The
Databases |
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Amy
Prendergast, Science and Technology Librarian
The University
Library is now providing access to SciFinder Scholar, the end-user
online version of Chemical Abstracts. SciFinder indexes more than
9,000 scientific journals with coverage dating back to 1907. Chemical
aspects of such fields as life sciences, engineering, geology,
medical sciences, and physics are included, as well as all aspects
of chemistry. Databases searched by SciFinder include CA Plus
and Medline as well as CAS Registry, which contains detailed
information about 26 million organic and inorganic substances.
To use SciFinder, special software must be installed on the user's
computer. To obtain this software go to the University Library
webpage, SOUTHcat Plus (http://library.southalabama.edu), and
choose
"Articles, Indexes, Databases." Scroll down the list
of Indexes/Databases Listed by Title to see the link for SciFinder
Scholar. Clicking on the link will bring up the login screen for
the Library's proxy server; type in your last name and library
barcode or last four digits of your Social Security number as
directed and click "Submit Query." This will bring up
a page with a link and instructions for downloading and installing
the SciFinder software.
SciFinder may only be used by currently enrolled USA students,
faculty, and staff. Access is on-campus only. Keep in mind that
we have access to only a limited number of "seats" or
simultaneous users. If you are denied access, try again later,
perhaps at a different time of day. When you finish using SciFinder
please log out by clicking the "Exit" button at the
top of the page to free up a seat for another user.
Interactive SciFinder tutorials for General Chemistry, Biology,
and Chemical Engineering may be found at: http://www.cas.org/SCIFINDER/SCHOLAR/interact/index.html.
Please call Amy Prendergast
at 460-7025 or e-mail
her for help with SciFinder or if you have any questions or
comments. |
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TDNet
Kathy
Wheeler, Electronic Services Librarian
The University
Libraries recently switched our serials management vendor from
Serials Solutions to TDNet. What this means is that when you choose
"Our Journal List" to look up a journal title, you will
see a much different look.
TDNet provides links to any electronic content to which the University
Library subscribes, and it also provides links to our print holdings
as well. Journals can be searched by title, publisher, issn or
vendor.
Two unique features of TDNet are My TDNet and Search TDNet. My
TDNet can be customized by journal, keyword or both so that you
are sent an email containing citations for new articles in a field
or in a journal. Search TDNet allows you to search the tables
of contents of electronic journals. The search only goes back
approximately 18 months, however; so you would need to use the
databases for older material.
Subscribing
to TDNet provided the University Library with an opportunity to
take advantage of a link resolver; software that allows us to
link as closely to the full-text article as possible. You’ll
see this implementation not in TDNet itself but in our databases.
When you do a database search, you’ll see an icon that will
link you to the full-text of the article, if the University Libraries
have a subscription to the journal.
As always,
contact the Reference Department at 251-460-7025 or webref@jaguar1.usouthal.edu
if you have questions about or need help with TDNet. |
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Jerry
Wright, Humanities and Education Bibliographer
ERIC,
the major education database, recently announced that 2004 and
2005 content was made available to all of the database vendors
with whom ERIC has an active agreement.
When the ERIC digital library opened in September 2004, the
collection consisted mainly of journal and non-journal literature
selected by ERIC 1966-2003. ERIC’s mission is to provide
a comprehensive and searchable internet-based bibliographic
and full text database that complies with the requirements of
the Education Sciences Reform Act of 2002.
Our vendor, EBSCO, announced that an additional 6,788 records
are now available that includes journal articles and documents
published in 2004-2005.
EBSCO
is now providing links to full text from the ERIC database,
although some content is still embargoed from one to two years.
Monthly updates are promised. |
From
the Dean |
| Journal
Review Information
Richard
J. Wood, Dean
Many
of our readers are aware that the University Library has been
conducting a major review of our print subscriptions for the
past three months. We requested the input of faculty through
the deans of the Colleges of Arts and Sciences, Business, Computer
and Information Sciences, Education, and Engineering. [Other
colleges participated in a similar review by the Biomedical
Library last academic year.]
Most
of our peer academic institutions conduct such reviews every
few years because of changes in the curriculum, faculty complements,
and budgetary reasons. What distinguishes the current review
from past reviews, however, is that the libraries also have
gained access to the content of thousands of unsubscribed journal
titles through many full-text databases. USA faculty and students
have unprecedented access to journal articles through our licensed
databases. The access to these full-text databases has
been stable and reliable. Most of the articles are available
in the .pdf version which mirrors the image of the original.
Users can save the articles to their hard disks and print-them
at their convenience. Because full-text databases provide access
to the articles in the journals electronically, or through the
Internet, this mode of access is strongly preferred by the vast
majority of users. These advantages, though, make it extremely
difficult to cost-justify continuing a print subscription unless
a hard copy is highly used or necessary for some other reason.
The primary intent of the current serials review, therefore,
is to “not renew” as many print subscriptions as
possible because we have access to the articles in those journals
through the Internet. These non-renewals (effective January
2006) will result in not only a savings of the subscription
cost, but also binding, shelving, and shelf-maintenance costs.
All savings will enable us to sustain the costs of the full-text
licenses for 2006. This is important because those costs are
also subject to the same inflationary increases of the print
subscriptions.
Finally, I wish to thank all of the deans and the faculty who
provided input and their support during the review process.
If you have any questions, please do let me or member of the
University Library know. Thank you |
The
Public Space |
Current
Art Exhibits-3rd Floor North
Conserving
and Enjoying
Alabama's Coastal Resources
Excellent art work by local 4th
and 5th graders.
Alabama's
Dirt Project
On
Second Floor-Government Documents
This
excellent display in the Documents area by Nancy Pugh gives
data on all of the Atlantic storms we have experienced--
so far. There is also some valuable information on hurricanes
and hurricane preparations, in general. Come check it out
on 2nd floor, South.
