June 2005 Archives

Most of you should already know that the University is switching over to a new TUid number in July. Everyone is being issued a new ID card, called an OWL Card, which has your new TUid printed on the bottom right corner. It is a nine digit number that will replace almost all uses of the Social Security number in the University.

This means that in the library you will now use your new TUid number and OWL Card for:

a) Checking out books. You will be expected to have your OWL Card to check out books. Previous to September 30, 2005 we will still accept the old Temple ID card.

b) Requesting books through PALCI.

c) Requesting Intralibrary loans, Interlibrary Loans, or placing recalls, as well as most of the other services with online forms.

d) Logging into My Library Account to see your currently checked out items, renew items, or create saved searches.

All these functions will require your new TUid number starting on the weekend of July 1st.

Temple Libraries today acquired the electronic version of the Pennsylvania Gazette, 1728-1800. Published in Philadelphia, the Gazette is often called the New York Times of the 18th Century. For now, researchers should go directly to Accessible.com for access to this full-text resource. Once at the site, click on "Search" to begin.

A second major acquisition is African-American Newspapers: The 19th Century, also available from Accessible.com. Representative titles include Freedom's Journal, the North Star, Provincial Freeman and the Frederick Douglass Papers.

--David C. Murray

Temple now has online access to the Encyclopedia of Information Science and Technology, available from the e-books page. The 5 volume print version is available in the Paley Reference Stacks. Here's what the publisher says about this reference work:

"The Encyclopedia of Information Science and Technology is the first work to map this ever-changing field. It is the most comprehensive, research-based encyclopedia consisting of contributions from over 900 noted researchers in over 50 countries. This five-volume encyclopedia includes more than 550 articles highlighting current concepts, issues and emerging technologies. These articles are enhanced by special attention that is paid to over 5,000 technical and managerial terms. These terms will each have a 5-50 word description that allow the users of this extensive research source to learn the language and terminology of the field. In addition, these volumes offer a thorough reference section with over 11,500 sources of information that can be accessed by scholars, students, and researchers in the field of information science and technology."

--Fred Rowland

The Temple University Libraries provide online access to many different foreign news sources, both English and non-English publications. These sources are important because they offer news, events, and opinions that might otherwise be ignored or filtered by the US press.

First, take a look at the Non-English Language News available in Lexis/Nexis. You can search for articles in Dutch, French, German, Italian, Portuguese, and Spanish. (Click on images below to see the enlarged images.)

Second, if you don't read any of the above languages, you can also read English language news from around the world in Lexis/Nexis. Many different countries publish newspapers in the world's lingua franca, English.

Third, try World News Connection for foreign news in English translation. The translations comes from the US Foreign Broadcast Information Service (FBIS).

One thing to keep in mind with both Lexis/Nexis and World News Connection is that you cannot browse through the electronic editions of these newspapers. Instead, you have to search for articles. To search a specific newspaper in Lexis/Nexis, you can click "Sources" in the upper right corner and select your newspaper ("Sources" not shown in the Lexis/Nexis images above). In World News Connection I had no luck searching specific publications, though this search option is supposed to work (appears to be a glitch that needs to be fixed).

Lexis/Nexis and World News Connection are restricted to Temple students, faculty, and staff. Of course, the Internet offers a lot of free public content as well. Here's a list of newspapers by geographic region from the Internet Public Library. The difference is that in Lexis/Nexis and World News Connection you can search across many publications for articles, thus saving a lot of time. For any one newspaper, you're also likely to find more content in these two databases than in the free content on the newspaper's site.

One final note: if you are trying to learn another language, be sure to take advantage of the many news sites that offer audio and video clips in addition to print news. Often governments sponsor the best news sites for language learning. Sometimes you can even hit the motherlode of language learning, audio and video clips along with a transcript, so that you can read and listen at the same time. Take a look at the following sites for audio and video clips:

Deutsche Welle, news in over thirty languages
Radio Netherlands, news in six languages
Voice of America, news in dozens of languages
Vatican Radio, news in dozens of languages, along with a whole lot more of religious programming.

--Fred Rowland

[Addendum: David Murray adds: Great article, Fred. A brand new database for obtaining foreign news articles is "Access World News". It can be accessed from the A-Z list of databases under "NewsBank". Access World News offers "full-text content of [700] local and regional papers" outside the United States. There's a nice browse function that allows easy limiting to a specific publication and/or date. The content I found was all in English. Paid advertising is excluded.]

A major new acquisition, Early American Imprints (EAI) Series I and II will be particularly welcome among students of Americana.

Early American Imprints, Series I: Evans (1639-1800)

Based on the renowned American Bibliography by Charles Evans. The definitive resource for every aspect of life in 17th- and 18th-century America, from agriculture and auctions through foreign affairs, diplomacy, literature, music, religion, the Revolutionary War, temperance, witchcraft, and just about any other topic imaginable. Upon completion, Evans Digital will consist of more than 36,000 works and 2,400,000 images.

Early American Imprints, Series II: Shaw-Shoemaker (1801-1819)

Covering every aspect of American life during the early decades of the United States, this rich primary source collection provides full-text access to the 36,000 American books, pamphlets and broadsides published in the first nineteen years of the nineteenth century. Its intuitive interface allows students and scholars to explore the development of the American nation as never before.

