Buswell Library News & Research

End-of-Summer Hours

noreply@blogger.com (EclecticLibrarian) — Fri, 31 Jul 2009 13:39:00 +0000

Buswell Library Hours

August 1 - August 21

Mon. - Fri.	8 a.m. - 6 p.m.
Sat. & Sun.	Closed

August 22 - August 25

Sat., Aug. 22	9 a.m. - 5 p.m.
Mon., Aug. 24 - Tues., Aug. 25	8 a.m. - 8 p.m.

Archives & Special Collections Hours

Mon. - Fri.	8 a.m. - 5 p.m.
Saturday	9 a.m. - 2 p.m.

Normal academic year hours resume Wednesday, August 26th.

RefShare in RefWorks

noreply@blogger.com (Greg Morrison) — Sat, 11 Jul 2009 17:18:00 +0000

In a previous blog entry I detailed what RefWorks can do for you, things like the 2-click formatted bibliography and the benefit of having a place to store and manage your search results from a wide-range of resources (even Google Scholar!).

More recently we added the RefShare feature to our RefWorks subscription. RefShare enables you to share your references with others. Let's imagine that a professor has collected a bibliography (using RefWorks) for a course on "Women in Christianity," and now wants to share it with her students, who are beginning to explore paper topics.

Under either the TOOLS and FOLDERS tab look for "share references" and "share folders" respectively [image 1]. Both take you to the same "sharing" page in RefWorks, where you will see your existing folders [image 2]. Click the "Share Folder" button. This generates automatically an unique URL (i.e. web address) to the references in this folder.

Now the person sharing the references has two options [image 3]:

Option 1 - check the reference sharing box at the bottom of the options page and post a link for the folder to "Wheaton College's shared area." Any one with a RefWorks account can navigate to this shared area under the "View" tab. However, one does not need a RefWorks account to view the references in any of the folders that appear if that person possesses a link to one of the folders.
Option 2 - click on the icon that reads "E-mail URL;" this opens up an email message box for you to send a folder's link to any number of individual email addresses.

It is possible too in both cases to set up a RSS feed to help you monitor the arrival of new content or other changes to the references. For example, as a folder owner, you can activiate the comments option that provides a place for members of the group to discuss certain references. RSS and the comments feature are both options on the "shared folder options" screen.

If you would like more information on RefShare take a look at a couple of helpful RefShare tutorials. For personal instruction, contact me at x5847 or email the Reference staff.

Library catalog upgrade completed (mostly)

noreply@blogger.com (Greg Morrison) — Tue, 16 Jun 2009 16:06:00 +0000

Wheaton's online library catalog together with the entire I-Share system received an upgrade over the last couple of days, and early indications are that it went relatively smoothly, but with any "upgrade" prepare for some bumps, and surprises (like right now my searches are timing out!). Use the alternate (VUFind) catalog interface if the upgraded system is not performing well.

This upgrade includes a new search interface that attempts to respond to user feedback. Functionality is improved, but the design and presentation leaves a lot to be desired.

A couple of useful features from the previous interface were not ready for today's launch but will reappear eventually, the "repeat search in I-Share" link and the "Text me this call number."

Let us know what you think of the new user-interface. Send your comments to reference@wheaton.edu

Library forced to cut some databases

noreply@blogger.com (Greg Morrison) — Thu, 11 Jun 2009 21:20:00 +0000

It will come as no surprise that the Library budget shrank for the coming year. Consequently, we had to sacrifice a few of our online resource subscriptions. The date following the resource title indicates the end of the current subscription period. Note that several will be inaccessible at the end of this month (June). Access them all now still via the library's website.

Annee Philologique 10/31/09
Christian Periodical Index 6/30/09
Lexis/Nexis Congressional 6/30/09
Lexis/Nexis Statistical 6/30/09
Encyclopedia Britannica Online 6/30/09
Johns Hopkins Guide to Literary Theory and Criticism 12/31/09
Religious and Theological Abstracts 8/6/09
Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy Online 12/31/09
World Shakespeare Bibliography Online 12/31/09

Also, beginning 6/30/09 RILM Abstracts of Music Literature will only be available to 1 simultaneous user.

