Database Alert: SpringerLink Changes, Use New Link

Please be advised that SpringerLink (like LexisNexis Academic and Wiley Online Library) changed their platform this past weekend. Unfortunately, the company did not warn us that the advanced/citation search (which is a much better approach for those researching a topic or tracking a specific article) would no longer be a stable link. Therefore, the links on our database pages and guides are not currently viable. They will produce an error.

Here is the valid basic link to the database, set to run through our proxy:

http://0-www.springerlink.com.library.law.suffolk.edu/

Use this URL while we get our links changed through Web Services. Or, you may simply adjust the shortcut in the address window. Our links produce a Page Not Found error that has this address:

Simply remove the error part of the URL, as in

and hit enter, and you should be able to access the database with no problem.

Advanced Search still provides more research options, but you must now click on the button just to the right of GO in the electric orange top banner to get to advanced search.

We are sorry for any inconvenience. Please contact us with any questions or concerns. All of our links should be updated shortly.

Database Alert: Wiley InterScience Becomes Wiley Online Library

Be advised, familiar database Wiley InterScience will transform into Wiley Online Library during the weekend of August 7th and 8th, 2010.

What's in a name? Well, perhaps Wiley wanted to rebrand because the word "InterScience" was not only vague, but also implied an overwhelming orientation towards the pure and applied sciences. But the fact is that Wiley has always covered everything from Business, Economics, Finance & Accounting to Communication & Media Studies. Now the database sounds more subject-neutral.

We have been advised that there will be a period of downtime over the launch weekend. Wiley InterScience will no longer be available from Saturday 7 August at 04:00 am New York EDT. Wiley Online Library is due to go live on Sunday 8 August at 12:00 pm New York EDT.

During this transition period, users will see a message explaining the reason for the unavailability and will be directed to an informational webpage for more details. This interruption in service is necessary "to facilitate a smooth transition to Wiley Online Library."

Once the change occurs, the publisher states that "Wiley Online Library will host the world’s broadest and deepest multidisciplinary collection of online resources covering life, health and physical sciences, social science and the humanities. Built on the latest technology and designed with extensive input from scholars around the world, Wiley Online Library will deliver seamless integrated access to over 4 million articles from 1500 journals."

While we have access to most of the Wiley Journals since 1997, we do NOT own all of the book content that Wiley is also loading into the database. We own some of their ebooks (both monograph and reference) but not even close to all of them. Therefore, since the most valuable material for academic research is peer-reviewed journal literature, you might want to do a keyword, author or other search on the Advanced Search start page and then, on your results page, filter the results in the right frame, clicking Journals to limit the list of citations. See the circled area in the example below:

To quickly see whether you have access to an article, chapter or entry, look for a padlock icon that is unlocked. Accessible materials will fall into three categories, as below.

Our crackerjack librarian team is going to try to stay ahead of these changes but we must wait, in some cases, for the Publisher to make their switchovers and for Web Services to update links. And with all the hundreds of records in the online catalog, we cannot guarantee that all OPAC links will work immediately. Our eJournal Locator company, Serial Solutions, has been working with Wiley during this preparatory period, so when trying to track a journal title, you might want to start by checking the Journal (not article) Title in the eJournal Locator.

We hope this transition goes smoothly. If you have any questions or problems with Wiley content, please stop by, call or email us and we will be happy to assist you.

For more information from Wiley, a page describing improvements and features can be found here. An descriptive flyer can be found here. And a PowerPoint intro to the new platform is available here. Even more tutorials and information should be available at the Online Library's homepage (just look for the turquoise link to the right of the page).

Notable E-Books: SAGE Reference Series on Green Society

From chemistry to government, students and faculty in a wide variety of disciplines are increasingly interested in greener options and what it takes to move society towards an economically- AND environmentally-sustainable future. To help our researchers get a grounding in a full range of topics related to the environment, we have recently added a set of six new eReference titles published by Sage as their SAGE Reference Series on Green Society. Titles in this basic encyclopedia set include Green Energy, Green Politics, Green Food, Green Cities, Green Business and Green Consumerism. The hundreds of entries you will find in these online volumes can provide useful overviews on many areas of interest.

Each of the title links above will bring you to an individual A-Z eReference book. (You will have to authenticate through the proxy server to access these from off-campus.) Once in a title, you can browse the entry list, consult a subject index, or simply put a keyword term or word combination in the search box in the middle of the screen. If I search for greenwashing in the Green Consumerism encyclopedia, I pull up a good assortment of entries. The first, sorted for relevance, is on that exact topic. But entries like "Green Marketing" are also retrieved by this search and are worth reading.

One of the nice things about the Sage eReference platform is that when you retrieve an individual entry, the database will suggest other topics and will even link to different but related reference titles in the left frame. However, some of these system-generated suggestions are a bit of a stretch! So, if you want to explore further, you might be better off simply doing another search for your topic in the full Sage eReference platform (which is linked in the upper left and right of every platform page). This produces another relevance-ranked list of entries.

If I do this with my greenwashing topic, I get entries from most of the other Green Society titles, but I also identify worthwhile entries in some unrelated Sage titles like the Encyclopedia of Business Ethics and Society.

