New Database: CQ Almanac Online

If you have ever researched national legislative matters, there's a good chance that you have encountered and consulted a set of massive green books called, at various times, Congressional Quarterly Almanac, CQ Almanac, and CQ ... Almanac Plus. These annuals provide "Year-by-year analysis on politics and policy in the U.S. Congress" and are a treasure trove of "Legislative Analysis, Policy Tracking, Data, and Primary Sources." CQ Press says of this resource: "Building on the reporting and analysis done throughout the year by CQ's award-winning news staff, the Almanac offers original narrative accounts of every major piece of legislation that lawmakers considered during a Congressional session. Arranged thematically, CQ Almanac organizes, distills, and cross-indexes for permanent reference the full year in Congress and in national politics. Its clear and concise language makes the Almanac an essential resource."

Unfortunately, the books are unwieldy and not a lot of fun to deal with if you need to use several volumes to track a particular issue or legislative path.

To add flexibility and ease to this valuable resource, we have added CQ Almanac Online as a new Library database. You can access the database through the direct link above, through a link in the online catalog, or as part of the CQ Political Reference Suite, which includes other valuable governmental research tools including Historic Documents, the Political Handbook of the World, Vital Statistics on American Politics, and Congress and the Nation.

CQ Press is still loading some years, but upon completion, coverage will include the contents of all volumes from 1945 to date. And an additional tool called the "Policy Tracker" is also still in planning stages.

For now, you can do keyword searches from the search bar, or you can browse by topic or by the number of the Congress. Series appendices include CQ Key Votes Tables, Conservative Coalition Tables, Floor Votes Tables, a Glossary of Congressional Terms, Interest Group Ratings, Party Unity Tables, Presidential Messages, Presidential Support Tables, Public Laws, and Voting Participation Tables.

We hope that you find this resource useful!


[FIND CQ Almanac Online as part of our CQ Political Reference Suite on our "Databases by Subject" List in the "Social Sciences" category.]

Did You Know....Sawyer Library Does Library Instruction?

The business of the Reference team at Sawyer Library is to empower all of our users, from undergraduate students to faculty, to achieve the best possible research results to meet their academic research needs. To this end, we not only answer individual "reference questions" (in person, and by phone and email), but we also do Library Instruction.

Library Instruction is usually initiated by a faculty member for a class that will require students to do academic-level research. We usually chat with the faculty member in person or by phone (call us at [617-573] x8532), find out something about the course and assignment--if we can get the syllabus and/or the assignment sheet ahead of time, it's a help--and design a presentation of a half-hour to 45 minutes that will give students basic research techniques training and also show examples of the best search strategies in the most appropriate electronic resources for that class.

Fall is our busy season, since we do many frosh courses like SU-101 and the freshman seminars, but we are happy to set something up for other research-oriented classes within the constraints of our staffing and existing schedule. (In other words, we book up fast!) It is best to stop by or call us, but if it is more convenient we also have a Library Instruction Request Form. We will follow-up with an email confirmation, and probably ask a few follow-up questions.

There is also information about Library Instruction at this faculty services page.

In addition, because there are so many new students and faculty at the start of the academic year, we also offer several "drop-in" sessions. There is no need to make an appointment for these sessions, during which a Reference Librarian will provide a brief orientation towards the Sawyer Library webpage, resources, and services. Simply come to the Reference Desk at one of the below times. These sessions take about 15 to 20 minutes.



Wednesday, September 5th 5:00pm
Thursday, September 6th 1:00pm
and 7:15pm
Saturday, September 8th Noon
Monday, September 10th 5:00pm
Tuesday, September 11th 1:30pm
Wednesday, September 12th Noon
Saturday, September 15th 5:10pm


And remember, whether you can make one of these sessions or not, we are here to help. Come in and talk to us if you are ever having problems finding or accessing the information you need!

New Database: BioOne.2

Here is another "New" database, that is not so much new as "New and Improved!" (as advertisers love to say). We have actually had the scholarly scientific database, BioOne, for a couple of years. But we have just added a new module of journals to that database that has been given the dubious name of BioOne.2.

First, a word on BioOne from the publisher: "BioOne is the product of innovative collaboration between scientific societies, libraries, academe and the private sector. BioOne brings to the Web a uniquely valuable aggregation of the full-texts of high-impact bioscience research journals. Most of BioOne’s titles are published by small societies and other not-for-profit organizational publishers, and, until now, have been available only in printed form."

BioOne launched their original aggregation, now retroactively dubbed "BioOne.1", with forty titles in 2001. Now at maturity, the collection includes over eighty high-impact publications. BioOne.1 provides the scholarly community with a must-have collection of critical, high quality titles across the biological, ecological, and environmental sciences. Most of BioOne.1's titles are ISI ranked and available back to Volume 1, Issue 1 through JSTOR.

BioOne.2 is BioOne's new collection, and currently includes forty high-impact titles, with additional journals to be added through 2008. The majority of BioOne.2 titles, many of which are internationally based, have not been available online until now. A subscription to the BioOne.2 collection includes access to six titles from Japan's UniBio Press.

To see a list of all 41 of the added journals, please take a look at this PDF.

