Collection News - August / September 2011
Library Catalog Update
The Library Catalog, known to some as "InfoLinks," has a new set of school clothes for fall. The look and feel has been streamlined and updated, but most users will appreciate several new functions, including:
Start a new search from any page with the drop-down "Search by" menu in the top blue bar. No need to start over to choose a different way to search.
New search options include special pages for audio, video, theses and dissertations, ebooks and ejournals, and musical scores.
Browse screens now offer icons to let you see the material type—sound recordings, videos, text, musical scores, manuscripts, etc.—at a glance.
You can use those same material types when limiting a catalog search.
In the full record display, you will find a right-hand resource panel with links to:
- Cite this: generate a citation in APA, MLA, or other styles
- Text this: send the location and call number to your cell phone (save a tree!)
- Link this: right-click for a permalink to the record
- Email the record or share it on Facebook or Twitter
When available, the right resource panel will provide images, chapter previews, and additional information from Google Books.
Look for the Find More! icon to locate additional information on your topic. Whilethe library catlaog offers information about whole books and journals, Find More! will offer to redirect your search terms to locate related journal articles, books in other libraries, or online reference handbooks, encyclopedias and dictionaries.
Log into My Library Account to view and renew your currently checked-out items and to take advantage of services such as:
- Preferred Searches: Save search strategies and set up email alerts to be notified of when new items arrive matching your criteria.
- Reading History: Opt in to keep a record of your checkouts.
- My Lists: Save lists of records to your library account; these might be books you want to read in future, or items on a specific topic.
Please send us your comments and suggestions on the catalog updates.
Brooks Hays Digital Collection
The University Libraries’ special collections department launched a digital collection documenting the life and work of Brooks Hays on August 9, the 113th anniversary of his birth. Hays (1898–1981) was a political, civic, and religious leader from Pope County and was a leading Democratic congressman from Arkansas’ Fifth District from 1942 to 1959.
The digital collection, titled “Principles and Politics: Documenting the Career of Congressman Brooks Hays,” includes articles, campaign materials, cartoons and drawings, correspondence, diaries, photographs, poems, prayers, speeches and tributes from his life and seven-decade career.
You can browse or search the Brooks Hays digital collection at our Digital Collections site. You might also check our research guide for Selected Papers of Public Officials to learn more about manuscript collections related to politics and government.
netLibrary is now a part of Ebsco
For the last 10 years, the Libraries have offered almost 1,000 electronic books covering business, study skills, computing, and related topics on the netLilbrary platform. While 24/7 access to these titles was nice, the netLibrary platform was a bit clunky to use. Ebsco has acquired the netLibrary service and relaunched it as the Ebsco eBook Collection.
This collection can be searched together with other popular Ebsco databases, such as Business Source Complete and PsycINFO. New features include the ability to immediately scan the most relevant pages from any search, to generate citations in APA, MLA, and other formats, and to download selected books to your computer or compatible ereader.
Search the library catalog for title "Ebsco eBook Collection" to find titles owned by the UofA Libraries.
Life is Change
Heraclitus was right. You just can't step into the same database twice. At least not lately. Many research databases and resources got an update over the summer. including:
The RefWorks bibliography manager now offers a 2.0 interface with a simplified but powerful front end. Many functions are now just one click away from any record, reached by intuitive icons and menus. Learn more about this new interface with: previews for new users, updates for experienced users, and free webinars and tutorials.
The Web of Knowledge platform, which offers the Web of Science citation indexes as well as Biological Abstracts, MEDLINE, and Zoological Record, released an update this summer with some small but appreciated enhancements. In searching, there are no more stopwords such as the letter "A" as in "Vitamin A" as well as left-hand truncation or wildcarding, as in "*carbon." Full author names are now searchable, as are Research ID numbers. The search engine automatically searches for British and English spelling variations, as well as variations in institution names. There is no longer a limit on the number of records that can be sorted or analyzed. Read more about enhancements on the Web of Knowledge web site.
UlrichsWeb, the comprehensive directory of currently-published periodicals and serials, has a completely new design. New features include the ability to limit search results by facet checkboxes for criteria such as peer-reviewed or open access, a relevancy ranking that brings the most widely-subscribed titles to the top of your search results, and the ability to export a customized report in spreadsheet format.
