May 8, 2015: The 70th Anniversary of V-E Day, the end of World War II in Europe.

No single blog post could ever encompass the enormous tragedy of World War II. For that matter, many books only try to take on selected aspects of the war, its causes, and consequences. Here is a small sample of book titles available at the Sawyer Library:


Print:

Swansong 1945: A Collective Diary of the Last Days of the Third Reich
By Walter Kempowski; translated from the German by Shaun Whiteside.

Five Days that Shocked the World:
Eyewitness Accounts from Europe at the End of World War II
By Nicholas Best

The Holocaust and the Revival of Psychological History
By Judith M. Hughes

E-Books:

The War in the Empty Air:
Victims, Perpetrators, and Postwar Germans"
By Dagmar Barnouw

Getting History Right:
East and West German Collective Memories of the Holocaust and War"
By Mark A. Wolfgram

The War Complex:
World War II in Our Time
By Marianna Torgovnick

Interesting reading (seriously) on freight, shipping, supply chains, and logistics.

Listed below is a sample of titles that relate to containers and freight shipping. All are available through the Sawyer Library.

The "Handbook of Ocean Container Transport Logistics" is a scholarly reference book, but the others (especially the three print titles) are interesting and relatively quick to read in their entirety.

All of the titles should awaken respect for those who work to transport the items that are at the center of the consumer economy.

Ninety Percent of Everything :
Inside Shipping, The Invisible Industry that Puts Clothes on Your Back, Gas in Your Car, and Food on Your Plate.
By Rose George
Sawyer 4th Floor
HE571 .G465 2013

The Box :
How the Shipping Container Made the World Smaller and the World Economy Bigger.
By Marc Levinson
Sawyer 4th Floor
TA1215 .L47 2006

The Container Principle :
How a Box Changes the Way we Think.
By Alexander Klose ;
translated by Charles Marcrum II
Sawyer New Books
TA1215 .K5813 2015

Box Boats:
How Container Ships Changed the World.
By Brian J. Cudahy
E-BOOK

Handbook of Ocean Container Transport Logistics:
Making Global Supply Chains Effective.
Edited by Chung-Yee Lee, Qiang Meng
E-BOOK

Development of Containerization:
Success Through Vision, Drive and Technology.
By Hans van Ham, Joan Rijsenbrij
E-BOOK

Some New (& Relatively New) Books

The necessity of using a computer for school work is universal, however familiarity with the details of using that computer is not universal. Listed below are some recent additions to the Sawyer Library that might be of interest:

Computing for Ordinary Mortals by Robert St. Amant, Oxford University Press, 2013.

Master your Mac: Simple Ways to Tweak, Customize, and Secure OS X by Matt Cone, No Starch Press, c2013. (Access online from the online catalog, via eBrary.)

Exploring Windows 8 for Dummies by Galen Gruman John Wiley and Sons, 2012. (Access online from the online catalog, via eBrary.)

Notable E-Book:The American Senate: An Insider's History

Many of us have concluded that the political process in Washington is pretty much "broken."  But how did it get that way?  And does history help us to see not only the problem, but possible solutions?  This new book, delivered as an e-book on our eBrary platform, might have a few insights to offer.  Kirkus Reviews says that "Two longtime observers of our government in action offer a multidimensional study of the history, traditions and culture of the United States Senate." And, Oxford University Press, the publisher, claims it is a "groundbreaking, comprehensive history of the United States Senate" that comes from "twenty years of research by two of the authorities on Senate history, the longtime Time magazine congressional correspondent and the former Historian of the U.S. Senate."  They further suggest that the book "offers surprising insights into the origins of partisan gridlock."  If you'd like to see more from the publisher page, including a link to to a Google Books preview, click here.

The book is quite new, but (so far) the reviewers are impressed.  A review in Library Journal said "Journalist MacNeil (chief congressional correspondent, TIME; Forge of Democracy: The House of Representatives) and Baker (former official historian, U.S. Senate; Traditions of the United States Senate) survey here "the world's greatest deliberative body," in which 1,950 senators have served over the past 200-plus years. There's potential for a vast, bewildering story, but the authors don't lose the forest amid the trees. Particularly strong are their accounts of presidential interaction with the Senate, starting with President Washington, who personally visited the Senate in accord with his constitutional mandate to get their "Advice and Consent" but never visited again. The authors explain the rise in power of the majority leader-a development from the tenure of Republican Robert A. Taft in the 1940s and later Democrat Lyndon B. Johnson in the 1950s, and how incremental changes have created what they call the mess that is the modern filibuster....An excellent choice for history buffs and political scientists."

Kirkus Reviews was also enthusiastic: "Whether discussing money and elections, campaign reform, the origins of the filibuster, the Senate’s investigatory power or its role in ratifying treaties or debating the great issues of the day, the authors pack the narrative with wide-ranging information and anecdotes."  They concluded: "A useful, engaging primer for anyone wishing to understand the politics, precedent and procedures that have shaped the Senate."

