What's New @ Plough Library

Finding Biography

2012-02-01T09:11:00.000-06:00

If you're looking for basic biographical information about a person, we have resources that can help. The Credo and LexisNexis databases are particularly useful.

Credo Reference includes online versions of many reference works, including Chambers Biographic Dictionary (2007) with its 19,000+ entries, several editions of Marquis W ho's Who (in America, in the World, as well as other biographical dictionaries. Click on "Biographies" on Credo's opening page. You can search individual works or search the entire collection of biographies from the Biographies page; be sure to change "All Subjects" to "Biographies" if you want to limit your search that way.
LexisNexis covers business, news, and legal information. It's one of our better resources for finding biographical information about corporate executives and people currently in the news. Use their People Search for the best results.

Of course, you can also find full-length biographies--either in print or in among our eBooks using the BUCCAT catalog; just search for the name of the person as a subject (last name first).

Print Books Filter in BUCCAT

2012-01-31T13:10:00.000-06:00

There's now a filter for Print Books in the BUCCAT Library Catalog that you can use if you are looking for a physical book to check out.

Key in your search term and then select the filter from the right hand side of the screen.

Other filter options include eBooks and Past Five Years; you can select multiple filters if, for example, you are looking for print books from the last five years or any other combinations.

eBook: Routledge Encyclopedia of Social and Cultural Anthropology

2012-01-31T08:30:00.000-06:00

The updated second edition of the Routledge Encyclopedia of Social and Cultural Anthropology (2010) has been added to our Credo database. Made up of lengthy entries on subjects in anthropology and ethnology, the updated edition expands content related to gender and sexuality, international anthropological traditions, and globalization. Entries include cross-references and recommendations for further reading. Aesthetics, capitalism, civil society, counterinsurgency, divination, literacy, and relativism are among the subjects covered. Short biographies and definitions are also included.

The Credo database is a collection of online reference works covering many disciplines: art, business, history, language, literature, philosophy, psychology, religion, science, social science, and technology. You can find it on the Library's Databases Page.

Online Interactive Tools for Engineers

2012-01-30T08:20:00.000-06:00

Many of the engineering books in our Knovel online subscriptions come with interactive tools. Each section--Biochemistry, Biology and Biotechnology; Chemistry and Chemical Engineering; General Engineering--includes a tab, "Titles with Interactive Tools." Click on this to see the available titles.

Icons indicate the kind of tools that come with a book: possibilities include interactive tables, graphs/tables with a digitizer, tables with an equation plotter, calculators, unit converters. When you click to open the book, you'll see the tool(s) listed on the Table of Contents.

Tables can be exported to Excel, pdf, html, or tab-delimited text.

Introductions to the Classics

2012-01-29T12:52:00.000-06:00

The Literature Online Reference database includes fulltext reference works and essays, indexing to journals, selected fulltext artcles, and streaming audio on topics related to literature: movements, world fiction, poetry, and author biographies. Recent fulltext additions are introductions to 400 classic works of world literature, from the Penguin Classics series. You'll find Aeschylus represented, along with Balzac, Chaucer, Dickens, Euripides, Flaubert, Goethe, Hardy, Ibsen, Kempe, LeFanu, Machiavelli, Pushkin, Rilke, Schiller, Twain, Verne, Woolf, Zola, and more.

The content of an introduction will vary by the author and work described: general background and introductory material, with a chronology, are commonly found, plus reading lists for further information.

Literature Online Reference is available to students, faculty, and staff of Christian Brothers University. You'll find it listed on the Library's Databases Page.

eBook: Clinical Microbiology Procedures

2012-01-28T10:39:00.000-06:00

For step-by-step directions on analyzing clinical specimens, see Clinical Microbiology Procedures (2010), edited by Lynne Garcia and published by the American Society for Microbiology.

Part of our subscription to the Knovel online reference collection, Clinical Microbiology Procedures includes sections on procedure coding and reimbursement, collecting specimens, aerobic and anaerobic bacteriology, parasitology, immunology, molecular diagnostics, quality assurance and control, lab records, biohazards, and bioterrorism.

If you are CBU students, faculty, or staff, you can access Knovel ebooks from both on-campus and off. When you are off-campus, use your CBU email login for access.

New in CQ - January

2012-01-27T13:05:00.000-06:00

Recent additions to CQ Researcher's collection of special reports on current issues include Financial Misconduct, the "Occupy" Movement, and an update of 2008's report on the Financial Bailout.
Each report includes an overview of the issue, plus background material, the current situation, an outlook for the issue, pro and con opinions, a chronology, graphs and maps, a bibliography, and more.

CQ reports are useful for quickly gaining a perspective on current and newsworthy events. Historic events are covered in the CQ Archive, back to 1923.

Fine Art Images

2012-01-27T09:26:00.000-06:00

If you are looking for fine art images, start with our subscription to the CAMIO database. Images in our subscription are licensed for educational purposes; just give proper credit when using them.

The art works come from museums from round the world, including especially large collections (10,000+ plus items each) from the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco and the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. Images of architecture, decorative art, costumes, jewelry, paintings, prints, sculptures--from all time periods--are represented.

You'll find CAMIO linked on our Databases page, our Subject Guide for Art, and our Subject Guide for Images.

SIC? NAICS?

2012-01-26T07:30:00.000-06:00

So you're in a business class and you hear these acronyms--SIC, NAICS--tossed around. What are they? They're coding systems for industry, and here's what they stand for:

SIC = Standard Industrial Classification
NAICS = North American Industry Classification System

They classify related industries into groups. For example, SIC code 37 stands for Transportation Equipment; code 371 stands for Motor Vehicles and Equipment; and code 3711 stands for Motor Vehicles and Car Bodies. When you know a code, you can use it to conduct research. Use it when searching a business database to find articles related to the industry (as in Business Source Premier) or to identify companies in a particular field (as in Mergent or LexisNexis). The Economic Censuses group statistical information about industries by their codes. Check out this earlier blog entry for tips on searching with industry codes.

NAICS were introduced in the 1990s to replace the older SIC codes. Because historic material will still be coded by SIC, both codes remain useful and searchable.

Resources for finding Industry codes:

Online SIC Manual (1987) the last edition (free)
North American Industry Classification System U.S. Census Bureau website (free)
1997 NAICS and 1987 SIC Correspondence Tables U.S. Census Bureau website (free)
2002 NAICS and 1987 SIC Correspondence Tables U.S. Census Bureau website (free)
NAICS Lookup NAICS website; also includes SIC Lookup (free)
LexisNexis and Mergent databases include code finders (subscription)

Commercials and Advertising

2012-01-25T08:05:00.000-06:00

Interested in finding examples of advertising?

An easy-to-use resource is our subscription to Films on Demand, which includes videos of CLIO award-winning commercials; just search clio. You could also check out the free videos in the Television section of the Internet Archive of the Moving Image.

For print advertising, a less-easy resource is Google Books, which may seem illogical unless you are aware that Google Books also includes cover-to-cover digitizations of many major magazines from the 20th century. Publications like LIFE, Jet, and Ebony (and all of these are included in Google Books) were major carriers of advertising during that time. The easiest way to get to the magazines is to use Google's Advanced Book Search, as it lets you limit your search to the magazines only.

Search a brand name, or better, a product's slogan, if you know one. Search results may seem a bit fuzzy as ads and articles will be returned. You'll have to open up and evaluate results.

Be aware: Google is going to try to throw you into an all-Google search if you use any of the search tools that accompany search results. If you want to continue to search magazines only, back up to the Advanced Search screen to start any new search.

New Book: LOGICOMIX

2012-01-24T12:59:00.000-06:00

Written by Apostolos Doxiadis and Christos H. Papadimitriou and illustrated by Alecos Papadatos and Annie Di Donna, Logicomix: the Epic Search for Truth (Bloomsbury, 2009) can be found on our New Book Shelf (call # 741.5 D69). The graphic novel tells the early life of the philosopher, Bertrand Russell, while introducing philosophical and mathematical ideas. For more information, see the Logicomix homepage, with links to news about the book and behind the scenes information on how the book was researched and produced.

