UHD Library Blog

Using Library Resources in Blackboard

Hey Faculty!  Looking for ways to spice up your Blackboard content?  Have you thought about adding videos from Films on Demand or American History in Video?  Or maybe sharing a playlist from Music Online?  Did you know the library has over 83,000 E-books that you can share with your classes?  Not sure where to start?  Well check out the Library’s new guides to using library resources in Blackboard!  Blackboard-Database Guides

If you have any questions always feel free to Ask-a-Librarian !

 

 

Raw List of Major New Library Online Resources: 2008-09

Hi! This is Pat Ensor, your friendly Library Director. I was just putting together a list of the major new online resources the Library subscribed to in the last year for a report I'm writing, and I was so excited to see it all together that I had to share it. And if I waited till I had a chance to clean it all up, I'd never get to it.

So here it is, and if you're a UHD student, faculty, or staff member, this is all yours.

• Film & Television Literature Index with Full Text 
• Publishing Opportunities Database
  
• Films On Demand 
• American History in Video             
• JSTOR 19^th Century British Pamphlets + 3 JSTOR journal collections 
• GeoRef 
• Social Work Abstracts 
• Periodical Archives Online (backfiles) – 250+ titles, including Harpers 
• Texas Historical Newspapers Archive, 1829-1922 
• Oxford Scholarship Online 
• Wiley and Blackwell journal backfiles 
• American Antiquarian Society Historical Periodicals Collection, part 1     
• Taylor & Francis Social Sciences & Humanities Collection 
• Music Online
• Oxford African American Studies Center 
• Taylor & Francis SS&H - Backfiles 1-Behavioral Science Online Archive 2-Media, Cultural & Communication Studies Archive – 1915-1996 
• PsycBooks
• Biography Resource Center 
• Dictionary of National Biography Online 
• Safari Tech Current & Business Books Current (already had some tech books – expanded that, plus added business and more users) 
• Journal Citation Reports
  
• Proquest Dissertations & Theses 
• Annual Reviews – all subjects, all years, online 
• ABI/Inform 
• Biological Abstracts 
• Art Full Text 
• Environment Complete 
• Newspaper archives for major newspapers in Atlanta, Baltimore, Washington, Chicago, Boston, Los Angeles, Hartford, San Francisco, Dallas, Wall Street Journal 
• Pop Culture Universe 
• National Fire Protection Association Codes
  
• Congressional Quarterly Publications
  
• Hoover’s (Companies) 
• FirstResearch (Industries)
  
• Cell Press journals (4)
• International Security & Counterterrorism Reference Center
• ArtSTOR
  

Most of these resources can be found by going to the Library's list of databases. To check and see if we have your favorite journal now, you can check our list of journals.

And we are going to continue adding materials, so suggest purchases for the new school year now.

ProQuest Dissertations and Theses

ProQuest Dissertations and Theses is now available at UHD. With its coverage of 2.4 million doctoral dissertations and master's theses, this database is an essential repository of scholarship in almost every field of study. For older documents, ProQuest Dissertations and Theses provides a short absract. For more than 930,000 documents from 1997 to present, it offers access to the full text in PDF format.

CQ Researcher

We are pleased to introduce CQ Researcher, one of the best sources for undergraduate research on public policy issues. With an archive of reports dating back to 1923, this collection has broad analysis of contemporary and historical issues. Topics range from perennial controversies like abortion and capital punishment to recent events such as the current financial crisis.  Each report has analysis of the background, current situation, and future outlook for a topic, plus pro and con viewpoints, a chronology of events, maps and statistics, and a useful bibliography. Look for CQ Researcher under Find Articles (Databases).

EBSCOhost 2.0

EBSCOhost has released a new version of its popular database system.  EBSCOhost 2.0 introduces a new look to databases such as Academic Search Complete,  America: History & Life, Communication & Mass Media Complete, ERIC, MEDLINE, MLA International Bibliography, PsycINFO, and SocINDEX. At first, the changes will be cosmetic -- a simplified search screen, a different way of displaying search results, and easy access to the popular "How to Cite" feature. Later in 2008, EBSCOhost will use Google search technology to rank search results by relevance.

If you have questions or concerns about EBSCOhost 2.0, please share them with us by commenting on this blog or by sending an e-mail message to Ask a Librarian. We will share your comments with EBSCOhost and work with them to resolve any problems that may arise from this significant update.

New Books & Videos - January 2008

The New Books and Videos lists have been updated for January:

• Arts & Humanities
• Business & Economics
• Criminal Justice
• Education
• Engineering Technology
• English
• Higher Education
• History & Political Science
• Juvenile Literature
• Natural Sciences
• Philosophy & Religion
• Psychology
• Security Management
• Sociology & Anthropology
• Videos & DVDs

LexisNexis Congressional

LexisNexis Congressional is now available!  This companion to LexisNexis Academic is a one-stop source for Congressional documents, bills, laws, member and committee information, regulations, rules, speeches, hearings, and voting records. Use the Congressional Publications search to find hearings, documents, reports, and legislative histories. Links to electronic documents are provided when available. Use the Members and Committees search to find to documents related to a member, including bills sponsored, campaign finance reports, statements, votes, and personal profiles. You can search for member information by name or by demographics (gender, race, party, age, religion, etc.). Look for LexisNexis Congressional in Find Articles (Databases).

New Books & Videos (October 2007)

The New Books and Videos lists have been updated for October:

• Arts & Humanities
• Business & Economics
• Computer Science & Math
• Criminal Justice
• Education
• Engineering Technology
• English
• Higher Education
• History & Political Science
• Juvenile Literature
• Natural Sciences
• Philosophy & Religion
• Psychology
• Security Management
• Sociology & Anthropology
• Spanish
• Videos & DVDs

ProQuest Newspaper Databases

The library is now offering additional newspaper databases from ProQuest:

• The Chicago Tribune  (1985 to present)
• The Los Angeles Times (1985 to present)
• The New York Times (1980 to present)
• The Washington Post (1987 to present)

These database join the previously acquired Wall Street Journal (1984 to present) database.  Each ProQuest newspaper database includes full-text articles with detailed indexing that makes it easy to find articles by topic. Each article also includes a "Document URL" that can be copied to share with UHD students and faculty by e-mail or WebCT Vista.

For these and other news databases, please see our News guide.

"Citing & Writing": Redesigned "Research Tools" Section

The "Citing your Sources" link has been renamed and the section redesigned to better serve student needs for this popular "Research Tools" function! Now called "Citing & Writing," the page has a clear, clean design with four sections. This makes for a shorter layout, so students don' have to scroll down as much.

Paper-writing involves much more than doing citations, so, although that popular section has been retained and simplified as "Citing Sources (Style Manuals)," "Citing & Writing" also includes "Critical Thinking," "Writing Tips and Examples," and "More Writing Resources...." Librarians try to link UHD students to valuable, high-quality web resources on these topics.

"Critical Thinking" pulls together guides to avoiding plagiarism, copyright and fair use, and evaluating web sources. "Writing Tips and Examples" covers different types of writing, from business communication in many forms, to research papers, to theses.

Have an opinion about these changes? Have a suggestion for a new topic or a useful link? Drop us a line below!