Notable Ebook - Mountains Beyond Mountains

Kidder, Tracy
Mountains Beyond Mountains [electronic resource]
New York: Random House, c2003.


Mountains Beyond Mountains is a Mildred F. Sawyer Library ebook available to Suffolk University faculty, students, and staff.

Paul Farmer is an expert in infectious diseases, a medical anthropologist, and a physician at the Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston. His goal is to transform global health care by focusing on the world's poorest and most unhealthy communities. In the 1980s, Farmer helped found a nonprofit organization called Partners in Health, which cooperates with local health care providers in creating clinics in the underserved, rural communities of Haiti, Peru, and Siberia.

Pulitzer Prize-winning Tracy Kidder chronicles Paul Farmer's remarkable story, focusing on his philanthropic medical practice. Farmer founded a hospital and health center, Zanmi Lasante, in Cange, Haiti. About a million peasant farmers rely on Zanmi Lasante for free medical care, and Kidder describes in some detail the individual stories of the patients, the financial issues of the clinic, and Farmer's role in its success. Farmer spends several months a year in Cange, treating patients and improving treatments, including utilizing drugs necessary to treat resistant tuberculosis. The book is both inspiring and engaging and leads the reader to stop and think about the politics of health care and the ethical issues involved.



[Find Mountains Beyond Mountains by searching the title in the online catalog or through the ebrary link in Databases by Subject, Ebook category]

New Database: GreenFILE

With Earth Day fast approaching, it is worth mentioning a new environmental database that we have just added. Called GreenFILE, it was recently created by EbscoHost, one of Sawyer Library's major database vendors. They describe it as a "research database focusing on the relationship between human beings and the environment, with well-researched but accessible information on topics ranging from global warming to recycling to alternate fuel sources and beyond."

EBSCO launched GreenFILE as a symbol of their corporate "commitment to environmental consciousness." Towards that end, the basic database is actually "freely accessible." Those unaffiliated with Suffolk University who might stumble upon this blog entry should know that you can use the database at www.greeninfoonline.com. However, Suffolk users will definitely want to use GreenFILE through our own library link. In this way, you will be able to take advantage of additional full text options through journals we can link to directly, and also additional journals (provided by non-Ebsco aggregates) that Sawyer Library researchers may access through our online catalog or eJournal locator links found at the end of each results entry.

GreenFILE’s initial release included indexing for more than 600 titles, providing approximately 300,000 records, with full text links for more than 4,600 items, even without Sawyer Library's additional linked full text. Comprised of scholarly journals (like Environmental Health Perspectives) as well as general interest titles (like Mother Earth News), GreenFILE even provides access to some government documents and other materials.

Like all Ebsco databases, you can perform a simple (or boolean operator combined) keyword search, or you may limit your search in some way. For example, if I do a search for groundwater contamination, I end up with 740 results. If I limit that set (on the opening screen) by checking the box for "Scholarly (Peer-Reviewed) Journals" only, my results drop to 635. And if I limit those items only to those for which GreenFILE can provide full text, my results drop to 47, but include articles from the Journal of Environmental Engineering, Journal of Environmental Science & Health, and Global Change Biology.


If I am simply trying to put together some quick readings, clicking the opening screen box to limit to Full Text is a fine option. However, if I am attempting to do more careful research, I might not wish to limit my results right away. Remember, if you click the "Check Library Catalog" link or the "360 Link to Full Text" link below an interesting entry, you may be able to access more journal content through other Sawyer Library resources.

GreenFILE is brand new and is still a very modest (if well-focused) database. Hopefully, it will develop as time passes. Ebsco President Tim Collins has said that his company is “committed to actively adding content to the database to methodically increase its value over time because we want people to have the best information to use when making decisions about their impact on the environment.”

[FIND GreenFILE on our "Databases by Subject" List in the "Sciences" category.]