You can also read an excerpt online from NPR.

New books can be checked out for two weeks.

eBook: Biological Safety

2012-01-24T08:00:00.000-06:00

Biological Safety - Principles and Practices (2006), edited by Diane O. Fleming and Debra L. Hunt for the American Society for Microbiology, is available online through our Knovel subscription. Devoted to the identification and control of infectious biological agents, the reference addresses managing biological hazards and includes considerations related to agriculture, animals, and people.

Knovel ebooks are available to CBU students, faculty, and staff, both on-campus and off. When you are off-campus, login with your CBU email username and password.

Medical Images

2012-01-23T13:00:00.000-06:00

If you need medical images, many of our medical databases include an image search option. In addition, there are several free resources available.

PubMed Central automatically displays available images along with any search results, as does CINAHL. CINAHL's search interface also includes special image limiters, allowing you to look specifically for images instead just happening on them. In addition, EBSCOHost, the vendor for CINAHL, provides a special image searching interface for all of their databases; you'd just have to remember to choose CINAHL from the available list.

OVID includes images, if you know how to access them. See this set of instructions for finding them.

Our newest subscription resource, MDConsult, features an Images tab among its many search options. These images are pulled from the fulltext books and journals available on MDConsult, provided the publisher has allowed the rights.

Also be aware of these free online health/medical image collections:

Always check the site for permissions regarding how you can use an image.

Journals in MDConsult

2012-01-22T09:39:00.000-06:00

The MDConsult database provides fulltext access to over 50 major medical journals--plus the Clinics series. A journal search in MDConsult delivers results from MedLine as well as the fulltext journals available through the MDConsult database. You have the option to set the filter to display only those articles you can view in fulltext. The default search limits results to material published since 2008; material is available dating back to 1995.

Twenty-nine medical specialties are represented among the journals available on MDConsult, among them: American Family Physician, American Journal of Cardiology, American Journal of Medicine, Annals of Family Medicine, General Hospital Psychiatry, Journal of the American Geriatrics Society, and many more. Some articles will appear in MDConsult before the print issue is released; with many, however, there is a 2-3 week delay. Check out this video introduction to the journal collection from MDConsult.

NOTE: Remember, a full-fledged literature search in a medical field depends on more than just what you can find in fulltext or from the past few years. You may need to use the PubMed online database (which generally dates back to the early 1940s; some indexing goes back even further, depending on publisher decisions), or even Index Medicus (dates back over a century) to find citations to relevant articles on your topic.

Accounting in LexisNexis

2012-01-21T09:25:00.000-06:00

Our subscription to the LexisNexis database has many Accounting resources: Accounting Today, Accounting Technology, AIPCA publications, Controller Report, the Journal of Accountancy, Practical Accountant, and more. Going through the Accounting subject link lets you search any one, or a combination, of these accounting publications. Just check off the ones you want to search. (Notice that Accountant's Handbook and Accountant's Liability can only be browsed.) For information on what is covered in each resource--dates, content--, click the "i" icon (in the blue circle) next to the name.

You'll find a direct link to LexisNexis Accounting resources on our Subject Guide for Accounting.

New Journals in Education

2012-01-20T08:00:00.000-06:00

We've added subscriptions to some new Education journals:

Journal of Special Education - scholarly journal publishing articles on special education for students with mild to severe disabilities
Journal of Early Childhood Research - scholarly, cross-disciplinary journal of research on childhood, international in scope
The TESOL Journal and TESOL Quarterly - professional publications devoted to the teaching of English to speakers of other languages

Subscriptions begin with the first issues of 2012.

new eBook: Yaws' Handbook of Properties of the Chemical Elements

2012-01-19T08:30:00.000-06:00

Published in 2011, Yaws' Handbook of Properties of the Chemical Elements is a new addition to our Knovel database of fulltext engineering reference works. Providing data on each of the chemical elements, it included interactive tables related to physical properties, critical properties, atom size properties, and more. In addition, equation plotter tables can be used to illustrate such measures as vapor pressure, surface tension, viscosity, thermal conductivity, and heat capacity.

Arranged in alphabetic order, each element is represented with a data table and descriptive text. Linked compound and subject indexes are available.

Legal Cases and Companies

2012-01-18T08:30:00.000-06:00

Doing company research? Need an easy way to find legal cases related to a particular company? Use LexisNexis.

Don't be distracted by the Legal Search options, however. The easiest way to find cases involving a company is to search for the company. Use the Get Company Info search box to find the company that interests you; then, when you've opened the record, look to the sidebar on the left where, under Legal, you'll see a link for "Recent cases." U.S., U.K., Canadian, and Commonwealth cases may be available.

MDConsult Mobile

2012-01-17T13:27:00.000-06:00

To use MDConsult on a mobile device, you must first create a personal login from a CBU computer; then:

Click on Create an Account (upper right)
Fill out the registration form and create username and password
Click Continue which submits your information
Log out of MDConsult on your PC
Use the web browser on your mobile device to go to MD Consult Mobile (http://m.mdconsult.com)
Login to MDConsult Mobile with your new personal login

A list of supported mobile devices can be found at MD Consult Mobile under the Info Icon in the upper right hand corner. Click on the "I" and select "Device Configuration." Devices and systems are added regularly.

Internet Sites Down January 18

2012-01-17T13:26:00.002-06:00

Be aware that the English language version of Wikipedia, the Internet Archive, Scribd, Wordpress, Mozilla, and possibly other major Internet sites will shut down for 12 hours on January 18 in protest of the proposed SOPA/PIPA legislation.

How to Write About Literature

2012-01-17T10:31:00.000-06:00

Many volumes in Harold Bloom's series, How to Write About Literature, are available in our EBSCO eBooks collection. Major authors are covered, among them: Geoffrey Chaucer, Joseph Conrad, William Faulkner, Robert Frost, Homer, James Joyce, Langston Hughes, Gabriel Garcia Marquez, George Orwell, Amy Tan, Oscar Wilde, and more.

Each volume begins with a chapter on how to write a good literary essay--selecting a thesis, drafting an outline, writing an introduction, etc. Each following chapter will cover issues involved in writing about a specific author. Then chapters follow, each covering each of the author's major works.

Take How to Write About Geoffrey Chaucer as an example. A chapter is devoted to the Canterbury Tales as a work, and chapters are also included for each Tale as an individual work. Chapters on works cover themes, characters, history and context, form and genre, language, symbols and imagery, philosophy and ideas--with suggestions for topics throughout. Useful bibliographies of articles about the work are included, as well as lists of relevant online sources.

The easiest way to find works in the series is to search the phrase bloom's how to write about literature in the EBSCO eBooks database. You'll see all available titles in the results list. Remember, as with all EBSCO eBooks, these books can be downloaded and read offline for up to seven days if you have a personal EBSCO account (free with registration) and Adobe Digital Editions on your computer.

NewsBank: Martin Luther King

2012-01-16T11:30:00.000-06:00

Check out NewsBank's special retrospective collection of articles about Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. The main page is divided into four categories with articles on Dr. King's legacy, his biography, the assassination and subsequent investigation, and the Civil Rights Movement. Check out the tabs at the top of the page if you want to see such background material as documents and legislation from the Civil Rights era.

eBook: All Things Chaucer

2012-01-15T08:45:00.000-06:00

Part of the Credo database, Shannon Rogers' All Things Chaucer (2007) is an alphabetic guide to concepts and subjects mentioned by Chaucer in his writings: Biblical references, classical references, events, beliefs. A guide to the world of the Middle Ages, it discusses social aspects of life at the time.

In addition to explanations, entries extract Chaucer's own words related to the topic and offer suggested reading lists.

Credo is a collection of online reference works on many topics. All entries in a Credo reference book include citation help for APA, MLA, Chicago, and Harvard styles. You can also export to RefWorks and other bibliographic citation managers.

