Reference at Newman Library

Tag: New in the Library

Trials: new look and new trials

With the new website, we have implemented a new way to share our trials. They can be found in a separate tab in the alphabetical Databases listing. We have a couple of current trials going on.

Historical Periodicals:

African American Historical Serials Collection

Gateway to North America: People, Places, and Organizations of 19th-Century New York

Revolutionary War Era Orderly Books from the New-York Historical Society

These are from EBSCO. These are potential purchases, not subscriptions.

 

Psychology:

PsycCRITIQUES and PsycEXTRA offer book reviews, technical reports, government documents and other such material relating to Psychology. Also on the EBSCO platform. This is a subscription.

 

It would be very helpful if you could let me know here or via email if you think these can be used to support the curriculum and how they would fit within our current holdings.

 

Notable Links on the New Library Website

As we continue this year the process of iterative design (usability test–>tweak–>usability test–>tweak, etc.), it’s hoped that the site will keep pace with our users’ expectations of where things should be and how those things should behave. With that caveat out of the way, here are some notable links on the new website that can offer shortcuts for those of us used to certain paths to key resources and services.

 

Catalog link

  • On the “Help” page, go to the “Books” portion of the “How Do I Find…”

Click to embiggen

 

 

My Account (patron account info the catalog)

  • Go to the “Renew a Book” page in the “Students category.

Click to embiggen

 

Search All CUNY Libraries from the Search Bar

  • Select “Books” in the search bar, then select “Advanced Search,” then choose “All CUNY Libraries” from the drop down menu

 

Click to embiggen

Library Lit and LISTA Merged into New Database

If you go to the databases page or the list of reusable database links in LibGuides, you’ll no longer see a listing for Library Literature or for Library Information Science & Technology Abstracts (LISTA) but instead just one for Library & Information Science Source. When EBSCO acquired H.W. Wilson last year, it was announced that overlapping products would be merged into new, larger databases. Those mergers are now finally rolling out this month.

Any permalinks you’ve bookmarked or put on web pages will still take you to the right record in the old databases; it’s likely that at some point in the future, EBSCO will automatically redirect you from any old permalinks to the same record in the new database.

New Database – Statista

Statista is a portal for business, government and demographic statistics and reports.  What sets this database apart from others is that it features data as infographics, samples of which can be seen at their free “Chart of the Day.” All graphs/tables can be downloaded, saved or e-mailed.

Statista gathers statistical information from over 10,000 different sources in 23 major industry sectors. Their sources include reports from market researchers, trade and scientific organizations, and government sources.  Some sources come free from the web like World Bank data and reports from the EIA and FCC and other federal agencies. Others are subscription-based sources like Gartner, IDC, and ComScore. Reports from accounting firms Deloitte and PwC are included as are analyst reports from Credit Suisse, Jeffries, Deutsche Bank and others.

Geographic coverage is worldwide with excellent resources covering the U.S. and Europe (Statista is based in Germany) and expanding content for Asia and Latin America especially Brazil, India, and China.

Statista also aggregates data from multiple sources in company and industry Dossiers.  These are lengthy reports (some are 70 or more pages) in PPT and are free for download. They cover both U.S. and international companies and markets. Have a look at the company dossier on Apple  or the industry dossier on Beer Production and Distribution for example.

All graphs/tables come with “Reading Support” that explains the numbers, cites the source, and links directly to the source where available. Data can be downloaded to Excel, in JPG format or as a Powerpoint.

The big Goggle-like search box works well. Search results can be filtered by region or type of data (for example, rankings, forecasts or time series). Results can be sorted by date or by relevance. Browsing by category or keyword is available by clicking on the “Markets” tab. Opening up a “Category” will give direct access to data and reports on that industry category as well as a search box for searching within that category.

I’d especially recommend this database for students doing industry research because of its wide coverage of specialized industry research sources.

Two New Databases with Very Old Content

Thanks to funding from CUNY Central, we recently gained access to a couple of databases from Gale that contain unique historical collections:

  • National Geographic Magazine Archive offers the every single page (even the ads) from the magazine published between 1888 and 1994. It’s a blast to browse.
  • 17th-18th Century Burney Collection Newspapers, the new champ for the database with the longest name, is best known for providing the largest collection of British newspapers. It also includes pamphlets, broadsides, etc.

New Database: Mango Langugages

We have added a new languages databases: Mango Languages.

Mango Languages presents an easy to learn way to learn a new language. Users can view and listen to speakers and can try record their own voice saying words and sentences in the new language (must have a microphone available). Users can choose to go through a Basic Course or the Complete one, which is more comprehensive and includes grammar skills. If a user wants the program to remember where they were, users can create their own account.

The following languages are included:

 

New Database: Mergent EventsData

We have added Mergent EventsData to our list of databases which gives us access to on-going updated information on stock-splits, mergers, tender offers, partial/full calls, name changes, etc.

We have access to: U.S. Corporate Actions, International Corporate Actions for all regions, U.S. Corporate Dividends, International Corporate Dividends for all regions, U.S. Unit Investment Trust, U.S. Fixed Income, U.S. Municipal Called Bonds, EventsData Portfolio Alerts, U.S. HSD Equity Pricing (20+ Years History), International HSD Equity Pricing (20+ Years History).

Need Feedback on Beta Catalog

This month, Baruch is joining City College, LaGuardia Community College, and the Graduate Center, in testing out a new interface to the catalog that we are calling the Beta Catalog for now. Our existing Ex Libris Aleph catalog is not going away; instead, we are trying out a new separate search interface developed by SUNY and used at most of their libraries (IDS Search).

We are only exploring whether we want to offer this catalog search tool and absolutely need as much feedback as we can get about its strengths, weaknesses, quirks, etc.

Here are some key things to know about the Beta Catalog:

  • Searches are not run against our records in Aleph but instead against our records in WorldCat
  • Presents records from local and more distant libraries, with the opportunity to ILL the item
  • Once a record is found, it queries Aleph for availability and location
  • The interface is mobile friendly (unlike our existing catalog)

We plan to do usability tests on the interface to learn more about how our students actually respond to it.

In the meanwhile, we need you to try to use it as much as possible and to let us know how it’s working out for you. Send your feedback in whatever is the easiest way for you:

  • Talk to Mike Waldman or me or email us or call us
  • Print out screenshots and mark up by hand any notable things
  • Come to the Tech Sharecase

By the third week of June, the four libraries piloting this project will see all their feedback passed on to the Beta Catalog developers (at the IDS Project).

In the coming weeks, you can expect to find links to the Beta Catalog on the library home page. Right now, you can find the Beta Catalog in the following places:

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.