Archive for the 'online @ the library' Category

American History Videos & the 1918 Influenza

Through November 15th we have access to Alexander Street Press’s “American History in Video” collection, which contains more than 1500 titles (500 hours) of newsreels and documentaries from such sources as PBS.

Screenshot of Influenza 1918 video Since seasonal and H1N1 flu references are everywhere this fall, of course I searched for something about flu. I was not disappointed.

See the “Influenza 1918” episode of the PBS American Experience series (1998).

Of course, you can search for other topics that interest you. You can search for and view Universal newsreels from particular dates. For example, for October 22nd there are narrated newsreels of the opening of the Frank Lloyd Wright-designed Guggenheim Museum in New York City (1959) and the 1964 Presidential candidates Barry Goldwater and Lyndon Baines Johnson. You can find videos on Amelia Earhart and “Two Days in October” that juxtaposes a day (Oct. 17, 1967) in the Vietnam War and a day (Oct. 18, 1967) at a non-violent protest in Madison, WI.

Use it while you can!

Millennial Muddle

Just like any other business, the higher education market finds it useful to segment their customers into various groups. Every generation of students has its defining characteristics and corresponding labels. Getting a handle on their core characteristics is good business — whether for faculty in gearing their coursework to their students’ workstyles or for businesses in peddling their products.

This week, The Chronicle of Higher Education looks a little closer into this practice in “The Millennial Muddle: How Stereotyping Students Became an Industry.” But is there really anything new about the millennial generation (people born between 1982 and 2004) — or about trying to label and characterize a generation of students?

If you’re interested in learning more about the millennials, take a look at these books.

Educating the net generation: how to engage students in the 21st century, by Bob Pletka. Main Collection, 3rd Floor, LA227.4 .P58 2007.

Not everyone gets a trophy : how to manage Generation Y, by Bruce Tulgan. Main Collection, 3rd Floor, HF5549.2.U5 T854 2009.

Trophy kids grow up: How the millennial generation is shaking up the workplace, by Ron Alsop. Main Collection, 3rd Floor, HD6270 .A44 2008.

Distracted Driving Summit, Resources

screenshot from the online summitWatch the Distracted Driving Summit live webcast Sept. 30 (7:30am-4pm)-Oct. 1 (6:30am-12:15pm). The archived summit will be available for a year. The agenda is online as well.

Driver Distraction coverIf you are interested in researching driver distraction, Andersen Library has materials. A search of HALCat (Andersen Library’s catalog) will find titles such as Driver distraction: theory, effects, and mitigation (3rd-floor Main Collection, HE5620.D59 D75 2009) and Driver distraction, a review of the current state-of-knowledge (an online document from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration). Searching the Library’s article databases would find articles such as “Engrossed in conversation: The impact of cell phones on simulated driving performance” (in Accident Analysis & Prevention, Mar. 2006, v.38, no.2, pp.415-421).

Please ask a librarian for assistance with finding materials.

Government Printing Office logo

The University Library is a federal depository with many federal, state, local, and international documents on a variety of current and relevant issues available to you in print, microfiche, CD-ROM, and electronically. Come check out your government at the University Library!

New Journal Holdings List

If you want to know if you have access to articles in particular journals, magazines, or newspapers, consult the Journal Holdings List. To look up a title, hover on “Find” on the gray horizontal bar on the Library home page and then click “Journal Holdings” on the list that appears. Those of you familiar with the Journal Holdings List from last year will see that it has a very different look.

Search box in Journal Holdings ListIn the Journal Holdings List you can either search for a title or browse an alphabetical list.

search results in Journal Holdings List with links to full text accessOnce you’ve found a title you’ll see links to databases providing access to full-text articles (with an indication of how far back full text is available). If no online full text is available for the date you need, click the “Find it” button, and then click the catalog link to see if there are print or microform holdings in the Library’s 1st-floor Periodicals Collection.

Questions? Please ask a librarian!

Philosopher’s Index – Database Trial

Philosopher's Index

We now have a trial of the online version of Philosopher’s Index (we currently subscribe to the print version). This product is produced by the Philosopher’s Information Center and is a current and comprehensive bibliographic database covering scholarly research in all major fields of philosophy.

The Philosopher’s Index features author-written abstracts covering scholarly research published in journals and books, including contributions to anthologies and book reviews. It contains research published since 1940 including nearly 570 journals from 43 countries with content representing a variety of languages.

Philosopher’s Index will help you as you research philosophical topics such as the nature of good and evil, why there is something rather than nothing, or the existence of God.

Follow us on Twitter

The Andersen Library has been quietly experimenting with Twitter…if you’d like to follow us, go to http://twitter.com/UWW_Library
Library Twitter home banner

September Feature: Wow – new databases

Using some shopping savvy, Andersen Library has added a number of new databases despite the shaky global economy and the Library’s flat budget.