And the journal Campaigns & Elections wrapped up their review by saying: "From the way money has changed the election of Senators to Senate investigations, no work will give you a better look into what's really happening inside the upper chamber."

E-books offer great flexibility, as you can read them--after authenticating yourself through our proxy server--without ever coming to the library.  (Although, we're always happy to see you!)  However, as with a physical book, only one reader can access this title at a time.  If you create an account with eBrary, you can download chapters onto your own device, though  For more on this option, see this Library Guide.

Notable E-Book: Handbook of Psychology (2nd Edition)

Cross-searchability and 24/7 anywhere and everywhere access options have always made eReference books attractive.  But sometimes there are other considerations, too.  In the case of the new Handbook of Psychology, one of those considerations is the amount of shelf space we'll save!  For the Handbook of Psychology is, in print, twelve large volumes.   So, we opted for the electronic version, which allows users to do keyword searching across all volumes as well as browse and open material from a table of contents.

Wiley, the publisher, claims that "The Handbook of Psychology, Second Edition, provides psychologists, practitioners, researchers, and students with complete and up-to-date information related to the field of psychology and behavioral science.  New topics include discoveries based in neuroscience, clinical psychology's new interest in evidence-based practice and mindfulness, and new findings in social, developmental and forensic psychology."

And reviewers are also impressed. Alan Kazdin, in PsycCRITIQUES, recently said "The work is extraordinary in scope by virtually any metric. The consistencies of the individual contributions across the many volumes are remarkable in level of depth and style of writing. The Handbook of Psychology is a major work without peer in scope and coverage of the conceptual, empirical, and applied advances of psychology. The volumes provide a status report on psychological science, even though clearly selective in their contents. There are broad issues to raise that span many volumes and areas of our field. Overall the volumes reflect an enormous accomplishment, statement, and status report. There is no other set of volumes I have seen that is as comprehensive, integrative, or enlightening as this Handbook."

The Wiley Online Library interface does have some quirks, however.  On the landing page, when you enter the Handbook, browsing is relatively simple, just expand the volume links in the lower middle of the page.  Searching is a little trickier, because if you just put your search terms in the box in the upper right, you'll actually search across the entire Wiley Online Library, so you'll likely pull up everything BUT content from this Handbook--including many articles and book chapters we don't have access to.  So, instead, click the link (highlighted in yellow in the above screenshot) to "Search in this Book."  You can search specific titles, authors or sections if you select from the the check boxes below the main search box, or just put in keywords.  If there are multiple hits, Wiley will sort them by relevance.

When you click on an entry in your search results

note that you first see an abstract.  Tabs provide links to the article, figures (illustrations, tables, graphs and photographs--a handy feature!) and to the references.  Look to the right (as circled in yellow in the above screenshot) if you want to go straight to a PDF of the entry/article.  You see that there are also article tools.  These include the ability to export a reference to RefWorks.

Here is a list of the twelve volumes of the Handbook of Psychology:

Volume 1--History of Psychology
Volume 2--Research Methods in Psychology
Volume 3--Behavioral Neuroscience
Volume 4--Experimental Psychology
Volume 5--Personality and Social Psychology
Volume 6--Developmental Psychology,
Volume 7--Educational Psychology
Volume 8--Clinical Psychology,
Volume 9--Health Psychology
Volume 10--Assessment Psychology
Volume 11--Forensic Psychology
Volume 12--Industrial and Organizational Psychology

As you can tell, this is a detailed and valuable resource.  As the publisher says: "While the field of psychology has been rich in both comprehensive encyclopedias that offer brief listings on a wide range of topics as well as in handbooks devoted to specific topics in the field, there has not previously been any single handbook designed to cover the broad scope of psychological science and practice. Handbook of Psychology fills the gap and provides the only singular source of information on the field of psychology."

Psychology researchers, and those interested in behavioral science aspects of other fields of research, take note of this new addition!

Notable E-Book: Encyclopedia of Video Games

Now, here's a reference set that might be fun to browse through!  (Of course, we also purchased it because it relates to curriculum here at Suffolk.)  It's the eBook version of a two-volume reference book called Encyclopedia of Video Games: The Culture, Technology, and Art of Gaming.  Published by Greenwood, we got it on the popular and easy-to-use Gale Virtual Reference Library platform.

Booklist says of this resource: "Quite a range of topics is presented in this timely set, marking the fiftieth anniversary of the first real video game (Spacewar!, 1962). The 300-plus signed entries are arranged alphabetically in two volumes, from Abstraction-Ludology and machinima (digital art) to Zeebo (a 3G-enabled game console).The style is very readable throughout. Unfamiliar terms are defined (Advergame, Deludic play, Speedruns) as well as popular ones (Joysticks, Resolution, Scrolling), making this accessible even to someone who knows little about the topic. Entries include biographies, types of games (including those classified as racing, shooting, strategy, survival horror); companies (Atari, SEGA, Sony); groups (Entertainment Software Association, World Cyber Games); platforms (Nintendo Wii); terms; and selected games. Most entries run about two pages, with four pages for MMORPGs and six for Simulation games."