When you use Sage eReference, don't ignore the icon links at the top of the left frame. These help you to print or email entries. And here you can also see quick citations to the article you reading in APA, MLA and Chicago formatting. And don't forget the last link to "Further Readings." This page will provide leads and (in some cases, active links) to additional resources. These can be handy. For a topic like "greenwashing," knowing what Greenpeace has to say on the topic might be edifying. However, keep in mind that many professors would not find some of Sage's linked suggested readings to be academically acceptable. So, always check with your professor before citing any secondary materials, or even, for that matter, a basic encyclopedia entry like those in the Sage "Green Society" series.

Staff Notes: Farewell to Bob Dugan

With a mix of sadness and great congratulations, the Staff of Sawyer Library says goodbye to Robert E. Dugan, our Library Director of twelve years, as he moves on to a new position as Dean of Libraries at the University of West Florida.

Bob has seen us through many changes--most especially the planning and building of the new Sawyer Library. The old Sawyer Library, largely subterranean, at 8 Ashburton Place, was a challenge for both staff and library users. Bob tried to keep us ahead of the curve, especially in areas of technology--Sawyer Library was one of the first libraries to loan laptops to users and provide them with an in-house wireless network--but the old Sawyer Library was cramped, dark, and an awkward maze of underground floors and mezzanines with no room for new books or new electronics.

Bob worked tirelessly throughout 2004, 2005 and 2006 to get the library planned and built, often rushing back and forth from his Ashburton Place office to the construction site, hard hat in hand--see picture above of "Bob the Builder," hardhat adorned--to attend to every detail. The new library opened, appropriately enough, on Bob's birthday, May 15th, in 2006. (And one of his proudest accomplishments is that the project was on time, under budget, and the Library did not miss a single hour of regularly scheduled service.)

In the new library, Bob continued to keep technology current. Again, our library was an early adopter of several new technologies, including the now popular check-out Kindles. And did you know that Bob was also our IT guy? Bob has spent countless hours "re-ghosting" and repairing Library PCs, laptops, and printers, even filling paper trays, and changing toner. And he also helped many faculty members and departments with software problems and repairs, doing quite a few office and house calls over the years. Clearly, this was not your average--"Don't bother me, I'm thinking big thoughts, wearing my tie!"--library director.

To say he wasn't afraid to get his hands dirty was an understatement. Which is not to say that Bob didn't, in fact, have "big thoughts." Bob has authored and co-authored a great many articles and books on library best practices. His publications include Action Plan for Outcomes Assessment in Your Library, U.S. Government on the Web, and Revisiting Outcomes Assessment in Higher Education. And his latest book, Viewing Library Metrics from Different Perspectives: Inputs, Outputs, and Outcomes just won a prestigious award at the latest ALA Convention.

Bob has even taught classes related to library management at our local "Library School," Simmons Graduate School of Library and Information Science.

Bob got into this library almost every morning, well before opening, to make sure that the library was ready to greet its public, and he stayed late many a night to set up for and supervise readings and events in the Poetry Center, a facility that he cared deeply about. Shooting video, lining up rows of chairs, Bob did everything he could to make every Poetry Center event a successful one.

His dedication and hard work are not to be questioned. Was he always the most warm and fuzzy boss to work for? I'd have to say no. (Sorry, Dude!) You really did not want to be the person to tell him another printer was broken or some act of petty vandalism had occurred. To this I can testify. But what this proved above all else is how deeply he cared about every printer, every light fixture, every database, and every resource this library offered to the Suffolk community.

That level of commitment and techno-savvy will be very difficult to find again.

So, thanks, Bob! All the best to you in Pensacola. Happy trails to you and to Peg (and your feline pals). And don't forget to crank up the Sugarland on the drive south.

[Bob's Farewell Party, hosted by Dean Greenberg, will be held in the Poetry Center on the Library's 3rd Floor at 3pm on Wednesday, July 7th. Please stop by and celebrate Bob's great service to the University and his future success! And if you can't make the fête--or even if you can--and you want to leave well wishes here, feel free to do so.]

Notable E-Book: Social History of the United States

History has too often been the story of the rich and powerful (as well as the white and male). In recent years, there has been a movement to reflect the lives of working ("ordinary") folk, people of color and women in history, too. We have many databases that will help scholars get at primary documents--databases like Social and Cultural History: Letters and Diaries Online (from Alexander Street Press) and Primary Sources in U.S. History (from LexisNexis). Reference books can also be oriented towards primary documents. (For an example, see the Milestone Documents series, that we have in print and online through the publisher.)

But beyond primary documents, researchers might be interested in finding secondary overview information about changes in American society in the Twentieth Century, and how these changes impacted everyday Americans. For this need, we have recently added an eBook encyclopedia consisting of ten volumes worth of scholarly analysis of United States history in the last century. It is called Social History of the United States, and is available on the ABC-CLIO (formerly Greenwood) platform.

After linking from the catalog, you will be at a page related to this particular reference set. You can browse contents from the left frame, or you will see a green Quick Search box in the upper left that is already set up to search "within this title." (If you want to search all of our ABC-CLIO books, just change the setting of the search box.)