Getting Started with a Paper - Coming Up with an Idea

2012-01-14T11:00:00.000-06:00

You have an assignment to write a paper on a current topic. How do you come up with an idea? The easy thing to say is to pick something that interests you, but that's not altogether helpful. You could pick your favorite topic in the world and still have problems producing a paper.

A major problem that inexperienced student writers have is that they pick topics that are too broad. It may not seem logical, but a narrow topic can make for a better paper. The trick is finding a balance between "narrow" and broad enough to generate an adequate number of search results for you to work with.Check out our page, Find a Topic, for more details.

Subscription resources that can help you focus your ideas include:

CQ Researcher's Issue Tracker - Starts with a broad topic (like "Poverty and Homelessness") and lets you drill to more specific considerations (like "Child Poverty" or "Hunger in America")
Point of View's Browse by Category - Also starts with broad topics ("Censorship") that include more specific aspects ("Banning Books," "Music Censorship," "Political Cartoons and Islam")

Try a visual search tool for another option. EBSCO databases (like Academic Search Premier and Business Source Premier) include a visual search option. You'll find it just below the search box. It lets you start with a broad topic, and as you drill through the lists to more and more specific topics, you'll see how many articles are available for your use.

AllPlus, a free search engine, offers another kind of visual search, scattering results onto an interactive Topic graph so that you can see how concepts relate to one another.

Books in MDConsult

2012-01-13T13:13:00.000-06:00

MDConsult provides fulltext access to over 40 major medical texts. Books cover 29 medical specialties, from Allergies to Urology. You can search the entire collection of books, browse by specialty, or search within a single title. Each title is provided in its latest edition; among the titles are such works as: Miller's Anesthesiology, Braunwald's Heart Disease, the Cleveland Clinic's Current Clinical Medicine, Abeloff's Clinical Oncology, and Williams' Textbook of Endocrinology. Here's a short video introduction to MDConsult's ebook collection.

In addition to searching within a title, you can also browse the table of contents. Books are presented in HTML, with chapters available as individual PDFs.

MLK Video Playlist

2012-01-13T08:24:00.000-06:00

One of the features of the Alexander Street AHIV (American History in Video) database is the ability to create playlists of videos in the collection on any topic that interests you.

Alexander Street staff regularly create playlists for subscribers to use. Here is Shana Wagger's In Celebration of Martin Luther King, Jr., which pulls together clips from documentaries and newsreel footage that illustrates the life of the man and the movement that he led.

To create your own playlists, you must register for a personal account with AHIV. Playlists can be made up of videos and clips found in AHIV, as well as any other URLs. Each playlist receives a static URL so you can annotate and share them. Playlists can be used for lists of personal favorites, class viewing/listening assignments, or as teaching resources for in-class use. You can choose to share your playlists or keep them private.

New: Industry Dossier

2012-01-12T10:30:00.000-06:00

The LexisNexis Academic database has added Industry Dossier to our subscription. Material is drawn from the Integra Industry Reports.

You'll find Industry Dossier incorporated within Company Dossier. To get to it, click "Companies" on the blue sidebar of LNA's homepage to access Company Dossier. Once inside Company Dossier, just click on the Industry tab for search options. You can search by SIC code or by keyword. Keyword searches result in lists of any SIC classification related the term so Industry Dossier is a useful resource for identifying relevant SICs; you can also browse for SICs using the Industry Hierarchy.

An industry snapshot begins with a brief descriptive overview, then lists the top companies with net sales, total assets and liabilities, and net income. Ratio components are provided when available.

Other databases in our subscriptions--Mergent and Business Source Premier--provide additional industry reports; see this earlier entry describing how to access them.

How to Read a Scientific Paper

2012-01-12T08:22:00.003-06:00

Here's a useful article from Scienceblogs.com: Chad Orzel's "How to Read a Scientific Paper," dated January 10, 2012 and found at http://scienceblogs.com/principles/2012/01/how_to_read_a_scientific_paper.php. In it he explains the parts of a scientific paper--abstract, introduction, procedure, conclusion--, telling what each part is for and what each will tell you. He also reviews the types of scientific papers, such as review articles, proof-of-principle measurement articles, technical advances, and precision measurement, and he points out the elements of the article to which you should pay the most attention.

Manage Citations with RefWorks

2012-01-11T08:43:00.000-06:00

Doing research? Starting a Masters level program? Writing a paper for publication? Planning to go into professional practice? You may want to set up a RefWorks account. RefWorks is a web-based, professional-level citation management tool. With it, you can create your own database, collect references to materials that interest you, add your own notes and commentary, share reference lists with collaborators, and generate bibliographies in hundreds of formats.

You must register for your own account, as accounts are not created automatically. Use the RefWorks link on the library's homepage to access the instruction page. Connect to RefWorks from there, and click "Sign Up for Your Own Account" to start the process. Here's RefWorks' own introduction to the product as well as their brand-new LibGuide. You can also check out our RefWorks Training and RefWorks Tutorials for help getting started.

All CBU students, faculty, and staff have access to RefWorks, and alumni can keep their accounts after graduation.

Specialty Encyclopedias: Education, print and online

2012-01-10T14:45:00.000-06:00

Some good starting points for research related to Education are the many Education-specific specialty encyclopedias we have in our collection. Use them to find overviews and background on educational theories and practices. We have several, both online and in print:

Encyclopedia of American Education (2007), R370.973 U54
Encyclopedia of Distance Education (2009), eBook
Encyclopedia of Education (2003), R370.3 E47
Encyclopedia of Education Research (1992), R370.3 M75
Encyclopedia of Multicultural Education (1999), eBook
International Encyclopedia of Higher Education (1977), R378.003 I57

CBU students, faculty, and staff can view eBooks from on-campus and off with CBU email usernames and passwords. EBSCO eBooks can also be downloaded with a MyEBSCO personal account and Adobe Digital Editions loaded on your PC.

Print reference works must be used in the Library. Older editions of print references may be available for check-out.

New: MDConsult

2012-01-10T08:00:00.000-06:00

Selected to support our new Physician Assistants program, our newest online resource is MDConsult with its collection of fulltext medical books, journals, review articles, drug information, patient education material, and news. Check out this short video introduction to the resource.

MDConsult works on IE 6, 7, 9, Safari 4.1, Chrome 5, and all versions of Firefox.

You can personalize MDConsult with an individual account. Sign up for an account if you want to be able to customize patient handouts, bookmark favorites, save searches, set up alerts, or use MDConsult Mobile.

Research Help

2012-01-09T14:33:00.001-06:00

Do you need help preparing for a research assignment? Visit Ben Head, our instruction librarian; he'll be stationed in the InfoLab, during the first few weeks of the semester. Check out his schedule here.

For Nursing Students

2012-01-09T10:30:00.000-06:00

Nurses: we have many resources to help you with research for your classes, and we have them all linked from our page Research by Subject - Nursing. Bookmark the page, or save it to your Favorites for easy access to databases like CINAHL, online journal collections from OVID and Wiley, links to nursing news sites, selected nursing eBooks extracted from our catalog (and a link to the BUCCAT catalog so you can look up more). An annotated list of websites, including sources of images and patient education material, points you to free resources, and in addition, you'll find contact information for the library's liaison for nursing--if you need to ask for personal help.

eBook: Young Adult Literature

2012-01-08T12:56:00.000-06:00

Michael Cart's Young Adult Literature: From Romance to Realism (2010) is available online in our collection of EBSCO eBooks. Published by the American Library Association, it traces the history of the literature in conjunction with the rise of the teen-ager and youth culture throughout the 20th century.

Part one covers early development through the 60s and 70s, the rise of realism in YA fiction, the paperback series of the 80s, and the near collapse and rebirth of the genre in the 90s. Part two addresses 21st century trends and issues: the popularity of series, the blurring of the lines between adult and YA fiction, LGBT issues, comics and graphic novels, the transformation of literature, and multiple literacies.