The journal Reference Reviews indicates that "The encyclopedia defines “video games” in its broadest sense to include arcade games, console games, computer games, handheld games, and mobile games. In addition to the history of video games, it details such diverse applications of video games as entertainment, education and training, psychological experiments, and therapy. It also discusses the study of video games from many perspectives including computer science, philosophy, art history, and political science; and describes the use of video games worldwide. Controversial topics, such as gaming addiction, violence and censorship, copyright and piracy, and the use of video games in military training are also addressed."

School Library Journal adds: "Along with examinations of (selected) products from Pong to Sony PS3 and densely technical disquisitions on the "JAMMA Standard," "Z-Axis Depth," and other expert-level knowledge, articles covering such topics as "Girls' Games," "Education (Religious)," "Ludology," and "Cheating" explore social and psychological aspects of the pastime. Furthermore, articles on gaming in a number of countries and regions of the world provide international scope."

Choice concluded that "This two-volume encyclopedia features a great deal of practical, theoretical, and historical information about the development of video games."  But the reviewer also thought that the organization showed a "lack of clarity" and therefore "the work is possibly most useful as an e-book."  Good thing that e-book is exactly the format we chose for this encyclopedia!

Notable E-Book: Popular Controversies in World History

Sometimes, it is tempting to think of history as a static and set and agreed upon.  But nothing, of course, could be further from the truth.  Our perceptions of the past are constantly changing and on many (many) topics, historians and the general public continue to debate "what happened" decades, even centuries, after events played out.

We've just added a new eReference set that makes for a fun browse because it gathers together scores of those historical debates in one place.

Popular Controversies in World History : Investigating History's Intriguing Questions, edited by Steven L. Danver, was published by ABC-CLIO, but we deliver it on our familiar Gale Virtual Reference Library (GVRL) platform.  Here, you can easily search, browse, read and print 58 entry/chapters contained in all four volumes.

Here's how the publisher describes it: "Covering prehistoric times to the modern era, this fascinating resource presents pro-and-con arguments regarding unresolved, historic controversies throughout the development of the world. Did ancient Egyptians really use slaves to construct the pyramids? Could Charles Darwin have "borrowed" his idea of evolution from sociologist and philosopher Herbert Spencer? Was John F. Kennedy elected president only as a result of voter fraud committed by the Mafia? Researchers exploring the earliest eras of history have offered vigorous, plausible answers—both yes and no—for these and a number of other unresolved questions.

Popular Controversies in World History: Investigating History's Intriguing Questions offers uniquely compelling and educational examinations of pivotal events and puzzling phenomena, from the earliest evidence of human activity to controversial events of the 20th century.

From the geographic location of human origins, to the authenticity of the Shroud of Turin, to the innocence—or guilt—of Sacco and Vanzetti, Popular Controversies in World History: Investigating History's Intriguing Questions provides four volumes on the ongoing debates that have captivated both the historical community and the public at large. In each chapter, established experts offer credible opposing arguments pertaining to specific debates, providing readers with resources for independent critical thinking on the issue. This format allows students, scholars, and other interested readers to actively engage in some of the most intriguing conundrums facing historians today."

A Choice review acknowledges that the set is "fun to use," and cites its "admirable number of non-Western topics. The essays are chapter-length, and all have an extensive bibliography."  And it should be noted that the provided "References and Further Reading" lists are important, since this set walks the line between general readership and academia.  So, if you were doing a paper on one of these topics, you would not want to rely on an entry as a sole or even major source.  The kind of reading you'd do here would just be a starting point for your research.

Popular Controversies in World History joins another paper series, History in Dispute, as good basic reference for historical controversies.  And if you are interested in more current matters of pro-con debate, please explore the many options offered in our LibGuide called Current Issues: Pro and Con.

Sally Ride

Did You Know...that the late astronaut Sally Ride was the first American woman in space? She was also the only astronaut chosen for President Reagan's Rogers Commission to investigate the Space Shuttle Challenger accident.

Sally Ride (foreground) and life partner Tam O'Shaugnessy. Photo: American Library Association and AP News, 2008.

Later in life, Sally Ride helmed various projects and organizations designed to increase the public's awareness of and interest in science and space exploration. After a stint as professor of physics at University of California, San Diego, Ride became President of CalSpace; joined the board of directors for Space.com; founded the NASA-affiliated EarthKAM earth-from-space photography project; and eventually started Sally Ride Science. The latter is an organization devoted to supporting young womens' interests in science, math, engineering, and technology.

To read more about the life and times of Sally Ride (born May 26, 1951 and died July 24th, 2012), please see her online full-text biography in our Sawyer database, Biography in Context.

Notable E-Books:

- Leaving earth [electronic resource] : space stations, rival superpowers, and the quest for interplanetary travel, by Robert Zimmerman.

- A dictionary of space exploration [electronic resource], edited by E. Julius Dasch.

