assignment: Groups/Tribes with No Written Language

We’ve been seeing an assignment this week that has come up in the past (maybe). Since this question is a bit challenging, I am hoping that you’ll add any suggestions you have as comments to this blog post.

The Question

The student I helped asked me for help finding information on an “illiterate” tribe (and that tribe or culture has to be “illiterate” to this day). I’m pretty sure that what he meant (and negotiation of the question didn’t get that far as the student didn’t seem super confident about what he was really after) was a tribe or culture that has no written language. If you have more information on this question (what course it is for, what the real assignment is, etc.) please chime in here.

Who Are the Information Producers?

Any suggestions beyond these?

  • anthropologists
  • linguists
  • communications studies scholars
  • groups devoted to preserving languages or, more broadly, cultural groups (such as Cultural Survival)?

How Do You Identify the Culture or Tribe?

I’m not sure what the official term or phrase is to describe groups that have no written language. Any suggestions beyond these as search words?

  • purely oral society or purely oral culture (is the word “purely” required to distinguish those cultures where there is a written language but most communication takes place orally?)
  • no written language
  • pre-literate (I’m not so sure about this one)

Any ideas about other sources that might work where you can plug in the best search terms besides these?

What Sources Are Best for Researching the Culture or Tribe Identified

This is a bit easier. Here is what I came up with:

Rita and I posted to the blog about this in January 2008. As it has become apparent this week that this is a recurring assignment, I am hopeful that we can get more clarity on the assignment and the best way to identify a tribe or group that fits the bill. Please add your ideas here.