Additional eBooks on the subject include:

CBU students, faculty, and staff can view EBSCO eBooks from on-campus and off with CBU email usernames/passwords. EBSCO eBooks can also be downloaded with a MyEBSCO personal account and Adobe Digital Editions loaded on your PC.

eBook: American Economy

2012-01-07T14:17:00.000-06:00

A new online reference work, Cynthia Clark's American Economy: A Historical Encyclopedia (2011), is available in the EBSCO eBooks database. Its two parts cover (first) short, 2-3 paragraphs long entries for concepts and events in American economic history, and (second) in-depth essays on such broad topics as advertising, banking, antitrust legislation, insurance, slavery, taxation, war, the welfare state, and more. Each essay is accompanied by a lengthy bibliography.

With a My EBSCOHost personal registration and Adobe Digital Editions, you can download EBSCO eBooks for up to seven days.

RefWorks LibGuide

2012-01-06T13:11:00.001-06:00

Need help getting started with RefWorks? Check out the new LibGuide to RefWorks. With instructions and video tutorials, it can help you learn to use RefWorks to create your own database, populate it with citations and references, and generate papers and bibliographies in various citation styles. Sections include:

Getting Started
Getting Information into RefWorks
Organizing and Managing Your References
Sharing References
Creating Bibliographies/Writing Papers

RefWorks is available to all students, faculty, and staff at CBU. You must sign up for a personal account through the Library's webpage to use it.

Research Guides by Subject

2012-01-06T08:30:00.000-06:00

If you have classes in a new or unfamiliar field this coming semester, check out the relevant Research by Subject guide. Each guide provides links to appropriate resources for the field: databases and journals, news sites, selected ebooks, and helpful websites (with descriptions). If you don't have a major yet, you can use the General Studies to get started.

If you want to talk to someone or if you need more help in navigating library resources, the contact information of the library's subject liaison is also included on each page. You can also use the Ask A Librarian email service.

For PA Students

2012-01-05T08:30:00.000-06:00

Welcome to students in the new program for Physician Assistants. To help you with your studies we have a Research by Subject Guide - Physician Assistants which lists and links to databases such as CINAHL, Journals at OVID, MDConsult, PubMed; the library's journal finder; news sources and blogs; the library catalog and selected eBooks; and useful websites--with annotations. Use this page as your starting place whenever you are doing research. Journal articles, images, videos, online books, drug information, and patient education material are among the resources available.

Subscription resources can be accessed from on- and off-campus. When off-campus, use your CBU email username and password when prompted.

eBook: Biochemistry - A Short Course

2012-01-04T08:00:00.000-06:00

Do you need to get familiar with the basics of biochemistry?

Our Knovel subscription has just added Biochemistry - A Short Course to its collection of online reference works. Written by Matthews, Freeland, and Miesfeld and published in 1997, it remains a useful resource for undergraduates, graduates, and medical students needing a concise review of such concepts as molecules and cells, nucleic acids, proteins, membranes, enzymes, hormones, DNA replication, RNA synthesis, and more.

Knovel ebooks are available to CBU students, faculty, and staff, both on-campus and off. When you are off-campus, use your CBU email login for access.

Database Login Problems

2012-01-03T10:25:00.001-06:00

We are aware of connection problems with library databases and are working to solve them.

eBook: Green Technologies

2012-01-03T08:30:00.000-06:00

A new addition to our EBSCO eBooks collection, IGI Global's Green Technologies: Concepts, Methodologies, Tools and Applications (2011) is a reference guide to current research in green technology and sustainability. Its eight sections--fundamental concepts, design methodologies, tools and technologies, utilization, social implications, impact on management, critical issues, and emerging trends-- are divided over 2000 pages. It covers such subjects as semiconductor design, environment-enterprise integration, e-waste management, biorefineries, mobile technology, and water provision. Graphs, references, and definition of terms are included.

EBSCO eBooks are available online to students, faculty, and staff of Christian Brothers University and can be downloaded for up to seven days after personal registration.

RefWorks Link to Full Text

2012-01-01T09:00:00.000-06:00

An account with RefWorks set up through CBU includes our 360 Link to Full Text articles. The 360 Link interacts with our journal collection--both print and online. Clicking on the link, wherever you see it, will let you know (1) whether we have access to the journals, and (2) if it's an online journal, what database it is in. You'll also be given a link to the article itself, when available.

LexisNexis Webinars

2011-12-30T09:27:00.000-06:00

Do you need lessons on using LexisNexis? Several webinars will be available in the new year:

Basic Overview:

Tuesday,January 19, 2012 2:00 p.m.-3:00 p.m. (Eastern Time) (VOIP Only): Register here<https://www1.gotomeeting.com/register/216997721>
Wednesday,January 25, 2012 2:00 p.m.-3:00 p.m. (Eastern Time) (Telephone Only): Registerhere<https://www1.gotomeeting.com/register/932014249>
Thursday,February 2, 2012 3:00 p.m.-4:00 p.m. (Eastern Time) (VOIP Only): Registerhere<https://www1.gotomeeting.com/register/129951225>
Friday,February 17, 2012 12:00 p.m.-1:00 p.m. (Eastern Time) (Telephone Only):Register here<https://www1.gotomeeting.com/register/835092177>

Legal Research:

Thursday,January 26, 2012 2:00p.m.-3:00 p.m. (Eastern Time) (Telephone Only): Registerhere<https://www1.gotomeeting.com/register/944637625>
Thursday,February 16, 2012 1:00p.m.-2:00 p.m. (Eastern Time) (VOIP Only): Registerhere<https://www1.gotomeeting.com/register/151162825>
Thursday,March 1, 2012 1:00p.m.-2:00 p.m. (Eastern Time) (VOIP Only): Register here<https://www1.gotomeeting.com/register/484103952>

News:

Friday,January 13, 2012 12:00 p.m.-1:00 p.m. (Eastern Time) (VOIP Only): Registerhere<https://www1.gotomeeting.com/register/419636185>

eBook: Martial Arts of the World

2011-12-28T08:00:00.000-06:00

For a guide to traditional martial arts with a multicultural and international perspective look at Martial Arts of the World: An Encyclopedia of History and Innovation (2010) in our Credo collection of online reference works. Arranged by geographic area, fighting styles from that part of the world will be listed together. Origins and historic background are provided for each style, with a discussion of social aspect, rules, ranks, and weapons as applicable. Martial arts from Aikido to Zulu Stick Fighting are covered. In addition, there are sections on fighting during historic times (Classical, Middle Ages, the Renaissance) and discussions of modern developments such as globalization, how media has impacted the martial arts, and military/law enforcement applications.

eBook: Epidemiology

2011-12-27T12:00:00.000-06:00

Need an overview of epidemiology--the study of health and disease in populations?

Oxford University Press's Epidemiology: A Very Short Introduction (2010) is available online to CBU students, faculty, and staff in our EBSCO eBooks database. One of the "Very Short Introductions" series, it provides solid, concise discussions of the main issues related to epidemilogy, tracing its development plus its impact on society. There are chapters on measuring health and disease, looking for the causes of disease, determining the exact cause of a disease, mapping health and disease, and ethical and political issues.

News of the Year in Review

2011-12-21T07:30:00.000-06:00

Check out NewsBank's Special Reports for a review of the news of 2011. You'll find articles about the top stories in politics, arts, business, culture, sports, science, and more. Background, images, video and maps are included, too.

The NewsBank database is provided to libraries and citizens of Tennessee by TennShare and the Tennessee State Library and Archives. It is primarily an online source of major Tennessee newspapers. However, the Special Reports cover recent issues and serve as good sources of material on current and newsworthy events on national and international scales.

eBook: Physical and Chemical Basis of Molecular Biology

2011-12-20T08:00:00.000-06:00

Thomas Creighton's Physical and Chemical Basis of Molecular Biology (2010) is a new addition to our Knovel online collections.The 212-chapter reference guide provides detailed explanations of the physical and chemical aspects of molecular biology, starting with fundamentals like thermodynamics, aqueous solutions, and kinetics. Other sections are devoted to the visualization of macromolecules, spectroscopy, transport in solution, and interactions between molecules.