Notable E-Book: Encyclopedia of Fish Physiology: From Genome to Environment

In honor of our R.S. Friedman Field Station, which studies marine life in the Pine Tree State, we do try to collect materials that might be useful to our researchers. And it seems especially important to purchase online resources that might be accessed as easily in Downeast Maine as Downtown Boston.

We just added one such reference set. It is a high-quality and quite scholarly Encyclopedia of Fish Physiology. Although the three volume set was published by Academic Press (Elsevier), we are hosting it on our familiar Gale Virtual Reference Library (GVRL) platform.

The publisher indicates that it is "the first ever Encyclopedia of Fish Physiology. It contains over 250 entries written by the world's foremost authorities on fish physiology with topic coverage from fish genomics through to behavior. Extensive entries in systems physiology are integrated with anatomy, the environment, and phylogentics to provide a comprehensive coverage of the field."

It is designed to provide "entry level information for students and summary overviews for researchers alike. Broadly organised into four themes, articles cover Functional, Thematic, and Phylogenetic Physiology, and Fish Genomics. Functional articles address the traditional aspects of fish physiology that are common to all areas of vertebrate physiology including: Reproduction, Respiration, Neural (Sensory, Central, Effector), Endocrinology, Renal, Cardiovascular, Acid-base Balance, Osmoregulation, Ionoregulation, Digestion, Metabolism, Locomotion, and so on." Then the set continues with overview articles on many related topics, even including subjects like the effects of climate change on fish.

Just click our link reach the encyclopedia. On the landing page, you can explore the Table of Contents or Index from gray tabs in the middle of the screen, or simply search key words in the search box to the left.

When I do a search for hearing, I get a wide variety of articles, from "Sound Source Localization and Directional Hearing in Fishes" to "The Ear and Hearing in Sharks, Skates and Rays" to "Fish Bioacoustics" to "Psychoacoustics: What Fish Hear."

The text is first presented in HTML, which you can translate, listen to, and work with in other ways. You can also download or print an entry in PDF form. (If you click a PDF option and don't like the way it displays, look for the Download button in the gray frame and open it in Adobe.)

Like all good encyclopedias, "Further Reading" is suggested at the end of each authored entry. And every article is richly illustrated with photos, diagrams, charts and tables, as in this example:

The review journal Choice was impressed. They called it "a major editorial accomplishment. Publication of this set involved the cooperation of more than 200 experts from 20 countries--a truly international collaboration."

Choice went on to say that "the individual articles in each volume are concise, authoritative, and beautifully illustrated with color photographs and drawings. A practical advantage of this encyclopedia is that it brings everything together into three volumes, providing a comprehensive reference work."

Those interested in Marine Biology and Animal Physiology will hopefully find this a reliable starting point for many research topics.

Notable E-book: Cambridge History of the English Novel

Many of the ebooks that we get are part of ever-growing databases that correspond to print series. A key example of this is our Cambridge Histories Online which includes over 300 volumes published since 1960.

The online collection's title is a bit misleading, as this database covers many topics beyond the straight-forward "History" of Britain and the United States. Topics also include language and linguistics, philosophy, music, political and social theory and--as title we are featuring here would indicate--literature.

A new 2012 online volume is The Cambridge History of the English Novel. Cambridge University Press describes the volume thusly: "The Cambridge History of the English Novel chronicles an ever-changing and developing body of fiction across three centuries. An interwoven narrative of the novel's progress unfolds in more than fifty chapters, charting continuities and innovations of structure, tracing lines of influence in terms of themes and techniques, and showing how greater and lesser authors shape the genre. Pushing beyond the usual period-centered boundaries, the History's emphasis on form reveals the range and depth the novel has achieved in English. This book will be indispensable for research libraries and scholars, but is accessibly written for students." For more from the publisher, including the table of contents and an excerpt, see this page.

When you click the link from our online catalog (OPAC), you can either step through chapters by clicking the "next chapter" button, or you can search for keywords in the content using the search box in the upper right. Just make sure that you change the radio button to This Volume, or you'll search the entire database! There's also a link for Advanced Search that will possibly give you a more precise search. And if you are searching a proper name or other phrase, you are advised to put them in quotation marks (as in "George Eliot").

The actual chapter is delivered in PDF form, so look for the Adobe symbol on the pages for each entry--as illustrated below.


Although this particular volume sounds interesting, there is valuable analysis in ALL of the books in this scholarly online collection. So remember this database when you want 24/7 book content from an academic publisher with an impeccable pedigree.

Notable E-Book: Encyclopedia of Mathematics & Society

Sawyer Library holds many math textbooks. And we also have plenty of reference books full of tables and formulae related to the various disciplines of mathematics. Frankly, they seldom get touched. Beyond the daily demands of basic finance, many of us try to think of math as little as possible. We often view it as a foreign language with little relationship to our lives.

Au Contraire! Mathematics is a constant in our lives and in every aspect of society. A new three volume encyclopedia from Salem Press seeks to amply illustrate this fact. It is called the Encyclopedia of Mathematics & Society, and we own the paper set, perfect for browsing. But the nice thing about Salem reference works is that they all come with an associated eBook version, too.