Notable E-Book: Encyclopedia of Business Ethics and Society

Sawyer Library added the Sage eReference Collection about a year ago, and we have found it to be a good way to search across many useful encyclopedias and reference handbooks from Sage, a major publisher with great strengths in the social sciences.

Within the constraints of budget, we hope to add a new updating collection of reference works each year. One such update was rolled into the collection recently. This 2007 and 2008 set includes new Sage encyclopedias on everything from Political Communication to Cancer and Society to 21st Century Psychology to Organization Studies.

One of the new encyclopedias is the Encyclopedia of Business Ethics and Society. Covering many topics related to corporate responsibility and governance, as well as the deeper philosophical issues related to how business operations impact humanity, this resource is a good starting place for either a quick overview of a known topic, or a means of browsing for topics related to a general concept.

For example, if I search the word sweatshops in the opening page search box

I get three pages of (ranked by relevance) entry hits that include that term. These range from an entry specifically on sweatshops to other related topics like Nike, Business Ethics in Developing Countries, the Worker Rights Consortium (WRC), and Moral Relativism. We even pull up a historical entry on the Triangle Shirtwaist Fire.

Obviously, an academic term paper should not be written completely from encyclopedia entries--found in either online or paper format. But for those interested in getting a basic introduction to a variety of subjects related to business ethics, doing some browsing or searching in this new encyclopedia can be a useful step in the research process.

[FIND the Encyclopedia of Business Ethics and Society by searching the title in our Online Catalog, or through the Sage eReference link in Databases by Subject, E-Books category.]

New Database: Global Market Information Database (GMID)

With the B School's increasing focus on global industry, Sawyer Library recently made a major investment in Euromonitor International’s Global Market Information Database (GMID), a very extensive online information resource providing business intelligence worldwide.


According to the publisher, the database "offers integrated access to internationally comparable statistics, full-text market reports, insightful comment from expert industry and country analysts as well as thousands of sources of further information.

205 countries are researched, with extended coverage of 52.
GMID offers a unique range of international market research

* 4 million+ statistics on industries, countries and consumers
* 15,000 industry, company, country and consumer reports
* Daily articles offering topical reaction to news events
* 25,000 sources of further research information
* Market share and brand share rankings"

Euromonitor has a more-elaborate-than-average authentication process. When you first click on the shortcut, you will need to accept a usage agreement, then, after another relay, you will be transferred into the database. There, you can either do a quick search jump from the green bar in the top border, or explore search options in the left frame.

You may build a search by industries, by country, or by consumer. Below these sorts, there is even a search box that allows you to Search Companies (where you can search by global brand owner [the default] or by national brand owner). And, finally, there are searches of Analysis, which include Company and Country Profiles. To the lower right, there is a list of some of the latest reports. This gives you a sense of how much material is here. Do you want a report on the Supermarkets of Finland? Well, you can find that in GMID.

Often, you will want to step through a "Menu Search" selecting the data you wish to put together. At a certain point, GMID will offer you options in viewing prepared country reports and the like. Explore these.


(Different icons will let you know whether something is Statistics, a Report, or a Source.) Select, filter, and sort your results, and then click Go to move to the next step. When you build your own data set, you can even capture that as an Excel (look for the icons to the upper right of your data chart) to more readily manipulate the data later.


Frankly, GMID is not the most user-friendly database in the world. It is also way too complex to allow for a detailed discussion in a blog entry. I would advise that anyone interested in GMID click on the opening link on the front page that reads "Getting Started: Click Here for a Quick Tour of the Site." You will need a recent version of Adobe Flash Player to take this animated tour, but it is a worthwhile orientation to this resource.

Although most useful for international market research, GMID is certainly useful in putting any brand, company or industry you may be researching into a global perspective. And because general economic and demographic data (often more up-to-date than other web sources) is also available, this resource can even be useful to students and faculty in the social sciences.

[FIND Global Market Information Database (GMID) on our "Databases by Subject" List in the "Business and Management" category.]

