Alkek Library News

2013 Online Resource Grants Awarded

The Library has awarded the 2013 Online Resource Grants. This year the Library was able to offer a record $173,000 to support the purchase of larger digital collections that can be purchased one time and owned in perpetuity. A review committee consisting of two members of the Library Committee, two previous recipients, and two librarians reviewed the proposals and recommended grants to the following recipients and resources. The Library is pleased to provide access to these seven new databases. Access to most of the databases has been activated, and all should be activated by the end of May.

The awardees are:

Black Abolitionist Papers (Recipient: Angela Murphy - History):
A digital primary source collection that is the first to comprehensively detail the extensive work of African Americans to abolish slavery in the United States prior to the Civil War.

Confidential Print Middle East, 1839-1969 (Recipient: Elizabeth Bishop - History): Contains digitized confidential print documents from the British Foreign and Colonial Offices from 1839-1969, covering early events in Afghanistan, Egypt, Sudan, Iraq, Lebanon, Israel, Palestine, Syria, and more.

Everyday Life and Women in America (Recipients: Rebecca Montgomery, Angela Murphy, Nancy Berlage, Lynn Denton - History): Digitized historical material revealing early American home life from the Sallie Bingham Center for Women’s History and Culture, Duke University, and the New York Public Library

PAO Foundation Collection (Recipients: Selene Hinojosa - Library;Yasmine Beale-Rosano-Rivaya - Modern Languages): A collection of over 200 digitized academic journals published in the arts, humanities, and social sciences, with coverage extending to the first volume up to around 2000.

Popular Culture in Britain and America, 1950-1975 (Recipient: Jay Ryu, Family & Consumer Sciences): This collection captures rock and
roll, counterculture, peace and protest, fashion, civil rights, Vietnam, student activism, underground publications between 1950-1975 with thousands of digitized, color images of manuscripts, photographs, rare printed material and more.

Serials Set II, A: 1970-79 (Recipients: Margaret Vaverek - Library; Patricia Shields - Political Science): Includes digitized reports and documents either produced or ordered by Congress, as well as presidential communications and treaty materials. This collection expands our existing coverage to 1970-1979 and also contains Senate and Executive Documents and Reports from 1817-1969.

Springer
Mathematics Journals Archive (Recipient: Thomas Keller - Mathematics):
Contains over 120 digitized journals from the areas of mathematics and
statistics, from the first issue to the mid-1990’s. Access coming soon!

By Liane Taylor

New Database: Confidential Print: British Foreign Office in the Middle East, 1839-1969

Resource Name Confidential Print: Middle East, 1839-1969 Subjects Confidential print documents from the British Foreign and Colonial Offices covering early events in Afganistan, Egypt, Sudan, Persia, Turkey, Jordan, Arabia, Iraq, Lebanon, Israel, Palestine, Syria and more. Coverage 1839-1969 Format Reports, dispatches, letters, policy documents, annual reviews, newspaper articles, and treaties Resource Type Full-Text Database Special Features An essay about the importance and context of the collection can be found here.

URL to This Record: http://catalog.library.txstate.edu/record=e1000770~S1a

 

Categories: Primary Sources (Historical), History, Political Science, Country Studies, Pre-1900 Texts

How To Find Keywords Within 5 Words of Each Other

Bet you didn't know about "proximity" searches in the Ebscohost family of databases. These commands allow you to search 2 words that occur in the text near each other.

The upshot of which is: the article is more likely to be written about your topic if your words occur close to one other. 

(Ebscohost is the name of the publisher that brings you several of our databases. You may know them by their proper names, like Academic Search Complete. Once inside an Ebsco database, you can always "choose databases" to search several Ebscohost databases at once.)

Here's the official directions from Ebscohost:

Proximity Searches

You can use a proximity search to search for two or more words that occur within a specified number of words (or fewer) of each other in the databases. Proximity searching is used with a Keyword or Boolean search.

The proximity operators are composed of a letter (N or W) and a number (to specify the number of words). The proximity operator is placed between the words that are to be searched, as follows:

Near Operator (N) - N5 finds the words if they are within five words of one another regardless of the order in which they appear.

For example, type tax N5 reform to find results that would match tax reform as well as reform of income tax.

Within Operator (W) - In the following example, W8 finds the words if they are within eight words of one another and in the order in which you entered them.

For example, type tax W8 reform to find results that would match tax reform but would not match reform of income tax.

In addition, multiple terms can be used on either side of the operator. See the following examples:

• (baseball or football or basketball) N5 (teams or players)
• oil W3 (disaster OR clean-up OR contamination)

Hoovers Database Located Inside Campus Research

Hoovers is in Campus Research and Lexis Nexis

Hoovers (company financials and company history) is available inside Campus Research and Lexis Nexis

The Campus Research link is easier: the Hoovers link is simply located in the upper left screen. Voila! 

The Lexis Nexis Way is more complicated.

Go to Companies, select Company Dossier and search your company. The information will be from  Hoovers.

Business Majors: Video for Finding Market Share and Size

Here's a new video that shows you how to find market sizes, company and brand shares, and more!

 

New Springerlink coming November 26

We are pleased to inform you that SpringerLink is moving to a new and much improved platform on November 26, 2012. The new SpringerLink is faster, easier to use and optimized for most mobile devices.

In order to prepare you for this migration we would like to share some information with you.

Redirection and Linking:
Springer will redirect all users to the new SpringerLink upon migration. Meaning that if you try to access any Springer content within your institution you will be redirected to link.springer.com. So whether you find a Springer article on Google, Start Your Research or even using an old Springerlink direct url, you will be redirected to the article on link.springer.com.

My SpringerLink:
Individual accounts from the old SpringerLink will unfortunately not be migrated. You will need to set up a new profile/account when the new site is activated. Make sure to do this by using the link in the Research Databases page as you will then be automatically associated to Texas State University's access rights.

 

Video Tutorial: Get Foreign Country Introductions

Let's say you need to quickly get a read on Argentina's recent economic history, look at its exports, and see which laws govern international trade.

You'd use CountryWatch, EIU, Doing Business In, or EUROPA for that.

 

Use Lexis-Nexis For Foreign News

Here's a great resource for print news (magazines and newspapers) from India, Asia, Africa and the Middle East (among others): Lexis-Nexis.

Not just recent months but the last several years in fact.

Covers topics of local foreign interest, not just different takes on international issues (although it does that as well).

Go to Lexis Nexis, and choose News, then Newspapers and Wires. Foreign Language is an option as well.

Start Your Research Tutorial

Here's the video for the Start Your Research interface. You might want to blow it up to full size on your monitor for best results.

Learn to limit results, get keywords and how to search for images in advanced search (among other functions).

 

 

Finding Psychology Tests @ Alkek

Many psychology, social science or perhaps even marketing students need to look up tests, surveys or scales.

This is a link to our databases with test reviews and (sometimes) the actual test. Most tests are proprietary and are not always available. 

ETS TestLink is your best bet for locating a (microform) copy of the actual test. Write down the number of the test and go up to the third floor.

The Mental Measurements Yearbook informs you as to what tests exists and usually evaluates them. The MMY doesn't usually have the test available - but there's a link if the actual test is available. The MMY is also available in print here. 

You may also search your test in the catalog here.