To access the database simply click on the appropriate series title above. Alternately, from the Libraries' Home Page, click on Find Articles > All Research Databases > NewsBank Fulltext Pennsylvania Newspapers. From there, click on Series I or II as desired. EAI will soon have its own link on the "All Research Databases" page. If accessing Early American Imprints from off-campus, log into the Libraries' Home Page via TUPortal.

--David C. Murray

Thanks to another librarian blogger, I've just discovered the Online Etymology Dictionary. It is a huge searchable resource of word origins: everything from "library" to "onomatopoeia" to "blog". This is an excellent resource and free, too.

One should always be skeptical of online sources, but thankfully this source even includes a list of sources.

--Derik A Badman

The Twentieth Century North American Drama database from Alexander Street Press has just announced that it is expanding its full-text coverage from 1500 to 2000 plays. This new content will be released in September 2005. The increase comes from 250 plays by new playwrights like Adam Rapp, David Lindsay Abaire, Naomi Wallace, Paul Rudnick, and Mac Wellman, all of whom are contemporary rising stars. These plays are unpublished and under copyright so you're unlikely to find them elsewhere. Another 250 plays come from the early works of major playwrights, including some plays that were written in the late nineteenth century. These additional works come from Eugene O'Neill, David Belasco, Langdon Mitchell, Clyde Fitch, William Gillette, Augustus Thomas, William Vaughn Moody, William Dean Howells, and a few others.

As you peruse this electronic collection of plays, make sure to look at the Multi-field Search because it provides fantastic fine-grained indexing, allowing the user to search by the age of the author at the time of publication, gender, race, nationality, genre, literary period, settings, performers, and composers, among others.

Other Alexander Street full-text databases available at Temple (see All Research Databases) include:

• The American Civil War: Letters and Diaries
• American Film Strips Online
• Black Drama 1850 to Present
• Black Thought and Culture
• Early Encounters in North America
• Latino Literature
• North American Immigrant Letters, Diaries, and Oral Histories
• North American Women’s Letters and Diaries
• Oral History Online

--Fred Rowland

Visit the Ask A Librarian page http://vrl.temple.edu to see the latest addition to our suite of services - Instant Messaging (IM).

We have just started a pilot period of offering reference assistance by IM. Librarians can be contacted through four major IM services (AIM, Yahoo, MSN, ICQ) and are available to answer questions or help with research. The best way to know when we are online is to add the library to your buddy list.

The libraries' usernames are:

AOL Instant Messaging (AIM): AskTULibrary
Yahoo Messenger: AskTULibrary
Microsoft Messenger (MSN): asktulib@temple.edu
ICQ: 225917375

So, send us a message. It's a quick and easy way to chat with a librarian.

For more information on Instant Messaging and links to the various services see our "About" page.

--Derik A. Badman

Library automation systems are crucial to the operation of contemporary academic libraries. They provide the searchable online catalogs; the circulation, cataloging, and interlibrary loan systems; and much more. At Temple there are twenty-three university libraries that contain over 2.9 million print volumes that need to be cataloged, shelved, searched, checked out, checked in, placed on reserve, or sent off as interlibrary loans. The explosion of electronic resources in recent years has placed an additional burden on automation systems. Since May 1999, Temple has used automation software from Innovative Interfaces Inc., one of the world's leading providers with systems installed in diverse libraries in over forty countries.

As with any widely used computer system, Innovative needs to constantly improve, upgrade, and expand its software offerings to libraries. The Innovative Users Group (IUG) was established as an independent entity in 1991 to "serve as a forum to influence the development and improvement of Innovative products for the benefit of IUG members" (quote taken from the IUG web site). Paley Library Access Services librarian Carol Brigham has been involved with IUG since 1988 and was recently elected to a two-year term as an IUG member-at-large, an honor that indicates her high standing within the library community. Previously, Carol served as secretary and member-at-large of the (regional) Middle Atlantic IUG.

As a member-at-large Carol will represent a broad user population from diverse libraries by soliciting, elaborating, organizing, and communicating recommendations for Innovative's continually evolving automation software, an annual cycle called the "IUG Enhancement Process". Throughout the year, IUG members make suggestions for enhancements that are then vetted by IUG experts for feasability. The potential enhancements are then sent out to IUG member libraries to vote on. Currently, libraries are casting their ballots for the 2005 enhancements, with a deadline for voting of July 8, 2005. The winning enhancements will then be sent to Innovative for implementation. Facilitating this process takes deep technical knowledge, excellent communicaton skills, an understanding of the working milieus of many different types of libraries, and a whole lot of patience. Carol will do a great job! She will also play a role at IUG conferences and events. At the most recent national IUG meeting in San Francisco, Carol coordinated and was a panelist on two circulation forums.

Carol came to Temple from LaSalle five years ago and has made a big impact on Paley operations where she helps to formulate Access Services policies, works on special projects, and generally aims at improving operational efficiency. If you've ever been to the Circulation Desk in Tuttleman you've probably seen Carol. Take a look at her picture. She was probably moving very fast with a pen and legal pad in her hand, as she moved between problems, projects, and meetings.

BTW: The department in which Carol works, Access Services, is responsible for the following library functions:

• Circulation (checking out and returning books);
• Interlibrary Loan Borrowing and Lending (borrowing and lending books and journal from and to other libraries);
• Course Reserves (faculty members put books on reserve for classes); and
• Stacks (shelving and reshelving and shelving and reshelving...).

--Fred Rowland