New Database: In the First Person Plus

Many of the social sciences are very oriented towards the latest journal literature and the research studies contained therein. History is different. In history, there is still a deep appreciation for the good, old-fashioned book (with its abiliity to analyze people and events at length and in depth). In history there is also a profound interest in "primary documents"--that is, not the work of historians looking back, but rather the memoirs, letters, diaries, oral histories, pamphlets and other materials that actually express the experiences of the people who lived through earlier times and events.

To support that need and interest, Sawyer Library has recently added a new database called In The First Person Plus. This resource, from Alexander Street Press, is not so much a database as an index and platform. In fact, the basic "In the First Person"(ITFP) is a free index to primary documents. But index is the key word here. The fact is that, except for a limited number of materials at federally-funded, academic and historical society websites that are open-access, the free "In the First Person" is an exercise in frustration, as it points to materials the general public cannot get to.

Therefore we have added five underlying databases, designed to add fulltext to "In the First Person"....hence the Plus in the title. Those underlying databases (look for the header "Companion Products" in the top banner of ITFP) are:

*North American Women's Letters and Diaries This database covers from colonial times to 1950 and "includes the immediate experiences of 1,325 women and 150,000 pages of diaries and letters. " Included materials were "chosen using leading bibliographies, supplemented by customer requests and more than 7,000 pages of previously unpublished material."

*The American Civil War: Letters Diaries This file "contains 2,009 authors and approximately 100,000 pages of diaries, letters and memoirs." The collection also includes biographies, an extensive bibliography of the sources in the database, and material licensed from The Civil War Day-by-Day by E.B. Long.

*British and Irish Women's Letters and Diaries This segment includes the "experiences of approximately 500 women, as revealed in over 100,000 pages of diaries and letters....The collection now includes primary materials spanning more than 300 years. "

*North American Immigrant Letters, Diaries and Oral Histories This online resource "includes 2,162 authors and approximately 100,000 pages of information, so providing a unique and personal view of what it meant to immigrate to America and Canada between 1800 and 1950.
Composed of contemporaneous letters and diaries, oral histories, interviews, and other personal narratives, the series provides a rich source for scholars in a wide range of disciplines. In selected cases, users will be able to hear the actual audio voices of the immigrants."

*Black Thought and Culture A great complement to Sawyer Library's Collection of African American Literature, this database "contains 1297 sources with 1100 authors, covering the non-fiction published works of leading African Americans. Particular care has been taken to index this material so that it can be searched more thoroughly than ever before. Where possible the complete published non-fiction works are included, as well as interviews, journal articles, speeches, essays, pamplets, letters and other fugitive material."

Each of the above individual databases can be searched on the own and, frankly, this is probably the best and least confusing way to approach your research here. The larger In the First Person is more likely to send you to other websites. And many of the items identified at these sites are NOT actually available online. So the results can tantalize and thwart the researcher, rather than actually provide all salient documents.

Alas, the PhiloLogic search engine Alexander Street Press uses, is not particularly intuitive. Nor does it seem to take advantage of the value-added materials we subscribe to! If I do a quick search for slave narratives on the opening screen of In the First Person, I am presented with three items, none of which comes from their own databases.

The first, from the excellent "American Memory" project of the Library of Congress, does contain more than 2,300 first-person accounts of slave narratives collected during the Federal Writers' Project, 1936-1938. The second, from the University of North Carolina, also provides some document reproductions. But the third, from Texas A&M, merely lists the narratives in their archival collection.

Yet if I search for slave narrative in Black Thought and Culture alone, I get 92 occurences of that term. Many of these "hits" do lead to useful documents. Unfortunately, even in this database, "slave narratives" is--oddly--not a part of their controlled vocabulary. Still, if I go to the Simple Search screen and click the Term button next to the Subject Headings box, I can, at least, select several subject headings related to slavery and slave life.

Since ITFP and the individual database "Companion Products" do not work that well in conjunction with one another, for best results you should search both ITFP for the general internet links AND one or more of the five fulltext products Alexander Street has put together.