Send any questions for comments to acquistions@wheaton.edu.

Better Googling. Take it on up!

noreply@blogger.com (Greg Morrison) — Fri, 05 Jun 2009 19:44:00 +0000

Google has been around for just over a decade now, and for most of us, it is an integral part of our lives online. But many of us continue to search Google today very much in the same way we did at the start. And perhaps you're satisfied, but take a quick peek at our Guide to Better Googling, and then decide to maintain the status quo or to advance in your searching sophistication.

Also, in case you hadn't yet heard, Google also offers narrower searches of only mainly published academic books and journal articles (Google Scholar) as well as an extensive and growing collection of scanned books (Google Book Project). Try them out, and ask a librarian for more information on Google and other useful search tools and techniques.

By the way, yesterday Microsoft launched its new search engine, Bing. It's gotten some good reviews, but it's unlikely to put any huge dent in Google's majority share in the web search niche. I'm trying Bing out now. I will report back if there's anything remarkable about it.

NEW: Oxford Encyclopedia of the Islamic World

noreply@blogger.com (Greg Morrison) — Mon, 01 Jun 2009 17:00:00 +0000

The new Oxford Encyclopedia of the Islamic World has arrived and is now available in Buswell's Reference Collection, RR 909.09767 Ox2e, Rev. ed.

There's one month left of our 6-month trial of the Oxford Is la mic Studies Online, which includes...

Nearly 3,500 articles and chapters by leading scholars and specialists, primary source documents with editorial introductions, Learning Resources, and more

Qur'anic studies resources, including two Oxford World's Classics translations of the Qur'an, linked to the first online version of A Concordance of the Qur'an by Hanna Kassis

Timelines covering major events in the Islamic world and corresponding events in general world history for context

Images and Maps provide visual perspectives on global Islam and its historic development

Library closed for Memorial Day

noreply@blogger.com (EclecticLibrarian) — Fri, 22 May 2009 16:34:00 +0000

Buswell Library and
Special Collections
will be

CLOSED

Saturday, May 23 -
Monday, May 25

for
Memorial Day

Regular summer school hours will resume Tuesday, May 26.

Free Clipart or Photos: www.ace-clipart.com

Library Hours for Graduation Weekend & Early May

noreply@blogger.com (EclecticLibrarian) — Wed, 29 Apr 2009 14:17:00 +0000

Buswell Library Hours

Mon., May 4 -	Wed., May 6	7:30 a.m. - 12 midnight
Thurs.,	May 7	7:30 a.m. - 7 p.m.
Fri.,	May 8	8 a.m. - 6 p.m.
Sat.,	May 9	9 a.m. - 6 p.m.
Mon., May 11 -	Fri., May 15	8 a.m. - 6 p.m.
Sat.,	May 16	9 a.m. - 5 p.m.

Summer School Hours Begin Monday, May 18th

Mon. - Fri.	8 a.m. - 8 p.m.
Saturday	9 a.m. - 5 p.m.

Archives & Special Collections Hours

Mon., May 4 -	Wed., May 6	8 a.m. - 8 p.m.
Thursday,	May 7	8 a.m. - 5 p.m.
Friday,	May 8	8 a.m. - 5 p.m.
Saturday,	May 9	9 a.m. - 5 p.m.

Summer Hours begin May 11

Mon. - Fri.	8 a.m. - 5 p.m.
Saturday	9 a.m. - 5 p.m.

Congratulations!

Wheaton faculty academic publishing at a glance

noreply@blogger.com (Greg Morrison) — Tue, 21 Apr 2009 14:50:00 +0000

A few weeks back a representative of Thomson Reuters (a huge information conglomerate) visited us in Buswell to demonstrate features of the Web of Science (WoS) database, to which the Library presently subscribes. WoS is the premier citation index, and though more and more article databases are starting to add this "cited references" search feature, WoS remains the most comprehensive and sophisticated citation analysis tool available.