The entries are designed to be lively and readable, as well as informative. And those entries run a very wide range of topics from "Accident Reconstruction" to "Zero."

The publisher notes that "The Encyclopedia of Mathematics and Society presents some 490 articles showing the math behind our daily lives, explaining to students how and why math works, and allowing readers to better understand how disciplines such as algebra, geometry, calculus, and others affect what we do every day."

Library Journal named it a Best Reference 2011 title, concluding "This enlightening, well-written set, which has no current competitors, is highly recommended for all public and academic libraries."

Even the mathphobe might find something of interest in this reference set. Have a look. And as a fun symbol of the accessibility that the publishers wanted to embrace, they even designed a quiz that can be answered from entries in the encyclopedia. Check it out below.

From the Publisher's webpage: Just for Fun, A Quiz

The following are true-false questions derived from articles in Encyclopedia of Mathematics & Society where virtually everything has its basis in math.

Today we refer to them as "ah-ha moments." The most famous of which was experienced by Archimedes. He cried, "Eureka!" as a result of spilling bath water. True or False? -- (Click for the answer.)



We like to think we're Bugs Bunny but most of us are really Donald Ducks. Donald is no slouch, though. He mastered billiards by subtraction. False? True? -- (To find out, click here.)

A queen bee has a particularly tedious life. In order to distract her from overwhelming boredom, honey bees dance to entertain their queen. True? False? -- (For the answer, click here.)

Focus now. If there are 23 people in a classroom is it likely (there is a better than 50-50 chance) that two of them have the same birthday? Yes or No? -- (To find out how and why, click here.)

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Notable E-Book: Transnational Migration, Gender and Rights

Did you know that we had eBooks as part of our Emerald database? We do. Although these are neither traditional reference books nor conventional single-author "monographs." They are actually themed volumes that are part of scholarly "annual" series.

Featured this month is a collection of scholarly essays that might appeal to anyone interested in globalization, social justice, or women's studies. The title is Transnational Migration, Gender and Rights, and it is volume in the series Advances in Ecopolitics which "includes a range of publications [that] discuss a significant element in the environmental theory which now represent an important aspect of sustainable living." This includes "insights into real alternatives to the current economic malaise, with an examination of key themes such as transition towns, sustainable utopias, co-operative farming, sustainability and activism, ecofeminism, green protectionism, intentional communities, environmental justice, environmental movements, green philosophies, politics and green economics."

This particular volume examines the "increase in the migration from poor and conflict ridden states to the affluent peaceful north." The summary for the collection states that "there are of course not only push factors causing migrants to leave, but also pull factors as when the middle classes enjoy an increase in their living standards which cause them to employ domestic help in their homes." The book examines the fact that since many females migrate as domestic workers like nannies and au pairs, they are especially vulnerable to exploitation, wage inequity and issues of forced migration/trafficking.

Be aware that these scholarly anthologies don't read like popular books. But as one chapter abstract indicates: "We want to better understand how migrant women negotiate the dynamic intersections of race, gender and citizenship identities in new places in order to survive, prosper and exert influence in new places and economic environments."

That's a topic worth examining!

Notable E-Book: SAGE Handbook of Public Opinion Research

You probably know that Suffolk has its own major public opinion research center. Founded in 2002, the Suffolk University Political Research Center (SUPRC) has become a national leader in political polling. (Click the left sidebar on the linked page above for recent examples of their polls in this VERY political year!)

But did you know that we also have several good electronic sources for other public opinion research? These include the extensive Roper Center for Public Opinion Research (aka iPOLL Databank) and another extensive collection of surveys from a variety of sources calling Polling the Nations (remember to logoff from the latter as it has only one simultaneous user).

We also have a variety of books on the subject. And a recent infusion of new ebooks into our Sage eReference database includes another useful resource entitled the SAGE Handbook of Public Opinion Research.

The publisher claims that "this major new Handbook is the first to bring together into one volume the whole field of public opinion theory, research methodology, and the political and social embeddedness of polls in modern societies. It comprehensively maps out the state-of-the-art in contemporary scholarship on these topics." While the editors indicate that "as a handbook, [this book] should give the reader an overview of the most important concepts included in and surrounding the term public opinion and its application in modern social research. We have assembled a set of authors who are active researchers and experts in the fields on which they were asked to write a contribution."

A major section on "Methodology" covers the design of surveys from telephone or face-to-face to panels and focus groups. Other sections address the legal and ethical issues of survey research and the use of polling as a media and propaganda/political tool. The book's final section deals with specific applications in marketing and voter research and the like.

The landing page for the eBook allows you to quickly search a keyword concept across the entire volume. You can also browse a Table of Contents or an A-Z index with a "search as you type" box attached.

Besides this handbook, there are plenty of other titles related to a wide variety of topics and research methods in all the social sciences within the Sage eReference database. They're all worth exploring for quick background, basic information and topic overviews, so don't stop with this title!