The ABC-CLIO interface is not the most elegant in the world, but it does the trick and quickly gets you into the long chapters in this series. There are lots of tables (which don't always display well in html), charts, and tables, as well as a nice array of historical photographs.

Caption: This store in Oakland, California, was closed following orders that all Japanese Americans evacuate to internment camps during World War II. The owner, a University of California graduate of Japanese descent, placed the “I am an American” sign on the storefront the day after Pearl Harbor was attacked by Japanese forces in December 1941. (National Archives)

Above the text in the large right frame are many menu options, including print, email, cite and link functions, as well as a quick-use dictionary (the American Heritage College Dictionary, Fourth Edition). This extensive set has a little bit of everything and can be useful for anyone studying American society in the last century. A publisher PDF description of the series can be found here.

New Database: Oxford Handbooks Online

Not everyone likes to read an entire novel or scholarly treatise online, but almost everyone is happy to read a short essay or article online--especially to get an introductory overview of a specific research topic. Suffolk researchers do NOT need to use unreliable and anonymous web resources (like Wikipedia) when they are starting their research. Instead, they can use the more substantive and reliable materials we provide in electronic reference databases like Gale Virtual Reference Library (GVRL), Oxford Reference Online Premium (OROP) and Sage eReference.

A few months ago we added yet another very useful array of electronic reference books that can definitely help our users get a grounding in a variety of topics related to Business & Management, Philosophy, Political Science, and Religion. This database, just launched last fall, is called Oxford Handbooks Online (OHO). Consisting of dozens of volumes in the 4 subject modules, Oxford Handbooks contain specially commissioned articles--over 2500 so far--with each volume containing between twenty and forty original essays.

Let's say that I am interested in how the economic concept of the "gravity equation" relates to international trade. Well, the Oxford Handbook of International Business (which we happen to have in both print and electronic form, has a good overview essay on just this topic. You might find statistics or tables or graphs in OHO essays. And since authors are also supposed to do a literature review, the commissioned articles include both references and a bibliography of targeted additional readings on the topic.

OHO tries to embed usable links in their online essays that might link you to a journal article or a statistical resource elsewhere. However, be warned, just because a link is provided, it doesn't mean that Sawyer Library owns access rights to the secondary material. Follow the link and if you cannot reach the additional material, double-check access through the online catalog or our eJournal Locator. (And, as always, feel free to talk to Reference if you still cannot find the material you are looking for.)

To search the database, you can click on one of the modules on the OHO homepage to explore a particular subject category, you can put a search in the box directly below the main logo, or you can do an advanced search by clicking the link in the upper left frame. To get some sense of the range of available titles, take a look at this list. (OHO is updated three times a year and we are attempting to purchase all new available volumes.)

Oxford University Press also did an introductory PowerPoint available here. And the database also includes an online tutorial guided tour.

[FIND OHO on several "Database by Subject" Lists, including the one for eBooks. ]

Notable Ebooks: Who's Buying Series

Finding marketing demographics in a well-organized and tidy form is sometimes a challenge. Although we do have entire databases devoted to demographics, like DemographicsNow, and others that try to collect data on consumption of products in the global community, like Euromonitor's Global Market Information Database (GMID), the fact is that both of these databases have quite a learning curve. And a bit of patience is required to use them effectively. Sometimes, people just want a quick demographics snapshot of this or that, which is why the print resources published by New Strategist have been popular resources with our users since before either of the above mentioned databases existed.

New Strategist publications look at everything from public opinion (American Attitudes) to Household Spending to characteristics of specific generations (e.g., The Millennials). And a few years ago, the company started a "Who's Buying" series of small volumes covering a variety of market segments like apparel, health care, travel and pets. We used to have these volumes only in print form, with the latest editions kept at the Reference Desk. But we recently added several New Strategist publications, including the Who's Buying Series as eBooks in our Gale Virtual Reference Library (GVRL) collection, thus extending where and how our users can access these materials.

You can, of course, simply go to GVRL as a database and plug in a topic. If, for example, I search for fast food restaurants, I'll pull up a great variety of materials. These include industry histories, biographies of business leaders like Dave Thomas (of Wendy's fame) AND sections pulled out of the Who's Buying at Restaurants and Carry-Outs.

In many cases, you'll want to see these other GVRL resources, as well.

However, if you only want the specific Who's Buying guide, one option is to look up the individual volume, like the Pets guide, in the online catalog,


and click on the link to the online version, and then either use the search box to left of the opening eBook screen to search "within this publication" or browse the "eTable of Contents" linked in the middle of the page.

And if you don't know the name of a particular book in the series, simply browse the titles in this series list from the online catalog. (The other option would be to pick to the individual titles from the "Social Science" (!) list on the GVRL opening screen, but this is not the best or easiest way of getting to these volumes.)

As handy as these little guides can be, don't forget to use the other databases we have, which may provide you with more up-to-date or varied information. Besides the ones mentioned in the first paragraph or this blog entry, there are many more linked from our subject database lists and from our many research guides, including ones on marketing and demography.