The unique feature of a citation index is the ability to search by "cited author" or "cited reference." Let's say you want to determine the importance (or impact) of a particular article or author in the scholarly world. WoS can quickly provide that information. The main measure of a high impact article would be the number of other articles that cite it. It doesn't indicate, however, whether the other authors agree and disagree with the findings or conclusions.

Below I have included portions of a recent letter from our Thomson Reuters rep together with some interesting graphs related to faculty publishing at Wheaton. Be aware that the graphs below are built off data from three citation indexes: Arts & Humanities Citation Index, Social Science Citation Index, and Science Citation Index. At present Wheaton only subscribes to the latter two.
_____________

As a follow-up to our discussion about the publishing & citation trends at Wheaton College and how Web of Science can be utilized for research, I would like to share the following information:Over 250 different subject headings are classified within the databases on ISI Web of Knowledge platform. [....] After close examination in the Web of Science of the top-10 subject disciplines where Wheaton’s researchers publish, one can find the following results ... using the Analyze Results feature in the Web of Science.

Figure 1

This analysis highlights the core disciplines of study at your institution, but it also demonstrates the strong balance between science, social science, liberal arts, and humanities coverage within Web of Science.

[You can also generate a] Citation Map – An illustrative way to show a paper’s influence, forward and backward in time. Please see the Citation Map graphic below that shows the citation information on a 2004 paper by Wheaton researchers,Gregory RJ, Canning SS, Lee TW, and Wise JC.

Also, Web of Science can provide a wealth of information about publication trends for subject categories, scholars, and institutions. The charts below, taken from a Web of Science Citation Report, display Wheaton’s publication trend (1990-present) and the number of citations all Wheaton College’s articles have received in the last 20 years.

Figure 2

Figure 3 demonstrates Wheaton’s top 10 co-authoring institutions, eight of which are current subscribers and heavy users of the Web of Science.

Figure 3

Top 10 Collaborators

University of Kentucky

Veterans Adminsitration Medical Center

Northwestern University

Purdue University

University of Illinois

Ciba Geigy Corporation

Ohio State University

University of Wisconsin

Brown University

National Institute on Drug Abuse

Easter Weekend Hours 2009

noreply@blogger.com (EclecticLibrarian) — Fri, 03 Apr 2009 14:16:00 +0000

Buswell Memorial Library

Thursday,	April 9,	7:30am- 10pm
Friday,	April 10,	Closed
Saturday,	April 11,	9am-6pm

Archives & Special Collections

Thursday,	April 9,	8am- 8pm
Friday,	April 10,	Closed
Saturday,	April 11,	Closed

Regular hours resume Monday, April 13

He is Risen!

Check out our new Oxford digital reference books!

noreply@blogger.com (Head of Reference) — Thu, 02 Apr 2009 18:50:00 +0000

We are pleased to offer our users the first installment of reference ebooks that are accessible 24/7. These are select titles from the Oxford Digital Reference Shelf, and they are fully searchable. Most entries have linked "See also" references, and each entry (at the end) provides a cut-and-pastable citation in MLA style.

Here are the Oxford reference ebooks now available. Soon they will be accessible also through the Library's online catalog. Click on the titles to access them.

Contact the Reference Department if you have any questions or comments: Phone @ x5169 | Email us at reference@wheaton.edu

Making I-Share requests WITHOUT the 14-digit number

noreply@blogger.com (Greg Morrison) — Mon, 23 Mar 2009 21:32:00 +0000

I posted an article way back in August that first introduced VUFind. It is a greatly enhanced user interface (still in beta) for searching Wheaton's online catalog, and while some of you have discovered it, I felt it was time once more to get the word out to folks that it exists, and indicate again the advantages it offers users.

For the frequent I-Share borrower, the greatest advantage of VUFind is the steamlined requesting process. Click HERE for instructions on how to initially access the new interface (VuFind) and create your own account. Creating an account requires the 14-digit number, but after that you'll never need it again for making I-Share requests.