Notable E-Book: Encyclopedia of Contemporary American Social Issues

Sometimes, when starting a paper or speech or debate on a hot-button social topic, students are wise to start with an encyclopedia entry that provides an overview of the subject they are interested in exploring. Then, afterwards, they move on to journal literature and other research databases and statistics.

For the types of "social problems" students often choose (from their own interests or from readings in texts like the Bedford Reader), one 8 volume encyclopedia--that the library owns in paper form--called Social Issues in America has gotten a lot of use for browsing and basic research in the last few years. This is still a good first step for many students. But since this multi-volume set was published in 2006, it is useful to update it with something newer. This we have just done with a 4 volume 2011 resource available on our handy Gale Virtual Reference Library (GVRL) interface.

Encyclopedia of Contemporary American Social Issues, was just published by ABC-CLIO, and it covers many of the same subject areas, from abortion to zombie computers (mentioned in the Cybercrime entry), that the earlier Sharpe Reference set discussed.

The publisher indicates that the set contains "approximately 225 in-depth entries lay out the controversies debated in the media, on campuses, in government, in boardrooms, and in homes and neighborhoods across the United States." They also indicate that "the work of almost 200 expert contributors, the Encyclopedia of Contemporary American Social Issues comprises four volumes, each devoted to a particular subject area. Volume one covers business and the economy; volume two, criminal justice; volume three, family and society; and volume four, the environment, science, and technology."

GVRL access is easy. Although you can access this (and the rest of GVRL content) from the database as a whole, if you are interested just in this new encyclopedia, it's probably easiest to simply link directly to it from our catalog record.

When you enter the landing page for this set, you can either do a keyword search, just in this publication, from the yellow search box to the left. Or, you can browse the table of contents or index (with eLinks), as well. See screenshoot below.


Once you search or select an entry, you can read it in HTML, often with links to supplementary items in the bibliography at the end of the entry. Or, you can view the entry in PDF, which looks exactly like the original volume, and prints in a more handsome form. Other tools (like getting an MLA or APA citation!) are available to the right of each HTML entry.



The great thing about GVRL is that, unlike many ebook platforms, it allows unlimited access to all content. So, if an instructor assigns an article in this or any other GVRL resource, students don't have to worry about being locked out while another student is using the material.

I should warn you that, within the month, GVRL is planning to roll out a new (and supposedly improved) platform. So some of what is described in this blog entry might change. But the over-all functionality should remain, and be even better. (We hope!)

Explore this and other new ebooks for 24/7 access to good-quality content.

Notable E-Book: Encyclopedia of Environmental Issues

E-Reference is great, but many people still prefer paper for browsing and reading. So it's nice when both options are available. Such is the case with a new edition of an encyclopedia that provides basic overview essays on the science, policy and social issues related to the Environment: the Encyclopedia of Environmental Issues (Salem Press, 2011).

The paper version, available in a four-volume set in our Reference stacks, "assembles information from numerous fields of knowledge relevant to the study of environmental issues, including biology, geology, anthropology, demographics, genetics, and engineering, and explains the interrelationships of these issues in easily understood terms."

A total of 775 A-Z entries are included in this revised edition. (The Law Library owns the previous edition in print.) The publisher claims that "the original essays have been evaluated for their currency, and 123 of them have been either completely replaced or substantially revised to reflect the latest information available." All articles are signed by the academics and other experts who wrote them. They cover a wide variety of topics, including endangered animal species, air pollution, national parks, environmental legislation, oil spills, alternative energy sources, and global climate change. And it's not just the great outdoors that comes under scrutiny, either. In recognition of the fact that people spend an overwhelming proportion of their time in human-made environments, essays also cover such topics as sick building syndrome, noise pollution, smog, and urban planning.

As a reviewer (who recommended it) at Choice indicates, "The breadth of coverage is exemplified by three successive entries: genetically engineered pharmaceuticals, geothermal energy, and Euell Gibbons."

The online version comes on a unified Salem Science platform. Since we also own the Forensic Science encyclopedia, you'll want to select specifically the Encyclopedia of Environmental Issues from the drop down box near the top when you go to the online website.

After making that selection, the search box below will also change to Encyclopedia of Environmental Issues and you can simply enter search terms to see a list of suggested entries. When I search polar ice I get a variety of articles from Polar Bears to Glacial Melting to Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, that might be worth looking at. (And, remember, all of our online resources run through a proxy server for off-campus access. So if you are not at a Suffolk IP, you'll need to authenticate with your name and Suffolk ID number to access the online version.)

Salem Press provides basic reference. Their entries tend to be short and simple. This is not scholarly research, so if a professor says to use academic/scholarly materials, you are advised to use journal databases like Academic Search Complete or GreenFILE, instead. (For more, consult our Environmental Science Resource Guide.)

An encyclopedia can be a useful starting point, to gain an understanding of the issues and terminology of a topic. Besides this resource, remember that Sage eReference also has several excellent encyclopedias related to environmental matters, so consider checking there, as well, when you want some introductory overviews on topics related to the environment.