Useful for practicing chemists and biologists as well as students, the ebook is available online to students, faculty, and staff at CBU.

eBook: Encyclopedia of Middle East Wars

2011-12-16T08:30:00.000-06:00

If you are interested in an overview of the United States' recent wars in the Middle East, check out the Encyclopedia of Middle East Wars, available online through the EBSCO eBooks database.Written by Spencer Tucker and Priscilla Mary Roberts and published in 2010, it covers the Gulf War, the war in Afghanistan, and the Iraq wars. Entries are detailed, and you'll find a chronology, a glossary, maps, photos, and the text of documents about Western activities in the region dating back to 1839.

If you literally want to "check out" the book, you can use the Download command and have access to it for up to seven days. Downloading requires that you register for a My EBSCOHost account and that you download Adobe Digital Editions software onto your computer.

Revising A's in the OED

2011-12-15T09:00:00.000-06:00

An abundance of "A" words have been added to the Oxford English Dictionary Online including aapa, abapical, abducens, absotively, accordion, acronic, acronymous, adenosis, adulticide, Aesopical, and aetomorphic. See the OED's What's New page for links to the full list, editorial commentary, and articles about the English language. New articles cover such subjects as place names, Middle English, and South African English.

We subscribe to the OED Online; CBU students, faculty, and staff have access. You can find it on our Databases page.

eBook: Design Engineering Manual

2011-12-14T09:00:00.000-06:00

Design engineering crosses over many areas within engineering, as does this new addition to our Knovel collection of online engineering reference works.

The Design Engineering Manual (2010), edited by Mike Tooley, addresses aspects of the design process: product development, materials--including environmental aspects and industrial design, new materials like super alloys and intermetallic compounds, ergonomics, product safety, liability, and more. Three sections are devoted to specific design techniques in electronics, mechanics, and plastics.

Knovel ebooks are available to CBU students, faculty, and staff, both on-campus and off. When you are off-campus, login with your CBU email username and password.

eBook: Reliability, Maintainability, and Risk

2011-12-13T10:00:00.000-06:00

The 8th edition of Reliability, Maintainability, and Risk: Practical Methods for Engineers (2011) has been recently added to our Knovel collection of online engineering reference works. Reliability, Maintenance, and Risk is a core reference work for the field of engineering. Primarily describing statistical tools used in safety and risk calculations, it avoids jargon (though there is a chapter on terminology), placing the tools in context of safety processes, and assuming no previous knowledge on the part of the reader. A section on legal issues covers product liability, contract clauses, and more--plus it includes case studies.

Knovel ebooks are available to CBU students, faculty, and staff, both on-campus and off. When you are off-campus, use your CBU email login for access.

Very Short Introductions

2011-12-12T09:00:00.000-06:00

Very Short Introductions is a book series from Oxford University Press. A number of these titles are included in the EBSCO eBooks database. Political science and world religions are particularly well-represented among the available eBooks. Puritanism, Mormonism, Fundamentalism, Sikhism, Old Testament, New Testament as Literature, and Thomas Aquinas are among the very short introductions in religion; communism, socialism, feminism, neoliberalism, and the Reagan Revolution are examples from political and social movements.

The Introductions deliver solid, concise discussions of the main issues related to their topics, tracing the development of a topic and its impact on society.

The easiest way to find them is to search EBSCO eBooks on the phrase, "very short introductions."

eBook: Encyclopedia of Molecular Biology

2011-12-09T09:30:00.000-06:00

A standard reference work addressing the fundamentals of the field, The Encyclopedia of Molecular Biology is available online through our Knovel collection of Biochemistry/Biology/Biotechnology ebooks. From A-DNA to Zymogen, you'll find detailed definitions and explanations. Acronyms, abbreviations, and conversion factors are also included.

Knovel ebooks are available to CBU students, faculty, and staff, both on-campus and off. When you are off-campus, use your CBU email login for access.

New AHIV Videos

2011-12-08T08:30:00.000-06:00

Forty-seven new titles were added to the AHIV (American History in Video) online database last month, bringing the total number of available documentaries and newsreels to 5,864. CBU students, faculty, and staff can view AHIV videos both on-campus and off, when logged in with your CBU username and password.

Among the new videos are:

The Americas Before Europe
B-17: Flying Legend
Black Inventors: Black Men and Iron Horses
Immigrant From America
Kent State: The Day the War Came Home
Niagara Falls: The Changing Nature of a New World Symbol

Alerts?

2011-12-07T08:56:00.000-06:00

What are Alerts and why do you need to know about them?

If you have a long-term research project, or if you a perpetually interested in a topic, an Alert will forward references to your email on the most recent publications on that topic, and it will do it automatically on a daily, weekly, or monthly basis--depending on your preferences. Here are the icons to look for in some of our major databases.

EBSCO's article databases include the ability to set up Alerts among their personalization features. Conduct a search, and you'll see the "Create Alert" tab on the results page. Sign up for My EBSCOHost if you want to be able to receive Alerts from any of these databases: Academic Search Premier, ATLA, Business Source Premier, CINAHL, ERIC, MLA, Philosopher's Index, PsycInfo, or Regional Business News.

Gale databases display "Save This Search" (when you are logged in) or "Create Search Alert" (when you are not) in their Tools list. Either will let you set up an Alert based on your search terms. Gale does not require you to log in to set up an Alert. Gale databases include: Academic OneFile, General OneFile, General Reference Center Gold, General Business File, and Health Reference Center.

Both EBSCO and Gale offer RSS feeds as an alternative to Alerts.

You can access all these resources from our Databases List.

Research Help Comes to the Labs

2011-12-07T08:40:00.001-06:00

Look for our Instruction Librarian, Benjamin Head, in the ITS Lab on Wednesday, December 7, 2011, from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. He'll be there to provide any research help you may need.

On Friday, December 9, you'll find him in the Library's InfoLab during the same hours.

eBook: Guide to Safe Material and Chemical Handling

2011-12-06T09:30:00.000-06:00

A source of quick answers about chemicals and materials, Cheremisinoff and Davietshin's Guide to Safe Material and Chemical Handling (2010) is one of many new additions to our colllection of online references for chemical engineering from Knovel.

The Guide covers the most frequently used chemicals--including industrial chemicals--and the most important chemical processes.

Revised Subject Guides

2011-12-05T09:58:00.000-06:00

Revised subject guides are available for Writing and Grammar, Dictionaries and Encyclopedias, and Government Information.

Writing and Grammar links to resources on writing basics as well as business writing, creative writing, instructions for authors, and more.
Dictionaries and Encyclopedias directs you to reference works available in our collection as well as on the web.
Government Information provides links to state and federal government agencies and includes information on taxes and voting.

You can find these and many others listed on our Research by Subject page.

New in Biochemistry-Biology-Biotechnology

2011-12-04T09:58:00.000-06:00

Several new online reference works have been added to our Biochemistry-Biology-Biotechnology subscription from Knovel:

Biochemistry - A Short Course
Biological Safety - Principles and Practices
Clinical Microbiology Procedures Handbook
Manual of Commercial Methods in Clinical Microbiology
Manual of Industrial Microbiology and Biotechnology
Manual of Environmental Microbiology
Methods for General and Molecular Microbiology
Nitrification
Physical and Chemical Basis of Molecular Biology

Knovel titles are available to CBU students, faculty, and staff, and they can be used both on-campus and off. You will be prompted to login if you are off-campus; use your CBU email username and password.

Extended Hours for Finals

2011-12-02T08:00:00.000-06:00

Starting December 5th and running through the end of the semester, Plough Library will be open additional hours in the evening and on Saturday:

On Mondays through Thursdays, December 5-8 and 12-15, we're open from 7:45 a.m. until Midnight.
Friday, December 9, we're open 7:45 a.m. to 8 p.m.
Saturday, December 10, we're open from noon to 4 p.m.
Sunday, December 11, we're open from 1 p.m. until Midnight.
And lastly, on Saturday, December 17, we're open from 10 a.m. until 3 p.m.