The interface and document linking of In The First Person Plus definitely leaves much to be desired. (There are even some dead links to external sources.) Still, if you are patient, and spend more of your time in the individual databases detailed above, you will find many fascinating and useful "primary documents" of history here.

[FIND In the First Person Plus on our "Databases by Subject" List in the "Social Sciences" category.]

New Database: Small Business Resource Center

Sawyer Library buys and leases many useful databases in support of our Business School (which can be explored at our Databases by Subject: Business and Management list). Although many of our general databases from Business Source Complete(BSC) to the Wall Street Journal provide some coverage of entrepreneurial, family, and "small" business, they are certainly weighed towards larger (mostly public) businesses and their practices. Therefore, to further support research related to start-ups and other entrepreneurial ventures, we have just added a new database from Gale/Cengage called Small Business Resource Center (SBRC).

Self-described as "a comprehensive database offering content that covers all major areas of starting and operating a business, including accounting, finance, human resources, management, marketing, tax and more," SBRC allows you to do keyword searching as you would in any database, but to the right of the basic search box you are also given the chance to explore materials by type of business (e.g., Child Care Services) or see an alphabetical list of the many sample business plans that the database provides, all based on their long-standing Business Plans Handbook series, which we also have in our Gale Virtual Reference Library database.



The database also does a nice job of sorting even keyword search results. For example, if I do a basic search for coffee house,

I am first presented with a sample business plan. But note the other tabs above the results. These will offer me Articles that have that concept in them (some on target, some not), as well as well as Directories entries from Gale's Small Business Handbook that will list everything from trade publications to industry associations to franchise opportunities in the business category of "Gourmet Coffee/Tea House." And the yellow frame to the left offers links to other related subject terms, too.

Many of the magazines and trade journals covered by SBRC can be found in other databases, as well. And Business Source Complete is still, by far and away, our best broad-based business database, so you should always spend some time with BSC (and often several others) when you are doing your research.

Still, the book content and handy organization of SBRC make this a very useful stop for those interested in small businesses and related topics.

[FIND Small Business Resource Center on our "Databases by Subject" List in the "Business and Management" category.]

New Database: AnthroSource

Although Suffolk does not offer a specific major or minor in anthropology, the fact is that anthropology (literally the science of human beings) is part and parcel of countless social science and even business disciplines studied here at the University. Anthropology involves exploring human culture and evolution through research into the biological, cultural, geographical, and historical aspects of humankind.

In honor of the cross-disciplinary value of anthropological research, we have recently added a useful database called AnthroSource.

AnthroSource, self-describes as the "premier online resource serving the research, teaching, and professional needs of anthropologists." Developed by the American Anthropological Association (AAA), in partnership with the University of California Press, AnthroSource "brings 100 years of anthropological material online to scholars."

Content includes current issues for 15 of the AAA's most critical peer-reviewed publications. These include American Anthropologist, American Ethnologist and Medical Anthropology Quarterly.

Here is a more detailed list of the resources the database contains.

Another great feature is that the current AnthroSource content is that it seamlessly integrates with the archival content that Sawyer Library owns through our deep backfile database, JSTOR. So, for key anthropology journals, you can easily search both resources at once.

You might be surprised at the kind of topics covered here. For example, if I simply enter the term breast cancer in the "AnthroSearch" box in the upper left of opening screen, I get dozens of fascinating, relevance-ranked country-specific, ethnic and cross-cultural studies related to women's medical care.





Note the green (for go) dot indicating articles here in AnthroSource, and the red J icon indicating articles available through JSTOR.

AnthroSource has set a lofty goal for itself as "an evolving, interactive repository of research and communications tools designed to bring the most credible and relevant of anthropological scholarship together in one place and to support a strong community of scholars, teachers, and students in the field." Whether it can meet that goal remains to be seen. But at the very least this is an easy-to-use and worthwhile database that might expand your research options for a wide variety of topics.

[FIND AnthroSource on our "Databases by Subject" List in the "Social Sciences" category.]