Notable E-Book: Oxford Encyclopedia of the Islamic World

We have just added a very useful new online encyclopedia to our Oxford Reference Online Premium (OROP) platform. It is the Oxford Encyclopedia of the Islamic World, and it is designed to provide a "broad, comparative, and multidisciplinary approach in dealing with issues that span across a multitude of countries and centuries."

This encyclopedia "presents students, researchers, political analysts, journalists, and common readers with accurate, comprehensive, and balanced scholarship on all aspects of the world's fastest-growing religion and the areas it affects: society, politics, economics, everyday life, culture, and thought."

A six-volume work (first published in print in 2009 but recently released online) constitutes a major revision and massive expansion of the 1995 Oxford Encyclopedia of the Modern Islamic World (which is also still available here on our Reference shelves). "In addition to covering Islamic societies in the modern world from the eighteenth century to the present, as the earlier four-volume set did, it will add a depth of historical background going back to the pre-Islamic era. The new reference also covers the full geographical extent of Islam by focusing not only on the countries in which Islam is dominant, but also on regions in which Muslims live as minorities, such as Europe and the Americas."

A bit of use advice: the search engine at OROP is a bit awkward, at best. So when you do a search, and click on a promising result, pay attention to the "See Also" suggestions in the left frame, which may well be more appropriate to your research.

Quirky search engine or not, this resource is well-respected, and covers more than you might expect. A Choice review, recommending it, said "Although the primary focus of this encyclopedia is not theological, the topic of sin receives more than passing notice, as does the literary phenomenon of the Hadith; the Qur'an and its interpretation deservedly receive their due. As for modern sociological phenomena, anti-Muslim prejudice is extensively discussed...."

And what about 9/11? Yes, there is an entry. But this encyclopedia goes far beyond events and issues of the last decade. It is a worthwhile starting point for many topics, when followed up with additional books and scholarly journal articles.

Notable E-Book: Encyclopedia of Climate and Weather

Photograph from the Entry on Tornadoes.
Near Hodges, Texas, in the early evening hours of 13 May 1989.

Tornadoes recently ripping through Alabama, Missouri...and last week, even central and western Massachusetts--That's just one example of the type of meteorological event (droughts, floods, etc.) that we see and read about in the news constantly.

Severe weather seems to be on the increase, and trying to get an understanding of basic concepts and their whys and wherefores can sometimes be difficult. It's useful to be able to consult a resource that provides a solid, clearly written overview of a topic, but which comes from a respected and reliable publisher. For matters related to climatic and weather subjects, we have just added a new eEncyclopedia that might prove useful. It is the second (2011) edition of Oxford University Press's Encyclopedia of Climate & Weather.

The encyclopedia claims to provide "a comprehensive history" of the topic with over 330 entries, many added, revised or updated since the original edition was published in 1996. Over 300 photographs, maps and charts help to illustrate concepts discussed. This online version is the equivalent of a three volume set. And the encyclopedia provides everything from discussions of scientific concepts to biographies of major contributors to the field. Even the politics and economics of climate are covered in entries like those on the Kyoto Protocol and tradable permits.

Skip the unreliable and poorly documented information in sources like Wikipedia. If you want some quick background on a topic, use one of our excellent and authoritative electronic encyclopedias. The Encyclopedia of Climate and Weather is just one example of what is in our Oxford Reference Online Premium (OROP) database. And OROP is just one of several platforms we provide for electronic reference. See others on our list of "E-Book Databases."

Notable E-Book: Female Action Heroes

We recently added dozens of online volumes to our ABC-CLIO eBooks Collection database. I am featuring Female Action Heroes: A Guide to Women in Comics, Video Games, Film, and Television not because it is the most serious and scholarly of the books we added, but specifically because it is not. (Heck, it's the end of the semester and the regular academic year, so why no choose a book that celebrates popular culture and a sense of fun?)

Although the book features an introduction and timeline, the majority of its content consists of analytical profiles of a wide variety of pop cult hardboiled or heroic women. Characters covered include TV icons like Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Charlie's Angels and the divine Emma Peel; cinema tough gals like Ellen Ripley and Sarah Connor; and comic book heroes like Wonder Woman and Storm.

To see a descriptive sheet from the publisher, look here.

And for those who prefer slightly more academic-sounding reading, rest assured that we added a great many books in a great many topics of scholarly interest.

History-related titles include The Black Experience in the Civil War South, The Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882, The History of Bulgaria, and An Oral and Documentary History of the Darfur Genocide. Also included in the mix are Government and Public Policy titles like Campaign Craft: The Strategies, Tactics, and Art of Political Campaign Management and Arms Control and Global Security: A Document Guide.

But there is a little bit of everything from ABC-CLIO's various imprints, which also include titles published by Greenwood and Praeger. The new adds include everything from The American Criminal Justice System: How it Works, How it Doesn't, and How to Fix It to Voices of Shakespeare's England: Contemporary Accounts of Elizabethan Daily Life to Clothing through American History: The Civil War through the Gilded Age, 1861-1899 to Evolution, Creationism, and Intelligent Design to Energy Transitions: History, Requirements, Prospects to The New Handshake: Sales Meets Social Media .