EBSCO Databases

Back in the summer, Kyle blogged about the new EBSCO databases available through the Wisconsin Dept. of Public Instruction’s Badgerlink site. Not only do we have those 12 new databases, but we’ve added a few of our own. With the money we saved when Badgerlink picked up the tab for some databases we already paid for, we were able to add 8 additional databases:

eBooks

In addition to article databases, we also added more ebook collections. Last winter, we started a subscription to Literature Criticism Online. Then a deal with the CIC Consortium (Big Ten schools, plus U of Chicago) extended access to the archives of many of the Gale literature criticism series to the other UW campuses. This deal gave us more than $100,000 in literature criticism without cost to UW-W (thanks, UW Madison!). So try out some of these ebook subscriptions:

Literature Criticism Online - Gale

Publishing Opportunities

For those looking to publish articles in the fields of business and economics, the Cabell’s directories of publishing opportunities in Accounting, Economics & Finance, Management, and Marketing will help you find the best places to publish your work. The College of Business and Economics has picked up the tab for several of these directories.

Library Catalog Upgrade

The Library Catalog had a significant upgrade right before Orientation Week (convenient timing, isn’t it?!).

We’ve named our new catalog HalCat (short for Harold Andersen Library Catalog). It needs more tweaking, and we are experiencing some technical difficulties with its functionality (which are not local), so please bear with us.

If you want to search other UW System campus library catalogs and borrow materials, either click on the “Universal Borrowing” link on the Library home page’s left sidebar, or once in the catalog click on “Change” on the line where it tells you what catalog you are searching (and then scroll down to click on “Select”):

Database:UW-Whitewater (HAL CAT) Change

After you do a search and you are looking at the record for a title you want to borrow, look at the blue box on the right side of the display. Click on “Make a Request” and log in when prompted.

Yesterday morning and again this morning we are all getting an error message when we try to use this capability. I hope they can fix it again so we can all use it later today…and we apologize for any inconvenience.

New Online Reference Titles (Ebooks)

We’ve added new online reference titles from the Gale Virtual Reference Library in history, literature, multicultural studies, social sciences, and technology:

History
American Decades cover

  • American Decades, 10v, 2001
  • American Decades Primary Sources, 10v, 2004
  • Ancient Greece, 3v, 2007
  • The Antebellum Era: Primary Documents on Events from 1820 to 1860, 2003
  • The Civil War: Primary Documents on Events from 1860 to 1865, 2004
  • The Early Republic: Primary Documents on Events from 1799 to 1820, 2004
  • Historical Dictionary of Ancient Egypt, 2nd ed., 2008
  • The Progressive Era: Primary Documents on Events from 1890 to 1914, 2004

Literature
Gothic Litertature cover

  • Arab Women Writers: A Critical Reference Guide, 1873-1999, 2008
  • A Companion to Jane Austen Studies, 2000
  • Gothic Literature: A Gale Critical Companion, 3v, 2006
  • Greek and Roman Mythology, 2002
  • Holocaust Literature, 2v, 2008
  • Literature of Latin America, 2004
  • Literature of the Caribbean, 2008
  • Margaret Atwood: A Critical Companion, 2004

Multicultural Studies

  • Worldmark Encyclopedia of Cultures and Daily Life, 2nd ed., 5v, 2009

Social Sciences
Child Abuse cover

  • Ballistics , 2009
  • Birth Control, 2009
  • Blackmail and Bribery, 2009
  • Body Image, 2009
  • Censorship, 2009
  • Child Abuse, 2009
  • Discrimination, 2009
  • Forensic Art, 2009
  • Mental Illness, 2009

Technology

  • Multimedia Forensics and Security, 2009

Please ask a librarian if you’d like assistance using these new resources.

GVRL logo

This just in: changing our newspaper databases

If you’re a frequent user of the ProQuest Newspapers database, you’ll know it’s missing! We had access to that database through BadgerLink, a selection of databases the WI Dept. of Public Instruction provides to residents of the state. Well, they’ve negotiated for a different newspaper database, starting this July:

Newspaper Source Plus (EBSCOhost) includes over 1,500 full-text newspapers and newswires, providing more than 27 million full-text articles. In addition, the database features more than 583,100 television and radio news transcripts, videos & podcasts. Several Wisconsin newspapers are in the database, including full-text staff articles from
image of newspaper stack

  • Eau Claire’s Leader-Telegram (since mid-Feb. 2008),
  • The Janesville Gazette (since mid-Mar. 2005),
  • La Crosse Tribune (since Dec. 2005),
  • Madison’s Wisconsin State Journal (since Sept. 1997),
  • The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel (since Sept. 1997), and
  • Superior’s Daily Telegram (since mid-Jan. 2005).

We also continue to have access to newspapers through the LexisNexis Academic and Campus Research databases.

But give the new resource a try! We hope you’ll like it.