See our Hours for details.

Hot Topics in CQ

2011-12-01T08:00:00.001-06:00

The CQ Researcher and its companion, CQ Global Researcher, are some of our best resources for in-depth reporting and analysis of hot or controversial topics. All topics are discussed in the same way, starting with an introduction and an overview. Background is provided, as is an outlook. Pro/con issues are discussed. Maps and graphs are included, and a bibliography and footnotes point you in the direction of further research.

A particular feature of the CQ Researcher is the availability of its archive, with reports going back to the 1920s. These are useful for historical topics, but also, for comparisons of how a subject has been viewed over time.

Recent additions and updates include:

Future of the Gulf States (November 1, 2011), new in Global
Google's Dominance (November 11, 2011), new in Researcher
Stem Cell Research (November 18, 2011), updated in Researcher
College Football (November 18, 2011), new in Researcher

eBook: Encyclopedia of African-American Music

2011-11-30T09:00:00.000-06:00

The Encyclopedia of African-American Music is one of the recent additions to the EBSCO eBooks collection. Its A-Z listings cover the history of African-American music, from ragtime to hip-hop. Compact but thorough biographies are included. The thematic topics will be more detailed. Photos, further reading, and further listening references are included. Appendices are devoted to genre-specific bibliographies of significant works, major archives, research centers, and websites.

EBSCO eBooks are available for online viewing to CBU students, faculty, and staff. They can also be downloaded.

EBSCO, PDFs, and Chrome

2011-11-29T10:10:00.001-06:00

EBSCO's PDFs are incompatible with the Chrome browser. The files may open, but they only display the first pages of the articles. Use IE or Firefox, if you have problems.

Google has also posted some suggestions for fixes in their Chrome Forum.

eBook: Encyclopedia of Forensic Science

2011-11-29T09:38:00.000-06:00

For an introduction to forensics, try The Encyclopedia of Forensic Science (rev. ed., 2008) by Suzanne Bell in the EBSCO eBook database. It defines terms and provides overviews of the major topics and core concepts of forensics: DNA typing, drug testing, fignerprints, lie detecting, careers in forensics, forensic myths, and more. Each article includes cross references and references for further reading.

As with the thousands of other EBSCO eBooks, The Encyclopedia of Forensic Science is available to the students, faculty, and staff of Christian Brothers University and can be read online or downloaded for up to seven days.

Where to Get Research Help

2011-11-27T09:54:00.000-06:00

As the semester comes to an end and your assignments come due, don't forget to ask for research help from the library staff when you need it.

You can contact us through our Ask-A-Librarian email service (library@cbu.edu), or you can set up an appointment at a time convenient to you. Or you can stop by the reference desk in the Library; there's a reference librarian available from 9 a.m. to 9 p.m., Mondays through Thursdays, and 9 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. on Fridays.

And if you're still a do-it-yourselfer, here's our tutorial on How to Research a Topic.

Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty

2011-11-26T09:17:00.000-06:00

The website of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty is a source of information about countries in the former Soviet bloc and the Middle East: Armenia, Afghanistan, Azerbaijan, the Balkans, Belarus, Georgia, Iran, Iraq, Kazakstan, Kyrgyzstan, Moldova, the North Caucausus, Pakistan, Russia, Tajikistan, Tatar-Bashkir, Turkmenistan, the Ukraine, and Uzbekistan.

News and current events related to each country are reported. Audio broadcasts are in the native language of the country, while videos may be dubbed in English or sub-titled. You can find photos and press releases and follow blogs and tweets. Archives of analytical reports and newslines date back to 2000. Our Research Guide for Political Science includes a link to RFERL.

TechXtra

2011-11-25T14:15:00.000-06:00

Specialized search engines can help you get to more useful resources than a big, generalized search engine. TechXtra is one such resource; it focuses its attention on engineering, mathematics, and computing.

TechXtra cross-searches 33 major online resources, including the arXiv eprint collection, CalTech's earthquake engineering technical reports, CiteSeer, the CSA Discovery Guides, the Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ), MIT's DSpace, Emerald Engineering, Hindawi, NASA Tech Reports and more. Some of these are freely available; others may require subscriptions for full access.

Advanced search lets you select specific resources for searching.

Viewing eBooks on Adobe Digital Editions

2011-11-23T07:30:00.000-06:00

Adobe Digital Editions, the software you need to be able to read downloaded eBooks from EBSCOhost, has several viewing options: a two page view, a one page view, a scrollable view, and fit width (the largest view). Drag bars and up/down arrows work with all views.

Adobe Digital Editions is available as a free download. Add Adobe Digital Editions to your PC and register for and login to a My EBSCOhost account to be able to download books from the EBSCO eBooks database. Once you've downloaded a book to your computer, you can sync it to most ereaders. Downloads last for up to seven days.

eBook: Dictionary of Materials and Testing

2011-11-22T11:30:00.000-06:00

Can you define azoles, exudation, gyrotron, the Izod test, Nyquist frequency, pyrroles, or the Yang-Mills theory?

If you can't and you need to, use The Dictionary of Materials and Testing, one of the online reference works included in our Knovel collections of engineering reference works. Edited by Joan L. Tomsic, the second edition includes over 8000 words, with much attention paid to computer terms related to testing instrumentation.

The book is available online to students, faculty, and staff of Christian Brothers University.

Research by Subject - General Studies

2011-11-21T08:00:00.000-06:00

We've added another Research by Subject Guide--called General Studies and designed for those who have not yet declared majors. It includes links to basic resources, multidisciplinary online reference works and databases of particular use in Freshman composition classes, plus websites on choosing a major, surviving college, and improving study skills.

Can You Cut? Can You Paste?

2011-11-20T13:09:00.000-06:00

For a review of plagiarism see our new PowerPoint, Can You Cut? Can You Paste?

You'll learn what it is, who does it, who's done it (with links to articles about recent newsworthy instances of plagiarism), how it's different from violating copyright, how to avoid it, and more.

Visual Search with AllPlus

2011-11-18T09:30:00.000-06:00

If you would like to try an alternative to Google, check out Allplus.com--particularly if you like working from a graphical display of your results instead of an ordinary list.

Allplus' default display is a list--with news, images, videos, tweets, and blogs displayed on the side--, but look over on the left. The results are sorted by topic, and there's an option for looking at a topics graph.

Just be aware that Allplus works from a smaller dataset than Google; it pulls material from the topmost results for your consideration.

Recent eBooks for Nursing

2011-11-17T10:00:00.000-06:00

Over 80 recently published nursing books have been added to the EBSCO eBooks database. All have a publication date of 2010.

Examples include:

Acute Stroke Nursing
Advanced Practice Nursing: Core Concepts for Professional Role Development (4th ed.)
Critical Care Nursing of Older Adults: Best Practices (3rd ed.)
Essentials of Nursing Leadership and Management (5th ed.)
Family Health Care Nursing: Theory, Practice, and Research (4th ed.)
Maternal-Newborn Nursing: Critical Components of Nursing Care
Nature of Theoretical Thinking in Nursing (3rd ed.)
Neonatal Intensive Care Nursing (2nd ed.)
Palliative Care Nursing: Quality Care to the End of Life (3rd ed.)
Professional Issues in Primary Care Nursing
Rural Nursing: Concepts, Theory, and Practice (3rd ed.)
Transcultural Caring Dynamics in Nursing and Health Care

All EBSCO eBooks can be viewed online from on-campus or off. If you are off-campus, use your CBU email account name and password to login.

You can also download EBSCO eBooks for offline reading for up to seven days. There are two things you'll need to have done to be able to download. First, register for a free My EBSCOHost account; this is free and you can use whatever username and password that you want. Second, download Adobe Digital Editions (also free) to your computer; this will allow you to read the books that you download.

eBook: Modern Homelessness

2011-11-16T12:17:00.000-06:00

Modern Homelessness (2011), by Mary Ellen Hombs, is one of the new reference works available as an EBSCO eBook. Addressing the history and background of homelessness, as well as problems and possible solutions, it includes overviews of supporting documentation and statistics collected on homelessness, a directory of agencies and information on other resources, including databases and websites. U.S. and international perspectives are included.