Other features include:

Text me this call number - this link appears in each record, and works for most cell phone carriers.
Cite this (record) - renders the item's information in APA and MLA styles for quick cut and pastes into a bibliography.
Links out to Google Books, which often provides a limited or full view of the book's text. So if Wheaton's copy of a book is checked out, you may still have virtual access to it via Google Books.
Personalized tagging and other web 2.0 features

Read more about VUFind in a recent Star and Dagger article.

Our newest reference titles!

noreply@blogger.com (Greg Morrison) — Thu, 19 Mar 2009 22:04:00 +0000

The Facts On File Companion to British Poetry, 17th and 18th Centuries is one of the new reference titles in Buswell Library. Wheaton's own Professor of English, Brett Foster, contributed several articles. [View the complete list of new reference titles]

"This volume is an excellent resource for scholars new to the field, and a valuable contribution to 17th- and 18th-century literary studies in general. Students interested in relationships between Restoration and Enlightenment history, thought, and literature will particularly prize this companion. Summing Up: Highly recommended." CHOICE Review

Spring Break Hours 2009

noreply@blogger.com (EclecticLibrarian) — Fri, 06 Mar 2009 21:15:00 +0000

Buswell Memorial Library

Friday,	Mar. 6,	7:30am - 6pm
Saturday,	Mar. 7,	9am - 5pm
Mon., Mar. 9 -	Fri., Mar. 13,	8am - 6pm
Saturday,	Mar. 14,	9am - 6pm

Archives & Special Collections

Friday,	Mar. 6,	8am - 5pm
Saturday,	Mar. 7,	10am - 2pm
Mon., Mar. 9 -	Fri., Mar. 13,	8am - 5pm
Saturday,	Mar. 14,	10am - 2pm

Regular hours will resume on Monday, March 16, 2008

Tax Forms for 2008

noreply@blogger.com (Greg Morrison) — Mon, 16 Feb 2009 20:19:00 +0000

Need the 1040-EZ? Click here to print a copy. For instruction booklets, link to IRS website to print it out or, even better, to find an online filing option. The IRS continues to contract with private tax software companies in order to offer free online filing to anyone who made $56,ooo or less in 2008. Why bother with paper forms anymore when you can file free online and receive your refund often within 10 days, not to mention the savings in paper and postage?

The same is true for most persons filing the Illinois individual tax return (IL-1040).

Need tax forms for another state? Try the FTA website, which links to the appropriate site for all 50 states.

Printed state and federal tax forms and instructions are available at the Wheaton Public Library (map) just west of campus near the corner of Scott and Seminary.

President's Day Hours 2009

noreply@blogger.com (EclecticLibrarian) — Fri, 13 Feb 2009 22:58:00 +0000

Monday, February 16th

Buswell Memorial Library: 8:00 a.m. - 10:00 p.m.

Archives & Special Collections: 8:00 a.m. - 8:00 p.m.

Perry Cafe in Buswell hosts book discussion on AIDS

noreply@blogger.com (Greg Morrison) — Mon, 09 Feb 2009 18:27:00 +0000

In their book, The AIDS Crisis: What we can do, "Deborah Dortzbach and Meredith Long offer personal stories, up-to-date statistics and their years of international experience to give us the global portrait of AIDS: the roots of the problem and the role of the church. They teach us to listen. They allow us to observe. They help us become informed so that we can become involved, partnering with brothers and sisters already at work around the world loving, lobbying, caring, praying." [source]

Read a short CT review of the book by Timothy Morgan

Join us for a conversation with these alumnae authors in the Library's Cafe on Friday, February 13th at 3:15. Refreshments will be provided. For more information call x5101.

Black History Month

noreply@blogger.com (EclecticLibrarian) — Thu, 22 Jan 2009 16:03:00 +0000

"Black History Month was the inspiration of Carter G. Woodson, a noted scholar and historian, who instituted Negro History Week in 1926 to honors the struggles and triumphs of millions of American citizens as well as their contributions to the nation’s cultural and political life. He chose the second week of February to coincide with the birthdays of President Abraham Lincoln and the abolitionist Frederick Douglass. The celebration was expanded to a month in 1976, the nation’s bicentennial."