By the way, BioOne automatically loads both journal sets, so you can just search for your topic on the opening screen or browse issues. You will simply see a globe-like symbol with a 2 or a 1 next to it--this will indicate which set that particular citation or journal issue belongs to.

We hope that researchers in the biosciences will find this addition useful!

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

Library News: Magnificent Map Presented to the Library

If you've visited the Poetry Center or Paul's Copy Center office on the Library's 3rd floor recently, perhaps you have seen the large, magnificent map that now resides on the wall opposite the group study tables on 3. If not, please do come by and take a look. It is a fascinating piece of cartographic history!

It is a centuries-old map of Africa. And here are a few details:

Nova Africae Geographica Et Hydrographica Descriptio
Blaeu-Jaillot Wall Map of Africa [Paris, 1669]

46 ¼ x 66 inches; 16 sheets (including text & title) joined & mounted on new linen, encased in a fine Dutch-style archival frame.

This Blaeu-Jaillot map is very rare and exceptionally well-preserved. It stands as the visually richest map of Africa produced during the Golden Age of Mapmaking. It is the first edition of the Paris plates. Alexis-Hubert Jaillot faithfully re-engraved Willem Blaeu’s map of 1608 capturing all the verve and visual drama of its Dutch model, but rendering it more accessible and readable by providing the text panels in both French and Latin and by translating place names into French. Particularly striking are the illustrations of ships engaged in battle or confronting sea monsters or monstrous seas. Notable is the variation in the conventional Neptune depiction of the sea-god, as well as the cartouche with a European woman flanked by two African women, and a border displaying contemporary depictions of costumes and centers of trade. The interior of the image of Africa teems with images of wildlife of all kinds.

This is an amazing historical document, and it is the very generous gift of Dr. Gerald Rizzo, the founder of the AFRITERRA Foundation, which is a a non-profit cartographic library and archive assembling and preserving the original rare maps of Africa.

For more on the Afriterra Foundation and and the Afriterra Collection, visit their website, where you will find many other digitized maps of Africa for armchair exploration!

Did You Know....Ways to Find and Browse New Books?

At the end of last week, I updated our display of Sawyer Library New Books in the case outside our front door. Stop by and take a look!

And here's a little known fact: The books in that display case should also be on our shelves available for check-out. How can a book be in two places at once, you ask? Well, I hate tying up new books in a display case, so what you actually see in the display are the dust wrappers of new books covering old "dummy" volumes. Therefore, any book you see in the case should actually be on our shelves waiting for you to check it out--unless another user beat you to it, of course.

That brings me to saying a few words about where and how to find new books at Sawyer Library. Those that are not being used as Reserve readings for the current session, should be in one of two places. If the book was received quite recently, it is probably on our "Sawyer Library New Books" case, which is next to the stairs on our entrance level, right across from the shorter end of our Reference Desk. Books are shelved in call number order there, so you can find a specific book you want and quite easily browse by subject.

If a book is currently on the "New Books" Shelf, it will have that designation in the online catalog. For example:

We generally remove new books from that shelf when they have been displayed for three months or when we run out of room, whichever happens first. So, if a book has been in our collection for four months, there's a good chance that the location would simply read "Sawyer," meaning that the book--if not checked out--would be in our general book stacks on the 4th Floor (two levels up from our entrance).

There's another way to electronically browse our recent books, and that is by looking at a file that our esteemed Technical Services Librarian, Becky, produces from time to time. This can be found from the main homepage of the online catalog. This list is called Sawyer Library / New Acquisitions and can be scrolled through, or browsed by Library of Congress Classification Subject, when you click on the appropriate jump button.

Of course, another way to see what's new is to simply do a keyword search in the online catalog for a word, words or phrase of your choice. The keyword search sorts by both relevance and date, so the most recent and most relevant items should appear at the top of any results list you get. And remember, if you get too many results from Law or some other Suffolk library, you can simply use the limiting "scope" option at the top of the screen to specify that the book must be in Sawyer Library.

Policy Inquiries - Exchange Student Library Access

We have received a comment asking whether exchange students have access to the Mildred F. Sawyer Library and its resources. Library reserve books and subscription electronic resources are available to current Suffolk University students and staff only. A current ID is required to borrow books or to access databases. An exchange student who presently attends Suffolk University will thus be able to access all Library resources.

Future questions requiring a reply should not be sent as a Blog comment, since we have no direct way of responding. The Blog software blocks the commenter's email address. It is best to call the reference desk at 617-573-8532 or email the reference staff at sawlib@suffolk.edu. In most cases we respond the same day.

Database Alert: ProQuest Newspaper Database Downtime

We just received the following notice from ProQuest, the company that provides our Wall Street Journal, New York Times Historical, and our new Massachusetts Newsstand databases:

"ProQuest will be taking a maintenance window to upgrade our network hardware. A nine (9) hour maintenance window will take place to install these upgrades. The window will begin Saturday, June 9, 2007, at 22:00 EDT to Sunday, June 10, 2007 at 7:00 EDT."

Since these maintenance chores can sometimes take longer than expected, please be advised of this known downtime issue.