Database News for November 2006

• Celebrating American Indian Heritage Month
• SciFinder Scholar 2006 for Mac
• Rule, Britannica
• New Journals in JSTOR, Project Muse

Although November was officially designated American Indian Heritage Month in 1990, the movement to to set aside a month to recognize the unique contributions and cultures of the American Indians and Alaska Natives goes back more than 100 years. You can investigate the history and achievements of the First Peoples with several library resources:

eHRAF Ethnology and Archaeology Collections: HRAF (Human Resources Area Files) has collected monographs, journal articles, and other publications on all aspects of cultural anthropology since the 1950s. HRAF's unique organization cross-tabulates cultures with cultural practices -- such as weddings, foodways, religious ceremonies, or other human activities. The growing eHRAF online collection contains over 300,000 pages of information on all aspects of cultural and social life with diverse topics ranging from religious beliefs, bringing up children, causes and cures of diseases, to economic and political behavior. Cultures included are mostly ethnic and indigenous groups from around the world. Native American cultures currently available in the collections include:

Afro-Seminole Assiniboine Blackfoot Ojibwa Pawnee Copper Inuit Seminole

Delaware Algonquin Tlingit Hopi Western Apache Iroquois Zia Pueblo

Early Encounters in North America: draws together primary source materials from the 16th, 17th, 18th, and 19th centuries on the cultural encounters in the European exploration of and United States expansion into of the North American continent. When complete the database will include more than 100,000 pages of letters, diaries, memoirs and accounts of early encounters. Search or browse for texts by geographic place, time period, type of encounter, ethnic group, or other criteria.

U. S. Congressional Serial Set and American State Papers: These two collections over the full text of congressional and executive documents from 1789 to about 1900 (when complete, the set will cover through 1980). An incredibly rich collection, with documents such as treaties, ethnographic histories, and more.

Sequoyah Research Center - Native American Press Archives: a joint effort between the UALR Department of English and the UALR Library, this archive collects and preserves Native American newspapers, manuscripts, and related materials. Indexes to the Cherokee Phoenix and Cherokee Advocate newspapers are available online, as are selected digital library exhibits.

The Chemical Abstracts Service (CAS) has released a new version of the SciFinder Scholar software for Macs. Scifinder Scholar software is a client interface that researchers can load on their campus workstations to access the Chemical Abstracts, MEDLINE, and other databases. This new version offers:

 

• Structure similarity searching - uses CAS structure descriptors and the Tanimoto algorithm to help you find structurally-related substances
  
• New structure and reaction query tools:
  • Variable Attachment Position tool - this tool allows you to define the attachment of a substituent to multiple points on a ring
  • Repeating Group tool - this tool allows you to specify variable chain lengths and ring sizes
    
• Query highlighting in reaction searching - allows for quick identification of query components in the reactions
  
• Easy access to additional reaction information - reaction answers can more easily allow you to access retro-synthetic information, commercial availability, regulatory information, and references for each compound participating in a reaction
  
• Enhanced multi-step reaction display - CAS generated multi-step reactions can now be expanded to see all intermediate steps in detail in a single view
  
• New quick look-up of research references - a new retrieval capability to locate a specific reference based on input of one to many known bibliographic attributes, such as title words, author, journal title, etc.
  
• Duplicate detection/removal - duplicate references can be removed from your CAplus and MEDLINE® reference answer set

Download the new Mac version from our web site.

The Arkansas State Library, through the Library Services and Technology Act program, has made several new resources from the Encyclopaedia Britannica available to all libraries in the state.

Enciclopedia Universal En Español

Offers provides 47,000 articles plus 8,300 photos and images. Includes the Enciclopedia Juvenil for young people.

World Data Analyst Online

Offers statistical data on more than 200 countries worldwide. In addition to country overviews ("Snapshots") the database contains a country comparison tool, wherein users can compare countries using various criteria, a chronologial tool, wherein users can create a table of a certain value over time, and a ranking tool, wherein users can find the top or bottom 10, 20, 100, etc. countries based on various criteria. Most tables can be exported into Excel spreadsheets.

Webster's Third New International Dictionary, Unabridged Online

The largest, most comprehensive American dictionary available with 472,000 entries, 200,000 usage examples, 140,000 etymologies, and more.

Annals of American History

Offers original speeches, writings, memoirs, poems, and interviews from more than 1,500 authors. Browse by topic, time period, or author. A useful online equivalent to Commager's Documents in American History. Includes some audio and video files.

Encyclopaedia Britannica School Edition

Includes the Encyclopaedia Britannica, Compton's By Britannica, and Britannica Elementary. In addition, the School Edition offers supplementary learning materials for Languages Arts, Social Studies, Science, and Mathematics by grade level, teacher's materials (including items tagged for curriculum standards, a customizable workspace for class projects, a dictionary, and more.

So, okay, the School Edition is kid stuff. But the full Encyclopaedia Britannica provides authoritative information on almost any topic. Still prefer Wikipedia? A recent article in the journal Nature finds the two sources close in reliability, with Britannica having a slight edge. Evaluate the evidence for yourself by reading Britannica's response (PDF) to the Nature piece, Wikipedia's article on the Nature fracas, and a timeline of related posts from all over the Web.

Searcher magazine reminds us that the two tools have different contributors, audiences, and purposes. Britannica, compiled by recognized experts, takes a more academic approach and benefits from a rigorous editorial review process. Wikipedia, compiled and reviewed by a community of volunteers, offers timely information on more popular topics. Use the right tool for the job. And, no matter what information sources you do use, be sure to cite them properly.

JSTOR, the online archive of core journals in the humanities, sciences, and social sciences, has recently added two new nursing titles:

• American Journal of Nursing, 1900- [7 year delay for new issues]
• Journal of Community Health Nursing, 1984- [5 year delay for new issues]

Project Muse has been active in acquiring new titles in many humanities and social sciences fields. During 2006, more than two dozen new titles have been added; coverage for most begins in the last five years. New titles include:

• Africa
• Canadian Journal of Criminology and Criminal Justice
• Canadian Journal of Law and Society
• Canadian Journal of Philosophy
• Canadian Journal of Women and the Law
• Comparative Critical Studies
• Dance Research
• Early American Studies
• Education and Culture
• Eighteenth Century Fiction
• Essays in Criticism
• George Herbert Journal
• Holy Land Studies
• Journal of Canadian Studies
• Journal of the Chinese Overseas
• Journal of Victorian Culture
• The Library
• Paragraph
• Parliamentary History
• Romanticism
• Scottish Historical Review
• Seminar (German Studies)
• Shakespeare Bulletin
• Southwestern Historical Quarterly
• Studies in World Christianity
• Transactions of the Charles S. Pierce Society
• Translation and Literature