All of our eBooks should be in the online catalog. (You can do an Advanced Search and specify the Material Type of EBOOKS) just to search for keywords--or title, author or subject terms--in records for our electronic monographs. Or you can explore just the ABC-CLIO database, by going to our proxyized link to it. And you can always explore the very latest NEW eBooks by looking at our feed.

Notable E-Book: Wiley Encyclopedia of Operations Research and Management Science

Good quality reference books on the operational aspects of business organizations are surprisingly difficult to find. But we recently added one that we hope will prove very useful. The Wiley Encyclopedia of Operations Research and Management Science (EORMS) is the first multi-volume encyclopedia devoted to advancing the areas of operations research and management science. We bought the online version to make it easier for distance users to make use of the content. And this resource, the equivalent of eight volumes, is available 24/7.

The publisher claims that their "unparalleled undertaking....has been designed for academic researchers and advanced students as well as professionals looking for timely and authoritative review-type information in this field. The encyclopedia features contributions from diverse and international contributors from academia, industry, business, government and the military."

The contributors truly are from a global community and wide-ranging expertise. And the way the information is presented is also diverse. There are Introductory Articles that provide a broad and moderately technical treatment of core topics. While Advanced Articles review key areas of research in a citation-rich format similar to that of leading review journals. Technical Articles provide more detailed discussions of key concepts addressed in related articles. And Case Studies/Historical Interludes present successful and/or interesting examples of operations research and management science methodology in practical or historical contexts.

Topics cover anything from Linear Programming (LP) and Nonlinear Programming (NLP) and Global Optimization (GO) to Decision and Risk Analysis and Game Theory to Data Mining and Forecasting. One section details specific applications and their histories. These include Retail and Service Applications, Supply Chain Management, Applications with Societal Impact (like Anti-Terrorism and Homeland Security) and Industrial Applications (like High-Tech Industries). All told, there are over 600 articles (on over 6400 pages) with contributions from over 1,000 authors from around the world.

The publisher's promotional page can be found here. And a quick overview of the table of contents can be found here. And here is a sample article on Operations Research to Improve Disaster Supply Chain Management. However, to explore the entire content of the Encyclopedia, you'll want to use our proxyized link, either through the online catalog (OPAC) or as provided here.



Once you click on the link to the set in the OPAC, there are two ways to easily explore the content. In the left frame, you can look "For Articles" by Title or by Topic. (See arrows above.) When you click one of those links, the display in the middle of the screen changes and you can browse and then select appropriate items. There is also a search box to the right. But DON'T just put keywords in the search box and hit enter unless you want to search the entire Wiley Online Library, which is mostly journals. Instead, as circled above, click on the link to "Search in This Book." When you click that link, search boxes just for this encyclopedia will open up mid-screen.

Take advantage of this very sophisticated encyclopedia when you are looking for basic background information on a wide variety of topics related to operations research and management science theory, methodology, and applications.

Notable E-Book: Handbook of Bioentrepreneurship

Biotech is one of the linchpins of the Massachusetts economy. If you read the daily headlines from the Boston Business Journal (BBJ), which we also get as a research database, you will constantly read articles about product development, M&A activity, or other news related to "Life Science" companies like Genzyme, Biogen, Charles River Laboratories, and EMD Millipore. You might also hear about the latest biotechnology start-up. (Since Massachusetts has a large population of academic researchers doing cutting-edge research at places like MIT and Massachusetts General Hospital, we are one of the leading states for new companies, new drugs, and new technological breakthroughs.)

As a BBJ Survey has cited in this year's Book of Lists, "there are more than 450 biotechnology companies located in Massachusetts, 277 of those companies are researching and developing new therapeutic drugs."

It is a challenging and rapidly-changing field. How do you get a handle on the business creation dynamics of this particular industry? Holger Patzelt and Thomas Brenner led an international group of academic researchers in addressing just that challenge. And the resulting book was just recently added to our SpringerLink ebook collections. It is the Handbook of Bioentrepreneurship.

Sarah Cooper indicates in her review of this title in the International Small Business Journal, which we have through our Sage Online Journals: "In compiling this volume the editors have brought together 11 chapters from leading international researchers in the field which they have arranged around 4 key themes. The Handbook, thus, provides a good overview of the current state of research in bioentrepreneurship." The reviewer goes on to say: "Diversity within the biotechnology industry makes studying it something of a challenge; however, the chapters in this volume provide a good overview of the sector while also exploring critical themes, processes and debates."

Springer ebooks tend to be quite academic. They are not pop reading by any stretch of the imagination. But for those who wish to really delve into this important subject, here is a research handbook that should provide a solid grounding.

And for those who want the quick-fix news, the earlier cited BBJ or our Business Source Complete database might provide other easier reading options.