New Book: Factory Girls

2011-11-15T07:30:00.000-06:00

Listen to the NPR story about Leslie Chang's Factory Girls, a new addition (call number 331.4 C43 2009) to Plough Library's collection. About China's migratory factory workforce and focused on female workers, Factory Girls traces the lives of two such workers. A transcript is also available.

You can find Factory Girls along with our other new books on the Main Floor of the Library; new books can be checked out for two weeks.

ASCE Mobile Edition

2011-11-14T09:30:00.000-06:00

The American Society of Civil Engineers' ASCE Library has a mobile interface. Full functionality—searching, bookmarking, etc.—is limited to only the latest mobile web browsers, however. JavaScript must be turned on as well.

Find it, and other resources for your handheld, on the Mobile site for Plough Library.

Statistics about Kids

2011-11-13T13:45:00.000-06:00

The Annie E. Casey Foundation maintains the Kids Count website and interactive Kids Count Data Center. Hundreds of U.S. measures are available: demographic, educational, socio-economic, family, and health-related.

You can search for data within a state, compare measures across states, rank states, and create maps and graphs. As an example, here's the profile for Tennessee; note that you can drill down to communities within states, too. Just click on "Select another TN location."

For additional statistical measures about children, check out www.childstats.gov and www.childhealthdata.org. For international statistics, try UNICEF's www.childinfo.org.

What's a DOI?

2011-11-11T08:30:00.000-06:00

DOI stands for "digital object identifier." DOIs are used by publishers as unique identifying codes for their journal articles.

Why do you need to know about DOIs? If you use APA citation style (also Turabian in some instances), you're required to include the DOI in the reference, if available, and if you found the article online or through a database. If a DOI is available, then you don't have to worry about including whatever database you used in the citation. To see an example of an APA citation with a DOI, see our help page on Citing Articles on the Web; the examples on the Citing Articles from Databases page illustrate articles that lack DOIs.

DOIs can be found on the first page of an article, on the publisher's record for the article (that is, the page with the citation and abstract), as well as in many databases that index articles.

A DOI will always be prefixed with DOI: or doi: or even Digital Object Identifier. The codes may look like:

10.5465/AMJ.2011.60263097
10.1037/a0023961
10.1016/j.profnurs.2007.01.025

Some may make sense, showing numbers that may look like journal abbreviations or dates, but sometimes they'll be meaningless (to you). They're also useful search terms; even if all you have is a DOI, you can put it in a search engine, and it will find the article for you online.

DOIs are most commonly used by publishers in science, technology, and medicine. You'll find them on many articles in the fields of business as well.

Share Searches in ERIC

2011-11-10T09:00:00.000-06:00

Did you know that ERIC has a social web component? Shared Search is now available to users who register for the free My ERIC personalization tool. Once registered, you can select communities of interest, share your own searches with others in the community, browse others' searches, and sign up to be alerted when new ERICrecords match your search specifications.

While CBU has access to ERIC through EBSCOHost, the My ERIC tool is available through the free version of ERIC provided by the U.S. Government Department of Education.

Using RefWorks Search

2011-11-09T09:00:00.000-06:00

A variety of databases and library catalogs are available to search from within RefWorks. The main benefit of using RefWorks' own search option is that you can make your selections from the results lists and automatically load them into your RefWorks database. Just click on the Search drop-down, choose "Online Catalog or Database," then select the name of the resource you want to use from the (very long) alphabetic list.

Searchable resources include the British Library, the Library of Congress, the National Library of Medicine, the National Institutes of Health, and the Smithsonian Institution. You can also search the catalogs of various university libraries. We've pulled the University of Memphis and the University of Tennessee Health Sciences to the top of the list to make them easier to find.

RefWorks accounts are available to all CBU students, faculty, staff, and alumni.

Search within EBSCO eBooks

2011-11-08T09:30:00.000-06:00

Don't forget the tools you can use with an EBSCO eBook. In addition to email, print, and cite, you can also search within a book to find relevant pages--something that is much easier than clicking through hundreds of pages. The "search within" tool is located on the upper right side of the eBook frame.

New book: Colossal Failure of Common Sense

2011-11-07T08:00:00.000-06:00

A Colossal Failure of Common Sense: the Inside Story of the Collapse of Lehman Brothers (call # 332.62 M33 2009) is a recent addition to the Plough Library collection. Written by Lawrence McDonald with Patrick Robinson, it describes the failure of Lehman Brothers from the point-of-view of one of its vice presidents. You can read an excerpt as well as listen to an interview with the author at NPR's "Morning Edition."

Using Other Memphis Libraries

2011-11-06T13:10:00.000-06:00

Your CBU ID is your library card at Plough Library. Did you know that it can help you check out books at other college and university libraries in town? LeMoyne-Owen, Memphis College of Art, Memphis Theological Seminary, Mid-America Baptist Theological Seminary, Rhodes College, Southwest Tennessee Community College, the University of Memphis, and Victory University share borrowing privileges with CBU. For more details--and links to their catalogs--see our page, Other Library Catalogs.

Studying Victorian Authors?

2011-11-04T07:30:00.000-05:00

The Oxford Reference Online (ORO) collection of online reference works has begun adding Oxford Reader's Companions to various authors, and the first authors to be featured are Charles Dickens, George Eliot, and Thomas Hardy. You'll be able to find biographical details and overviews of their works, including information on how books were written, first published, and received by the public and by critics, as well as the plot. Articles on social issues related to authors and their works are also included.

The Oxford Reader's Companions are among many literary reference works available online in ORO to the students, faculty, and staff at CBU. Other titles include: the Oxford Companion to American Literature, Oxford Companion to Australian Literature, Oxford Companion to Canadian Literature, Oxford Companion to English Literature, Oxford Companion to New Zealand Literature, and Oxford Companion to Shakespeare.

eBook: Elasticity in Engineering Mechanics

2011-11-03T11:38:00.000-05:00

A new revision of the classic Elasticity in Engineering Mechanics (2010), by Boresi, Chong and Lee, is now available to CBU students, faculty, and staff as part of the Wiley Online Library. Chapters cover the mathematics and basic concepts of engineering mechanics, deformation, stress, 3-D equations of elasticity, plane theory of elasticity in rectangular cartesian coordinates, and more. You can view chapters as PDFs.

We have fulltext access to journals in many disciplines--including science and engineering--in the Wiley Online Library, as well as to selected books.

eBooks Outage Resolved

2011-11-02T16:10:00.002-05:00

EBSCO eBooks is not working correctly at the moment. Searches within EBSCO eBooks do not produce results, and eBook titles listed in our catalog are not being found in EBSCO. This issue is not specific to our library and should hopefully be fixed as soon as possible.

UPDATE: EBSCO eBooks appears to be working again. Please alert the library if problems resume.

Download MP3 Files from Gale Databases

2011-11-02T11:30:00.000-05:00

Any plain HTML document in a Gale database includes an MP3 file available for download. To access these, first conduct a search on the topic you that interests you, then click on the title of one of the results in order to open the record for the item. A "Listen" icon will be visible at the bottom of the list of Tools. Click on "Listen" to see the "Download MP3" link.

Gale databases include Academic OneFile, General Reference Center Gold, Gale Virtual Reference Library, Health Reference Center Academic, Informe (a Spanish language resource), and Literature Resource Center.

Worldwide Business in LexisNexis - New Titles

2011-11-01T09:00:00.000-05:00

LexisNexis Academic continually adds publications to its lists of online resources. Recent additions expand business coverage for Asia and the Middle East. The Lanka Monthly Digest and the Lanka Business Report cover business and finance in Sri Lanka; the Khaama Press addresses business, the economy, and industry in Afghanistan, and Behind Woods focuses on Tamil cinema. The Shenzhen Stock Exchange is available, as is the Nepal Business Times and numerous publications from India.