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Gene
Sullivan Retires
After
36 years at the University Library, the "institutional
memory" of a very personable and accomplished librarian
will be sorely missed. Eugene "Gene" Sullivan retired
as a Senior Librarian in the position of Coordinator of Collection
Management in June. He was appointed to this administrative
level position in 2000 to oversee the acquisitions, cataloging
and processing of library materials, including gift books.
In 1998 and 1999, Gene served as Acting Director of the University
Library. Originally hired in 1968 as the Serial Records Librarian,
Gene became the Acquisitions Librarian in 1972. In these "technical"
library roles, Gene saw literally hundreds of thousands of
books, bound volumes, audio-visual and other materials being
added to the collection. This collection development experience
was invaluable to the many collection assessments he provided
or oversaw for SACS accreditations and new program proposals.
During his years at USA, he has published a number of book
reviews and served on many USA committees including the Library
Committee, the Academic Affairs Committee, the University
Research Committee, and the Educational Policies Committee.
He was appointed to the rank of Associate Librarian in 1980
and Senior Librarian in 1981 when he became Head of the Acquisitions
Department.
Prior
to working at USA, he was a cataloger at the Mobile Public
Library from 1965 to 1968. He was graduated in 1966 with the
Master of Science of Library Science from Louisiana State
University and went on to get a Masters in Counseling at USA.
Gene's happy to finally have the opportunity to spend time
with his family, especially the grandkids.
Archivist
Retires-Archivist Arrives
Elisa
Baldwin joined the Libraries' faculty in November 1989 after
completing her MLS at the University of Southern Mississippi.
She had done contract work--exhibits, grants, darkroom work,
etc.--at the archives for ten years prior to her formal appointment.
Lisa found that one of the most enjoyable aspects of her job
was working with the student assistants, several of whom have
gone on to become archivists. "I am very pleased that
one of these former students, Carol Ellis, is the new archivist
at USA."
Carol
Ellis was born in Bad Herschfeld near Frankfurt, Germany.
The daughter of a career military father, she graduated from
the University of South Alabama with a B.A. in history in
1999 and a M.A. in history in 2002. She is currently a Ph.D.
candidate at Rice University in Houston, Texas. Her areas
of interest include the modern civil rights era, twentieth-century
history, and religious social movements.
New
Cataloger
Muriel
D. Nero joined the Collection Management department of University
Library on June 1, as the new Monograph Cataloger. A resident
of Baldwin County, Ms Nero was previously with the Daphne
Public Library in Daphne, Alabama, as the audiovisual cataloger.
While working there, she received a Master of Education in
Educational Media from the University of South Alabama and
then went on to obtain a M.L.I.S. degree from the University
of Alabama. Ms. Nero said she is enjoying the change from
public libraries and looking forward to exploring new opportunities
as an academic librarian. |
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The Collection
|
The Instructional
Media Center continues to grow with approximately 550 media items
added to the collection since January. These items include documentaries
on history, earth sciences and physics as well as film noir, classic
horror and silent films. The collection was also enhanced by donations
from library faculty and staff. A great big kudos to Vicki Tate,
Kathy Wheeler and Jason Wilhelm for their donations to the library’s
feature film collection. We also placed our audio CD collection
on the open shelves so patrons can easily browse our classical
music and Great Courses CD’s. The conversion of documentaries
to LC classification is coming along with DVDs completed and about
half of the videocassettes done. The VHS and DVD numbers of those
items already assigned LC call numbers still appear in SOUTHcat
in the note field. Once this whopper of a project is complete,
the documentaries will be browsable by subject area – a
feature much requested by patrons. |
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The
Teaching Library
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Library
Instruction
Library
Instruction now has a bigger, quieter classroom on Third Floor,
South--the old Government Documents area. The 12 computers
previously in Room 128 have been moved so we can still accommodate
24 students with two at a computer for hands-on instruction.
We also have a brighter LCD projector for better viewing during
database and Internet instruction.
Instructors
can call or e-mail
me to schedule a session in this room or in a department classroom.
We will help students understand the quantity and quality
of information that the library provides both in the building
and through subscriptions to general and disciplinary online
databases, and the techniques that will make their searching
productive and efficient. We also use the Library auditorium
for teaching larger classes.
Library
Blog -- "almost" daily information about current
Library events and information issues of all kinds. |
The
E- Library |
Wireless
Network
Laptops
with wireless cards can now access the Internet on the Fourth
Floor, both North and South. Access will soon extend to both
sides of the Third Floor. The areas closest to the west side(lake
side/restroom side) of the building will have a stronger signal.
This network called "Open" will be outside the firewall
of the library and therefore cannot access our TRACcard printing
system.
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Room
128
This
room on the Ground Floor, previously used for Library Instruction,
is now available for library research. These 12 computers
are printer-networked, but as with all the library computers,
have no wordprocessing or other production software. They
are Internet -connected and are intended for academic research.
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| Documents
CD/DVD Workstation
Vickey
Baggott, Documents Librarian
The
Documents Department has a brand new computer workstation
which is available for accessing government information currently
available only in disc format. On the desktop are icons for
accessing CDs and DVDs by type and direct links to the NOAA
and Stat-USA websites. In the Business folder, we have economic
and trade data and OSHA Regulations. For each of the Econ97
disks, you must use the “Click Me to Start” button
in order to access their data. The General folder contains
income data. The Census folder has Census 2000 Redistricting
data and software programs for creating demographic maps.
The Index folder has links to US Foreign Affairs, The Presidential
Papers, Justice statistics, and the US and AL Codes on disc.
This workstation is located in the office directly behind
the Documents Information Desk on the Second floor, South.
The staff member on duty will be happy to assist you. |
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