~ America.gov

Interested in studying the history of African Americans? Check out some of these resources.

Black Americans in Congress, 1870-2007
Available in print in Buswell's reference collection:
RR 328.7309 B561h
Or online at http://purl.access.gpo.gov/GPO/LPS106070

Encyclopedia of African American Society
Available in print in Buswell's reference collection:
RR 305.896 En19j

African American Women Writers
of the 19th Century
View full-text works via a digital collection at the
New York Public Library

Click Here

African-American Religious Leaders
Available in print in Buswell's reference collection:
RR 922 Aa77a

Notable Black American Scientists
Available in print in Buswell's reference collection:
RR 925 N843k

These titles, of course, only scratch the surface of the resources that are available in Wheaton's libraries, through Google Books, and through other online sources.

If you need help finding additional resources, please contact a librarian at reference[at]wheaton.edu, 630-752-5169, or via chat (AIM or GoogleTalk), screenname BusLibResearch.

NEW online: eHRAF, L'Annee Philologique and more

noreply@blogger.com (Greg Morrison) — Thu, 22 Jan 2009 04:39:00 +0000

Here are four new online resources that we recently acquired:

L'Annee Philologique - Sounds obscure and exotic perhaps, but this is the premier index for secondary literature dealing with all aspects of the ancient Greco-Roman world, or so called Classical Studies. English-language material is included, but a lot of the indexed articles and books are in German, French, Italian and Spanish. Vanderbilt University has constructed a helpful guide for searching L'Annee.

eHRAF Archaeology is one of two new Human Relations Area File (HRAF) databases. Developed at Yale University, eHRAF Archaeology is a one-of-a-kind resource that facilitates the comparative study of human behavior and society. Read a summary of its scope and organization.

eHRAF World Cultures is Yale's flagship resource for cross-cultural research:

"Whether you are interested in learning about the North American Hmong's beliefs in the causes and cures of diseases or the Pashtun's religious views, this multi-cultural database provides you with in-depth information on all aspects of cultural and social life."

NBER Working Papers - From the NBER website: "Founded in 1920, the National Bureau of Economic Research is a private, nonprofit, nonpartisan research organization dedicated to promoting a greater understanding of how the economy works. The NBER is committed to undertaking and disseminating unbiased economic research among public policymakers, business professionals, and the academic community."

These working papers are all available in full text. Major program areas covered by the papers are: Aging; Asset Pricing; Children; Corporate Finance; Development of the American Economy; Economics of Education; Economic Fluctuations and Growth; Environmental and Energy Economics; Health Care; Health; Industrial Organization; International Finance and Macroeconomics; International Trade and Investment; Labor Studies; Law and Economics; Monetary Economics; Political Economy; Productivity; Stocks, Bonds, and Foreign Currency/Asset Pricing; Taxation/Public Economics/Government Spending; and Technical Working Papers.

Martin Luther King, Jr. Day Hours 2009

noreply@blogger.com (EclecticLibrarian) — Fri, 16 Jan 2009 21:42:00 +0000

Monday, January 19th

Buswell Memorial Library: 8:00 a.m. - 8:00 p.m.

Archives & Special Collections: 8:00 a.m. - 8:00 p.m.