The easiest way to access individual titles is to key the name of the publication into the Library's Find Journals tool shown above. It will set up the LexisNexis search screen automatically, saving you from having to find a single resource among the hundreds available in LNA. If you choose go through LexisNexis itself, however, use the Find Sources or Browse Sources tools to find and select titles for searching.

New book: Selling of the American Economy

2011-10-28T09:30:00.000-05:00

Micheline Maynard writes about how the foreign share of the U.S. industry has increased in Selling of the American Economy and discusses the topic in this NPR broadcast of "All Things Considered." The book itself has recently been added to the Library's collection (call number 338.8 M39 2009). Maynard's book, and other new titles, can be found on the new book shelf on the Library's Main Floor.

New books can be checked out for two weeks.

How to Find Movie Reviews

2011-10-27T15:27:00.000-05:00

If you want to find out whether you might like a movie or not, Rotten Tomatoes is as good as anything out there.

However, if you want reviews to cite in a paper--reviews that your instructors might find more acceptable--, a big multi-disciplinary database like Academic OneFile or Academic Search Premier might be more helpful.

With the film version of The Soloist as an example, here are instructions for each database:

Academic OneFile - Use Advanced Search. Key in soloist as your search term and select movie review from the By Document Type scroll-down box
Academic Search Premier - Use Advanced Search. Use soloist in the first search box and motion picture reviews in the second.

You'll have an opportunity to see The Soloist as theOffice of Academic Services is sponsoring a screening tomorrow as a Movie on Maurelian Lawn on October 28th at 8 p.m. The book on which the movie was based was this year's summer reading title. Both tell the true story of Nathaniel Ayers, a classically-trained cellist, whose schizophrenia left him on the streets of Los Angeles and the efforts of journalist Steve Lopez to help him.

Historic Science

2011-10-26T15:53:00.001-05:00

The Royal Society has opened access to 60,000 of its historic scientific journal articles. Items published over seventy years ago, dating back to the publication of the first peer-reviewed journal in1665, are fully available as pdfs. Articles by Isaac Newton, Benjamin Franklin, and Charles Darwin are among the works included. A search engine is available.

For more information, see the Royal Society's press release.

25 Years of the Journal of Management in Engineering

2011-10-26T11:30:00.000-05:00

In honor of the Journal of Management in Engineering's 25th anniversary, the American Society for Civil Engineering (ASCE) is providing free access to the journal's best articles of the past 25 years, including material on project management, operations management, professional practice and leadership, contract management, knowledge management, sales and marketing and more. Go to http://www.asce.org/JME25years/ to register for access.

Free access will only be available for a limited time. CBU also has subscription access to the journals through the ASCE Library.

New EBSCO eBooks

2011-10-25T10:00:00.000-05:00

A large (1600+) collection of new EBSCO eBooks has been added to the BUCCAT catalog. Among them are many encyclopedias and reference works--The Encyclopedia of African-American Music( 2011), The Encyclopedia of Religion and Film (2011), The 9/11 Encyclopedia (2011), Encyclopedia of the Vampire (2011), Encyclopedia of Emotion (2010), Encyclopedia of Arthritis (2011), The Quotable Woman (2011), and The Baby Boomer Encyclopedia (2011).

In addition, you'll find many new editions of Harold Bloom's critical guides on various works of literature: Shakespeare plays, Great Expectations, Emma, The Scarlet Letter, Death of a Salesman, The Bluest Eye, plus many others.

As with all EBSCO ebooks, these can be accessed through the catalog or through the EBSCO eBook database and read online both from on-campus and off-campus (provided you log in with your CBU username and password). They can also be downloaded for up to seven days.

NASA Astrophysics Data

2011-10-24T08:00:00.000-05:00

NASA Astrophysics Data System is a portal for research in the fields of astronomy and physics. It's made up of databases for each of its two major subjects and related eprints pulled from the ArXiv online repository.

Several search options are available, including advanced interfaces for Astronomy/Astrophysics and Physics/Geophysics; browsing options include a citation matcher, a table of contents service, scans of journals, bulletins, and proceedings, plus digitized books and historic literature.

A link to the resource can be found on the Library's Research by Subject guide for Physics.

OpEds in LexisNexis

2011-10-21T08:30:00.000-05:00

If you are working on a "controversial topic" paper, editorials and opinion pieces can be sources of pro and con discussions of the topic. LexisNexis, as the database with the greatest number of newspapers in its collection, is a good source for these sorts of articles. Here's a way to find them:

Select the News tab from the sidebar
Click All News at the top of the list
Type your topic in the Search for Box*
Select a source from the dropdown--"U.S. Newspapers & Wires" or "All News (Engl) are options
Check Editorials and Opinions

*TIP: Under Search for, change "Everywhere" to "Headline & Lead" for more manageable results. Using Specify Date also helps.

eBook: Microbial Ecology of the Oceans

2011-10-20T09:00:00.000-05:00

David L. Kirchman discusses historical and current information on marine microbiology and marine ecology in Microbial Ecology of the Oceans, 2nd ed. (2008), available in Knovel's Biochemistry/Biology/Biotechnology ebook collection. The Library's Knovel subscriptions provide fulltext PDFs - chapter by chapter - of scientific and technical books. CBU students, faculty, and staff can access the content both on-campus and off. (Use your CBU email login, when prompted, for off-campus access.)

eBook: Green Shakespeare

2011-10-19T08:30:00.000-05:00

Gabriel Egan's 2006 book, Green Shakespeare: From Ecopolitics to Ecocriticism, investigates what Shakespeare has to say on ecological themes like nature and human society, food and biological nature, and super-nature and the weather. Situations from such plays as Coriolanus, Henry V, Macbeth, As You Like It, Anthony and Cleopatra, Pericles, Cymbeline, Winter's Tale, King Lear, and The Tempest are discussed throughout the book.

Green Shakespeare is one of our EBSCO eBooks which can be read online or downloaded and read offline.

17th/18th/19th century novels online

2011-10-18T09:30:00.000-05:00

When it comes to the authors of classic novels, it's fairly easy to find most of their works--particularly major authors who are studied in literature classes. If authors are less well known today than they were during their lifetimes, however, or if they're only remembered for single works, it has typically been more difficult to find their works. With digital initiatives like the HathiTrust and Google Books , however, you can access thousands of freely available, out-of-print historic books with ease online. Just be sure to limit your search to "FULL VIEW ONLY" books.

Take, for example, Ann Radcliffe. She was a best-selling author of the late 18th and early 19th century, a contemporary of Jane Austen's (and parodied by her in Northanger Abbey). Available online copies of her works include: Romance of the Forest, The Italian, A Sicilian Romance, Mysteries of Udolfo, Gaston de Blondeville, The Castles of Athlin and Dunbayne, even plays adapted from her works. And she is only one author among many.

You'll find similar results in both HathiTrust and Google Books as they draw on the same digitized resources. HathiTrust is easier to use; the full view limiter is prominently placed on the main search page. Basic search for Google Books is more difficult; if you prefer to use Google, we recommend Google Books Advanced Search which is easy to use as well, but it is hard to find, appearing only after you've conducted a search.

Engineering Cases

2011-10-17T08:30:00.000-05:00

Are you looking for case studies in engineering? Check out Knovel's blog, Engineering Cases: Where Theory Meets Practice, which features detailed cases for various fields of engineering. Categories available for browsing include chemical engineering, civil engineering, mechanical engineering, product lifecycles, structural engineering, and sustainable engineering.

Links to relevant categories can be found on the Library's Research by Subject guides for engineering, under News/Blogs.

Quick Start Guides for RefWorks

2011-10-16T09:00:00.000-05:00

All CBU students, staff, faculty, and alumni are able to use RefWorks to create their own databases, manage citations and reference lists, and generate bibliographies. You must sign up for your own account with RefWorks; it is not automatic.

To help you get started, RefWorks makes Quick Start guides available in several languages, along with tutorials, webinars, and workbooks.