Library Hours: Finals Week and the Holidays

noreply@blogger.com (EclecticLibrarian) — Thu, 11 Dec 2008 14:41:00 +0000

Buswell Memorial Library

Finals

Friday,	December 12,	7:30am- midnight
Saturday,	December 13,	8:30am - midnight
Monday -Wednesday,	December 15 -17,	7:30am - midnight
Thursday,	December 18,	7:30am - 5:00pm
Friday,	December 19,	8:00 am - 6:00pm
Saturday,	December 20,	9:00am - 5:00pm

Christmas and Interim

Monday - Tuesday,	December 22-23,	8:00am - 6:00pm
Wed., December 24 -	Thurs. January 1	CLOSED
Friday,	January 2,	8:00am - 6:00pm
Saturday,	January 3,	9:00am - 5:00pm
Monday - Friday,	January 5 - 9,	8:00 am - 6:00pm
Saturday,	January 10,	9:00am - 5:00pm

Regular hours will resume Monday, January 12, 2009

Archives & Special Collections

Monday - Tuesday,	December 22-23,	8:00am - 5:00pm
Wednesday	December 24	8:00am - 12 noon
Thurs., Dec. 25 -	Thurs. January 1	CLOSED
Friday,	January 2,	8:00am - 5:00pm
Saturday,	January 3,	9:00am - 5:00pm
Monday - Friday,	January 5 - 9,	8:00 am - 5:00pm
Saturday,	January 10,	9:00am - 5:00pm

Regular hours will resume Monday, January 12, 2009

Social Science Research Network

noreply@blogger.com (Greg Morrison) — Wed, 03 Dec 2008 19:20:00 +0000

I came across SSRN several weeks ago when a professor brought it to my attention. This is an unique elibrary of published articles and working papers in the social science and humanities. It is unique in the way it delivers both free and fee-based content. At present it contains nearly 213,000 titles. 179,000 are available in full text, the rest provide abstracts only.
One can search the entire eLibrary or limit to a specific subject area, which are referred to as "networks." The existing networks include accounting, economics, financial and health economics, entrepreneurship research & policy, information systems and eBusiness, legal scholarship, political science, management, social & environmental impact, and some coverage in the humanities as well. Forthcoming is a network for cognitive science.

For the areas of business and law, SSRN employs a number of statistical tracking measures to estimate the "scholarly impact" of articles, authors and institutions. The top institution is simply the school boasting the highest number of high impact articles and authors. Impact is based on the number of times an author's work is downloaded from the SSRN library, and possibly the number of times an author is cited in other articles. The current top business school, accordingly, is Harvard. Northwestern University's Kellog School of Management holds the 15th spot.

The search engine is simple but adequate. It appears to search the full text as well as abstracts and titles. One can also limit by one or more author names. Interestingly (and problematic), the search results are sorted by the number of downloads rather than relevance or currency, and I didn't see any way to change the order. The eLibrary has some amount of interlinking between articles with SSRN. At the individual article record level, look to the right column for "paper statistics" and find links to the citations and the footnotes. Take a look at SSRN.

The Star and Dagger Fall 2008

noreply@blogger.com (EclecticLibrarian) — Wed, 03 Dec 2008 02:19:00 +0000

The Fall 2008 issue of Buswell Library's newsletter, The Star and Dagger, is now available!

Access the Fall 2008 Star and Dagger

Thanksgiving Hours

noreply@blogger.com (EclecticLibrarian) — Tue, 25 Nov 2008 15:20:00 +0000

Buswell Memorial Library

Tuesday,	November 25,	7:30am- 8pm
Wednesday,	November 26,	9am-5pm
Thursday,	November 27,	Closed
Friday,	November 28,	Closed
Saturday,	November 29,	9am-6pm

Archives & Special Collections

Thursday, Nov. 27 - Saturday, Nov. 29

Closed

Regular hours resume Monday, December 1

Image courtesy of Kaboose Free Clipart

Book Discussion in the Library Cafe (Wed., Nov. 12th at 3:15pm)

noreply@blogger.com (Greg Morrison) — Fri, 07 Nov 2008 20:47:00 +0000

You are heartily invited to head over to Buswell's Perry Cafe on Wednesday, November 12th at 3:15 for a conversation with several of the contributing authors to the recent book entitled Christians, the care of creation and global climate change.

College Librarian, Lisa Richmond, will be joined in the conversation by P.J. Hill, Vince Morris, Kristen Paige, Noah Toly, and Jeff Greenberg. Former Wheaton faculty member Lindy Scott (Whitworth College, WA) edited the 2008 publication.