Database of the Week: The American National Biography

Let’s have some fun with trivia about famous Americans this week.

How many years of formal education did Benjamin Franklin have?

Answer: Two, one year in grammar school and one with a private teacher.

Why couldn't surgeon Charles Richard Drew, who organized the first blood bank in the U.S., donate his own blood?

Answer: Segregation laws in 1941 prohibited it because he was black.

You might ask where did I learn about Benjamin Franklin and Charles Richard Drew? The American National Biography of course.

The American National Biography contains biographical entries for American men and women who have influenced and shaped United States history and culture. Only deceased persons are included in American National Biography. You can access American National Biography both on and off campus.

Why should you use the American National Biography? The American National Biography is an excellent alternative to Wikipedia if you need authoritative, reliable information about a historical American. Moreover, not only do you get a detailed biographical information, but each entry also provides a bibliography for further research. There are also hyperlinked cross references for other relevant persons mentioned in each biography.

The National American Biography offers a variety of user friendly search search features. You can search by topic, name, occupation, birth date or date of death. This database is also seachable by special topic e.g. Black History, Women's History, Asian Pacific American Heritage, Hispanic Heritage, and Native American Heritage.

The American National Biography is updated quarterly, with hundreds of new entries each year and revisions of previously published entries. The American National Biography offers thousands of illustrations, more than 80,000 hyperlinked cross-references, links to select web sites, and powerful search capabilities.The American National Biography recently added 900 articles from the Oxford Companion to United States History, providing valuable context on US history and culture.

Denise Bosselman Mikula,
Bibliographic Instruction & Distance Education Librarian

Database of the Week: The World Factbook

Ever wonder where you can find information on a country’s demographics or maybe you need to know just how many cellular phones are currently in use in a particular country? The fast and easy way is by consulting the CIA World Factbook. The print version of the World Factbook is compiled by the Central Intelligence Agency annually, but its website is updated every two weeks. Country information includes geography, economy, people, government, transportation, military and transnational issues.

To start your search, go to the drop down menu at the top of the homepage. From the menu, choose your country (anywhere from Afghanistan to Zimbabwe). You can also choose Taiwan, the European Union or even the World. A profile of the World turned up some pretty interesting facts. For example, did you know that both China and Russia each border 14 other countries? Or that global output rose by 5% in 2006 – led by China (10.5%) – useful data for you Economics majors out there.

The site is easy to navigate – you can scroll and browse through the country’s profile or you can select links to take you directly to the section you need. The site also includes reference maps:

and seven appendixes:

A. Abbreviations
B. International Organizations and Groups
C. Selected International Environmental Agreements
D. Cross-Reference List of Country Data Codes
E. Cross-Reference List of Hydrographic Data Codes
F. Cross-Reference List of Geographic Names
G. Weights and Measures

While you're browsing through the site be sure to take a look at the Flags of the World. Some flags might be a little unimaginative:

And yet others truly fascinating:

(Click on the image to find out to which country the flag belongs).

Linette Neal,
Reference Librarian

Banned Books Week Sept 29- Oct 6

Banned Books Week:

From the American Library Association:

"Celebrating the Freedom to Read is observed during the last week of September each year. Observed since 1982, the annual event reminds Americans not to take this precious democratic freedom for granted.

Banned Books Week (BBW) celebrates the freedom to choose or the freedom to express one’s opinion even if that opinion might be considered unorthodox or unpopular and stresses the importance of ensuring the availability of those unorthodox or unpopular viewpoints to all who wish to read them. After all, intellectual freedom can exist only where these two essential conditions are met."

If you're interested in reading some of the most challenged books in history come check out our display in the lobby of the library. Opposition to some books may be obvious by the title and yet other titles may slip by you without you ever knowing what content set people off. So come take a look! Titles on display include:

The Giver by Lois Lowry
Daddy's Roommate by Michael Willhoite
The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood
My Brother Sam is Dead by James Lincoln Collier & Christopher Collier
Native Son by Richard Wright

Want to know what the most challenged book of 2006 was? Click here.

Classical Music Library's Free Download of the Week

Free Download of the Week

Haydn's Symphony # 100 "Military"

This week’s free download from Classical Music Library is Haydn’s Symphony #100 "Military," performed by the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra; Stefan Sanderling, conductor. More information about this piece is available on Classical Music Library's music blog.

Current Trial Databases

From WilsonWeb Databases:
Trial starts October 1, 2007 - October 31, 2007

Applied Science and Technology Index Retrospective (1913-1983): convenient access to seven decades of information from the most important historical sources in the applied science and technology field-many of them peer-reviewed journals. Contains the complete content of Industrial Arts Index (1913-1957) and Applied Science & Technology Index (1958-1983), offering unique coverage of business and industry up through 1957.

Art Full Text: A bibliographic database that indexes and abstracts articles from periodicals published throughout the world. Full-text coverage for selected periodicals is also included. Periodical coverage includes English-language periodicals, yearbooks, and museum bulletins, as well as periodicals published in French, Italian, German, Japanese, Spanish, Dutch, and Swedish. In addition to articles, Art Full Text indexes reproductions of works of art that appear in indexed periodicals. Indexing coverage begins 1984; abstracting coverage begins with January 1994. The abstracts range from 50 to 300 words and describe the content and scope of the source articles. Full-text coverage begins in 1997.

Art Index Retrospective (19)29-1984: An invaluable, in-depth record of contemporary art history, Art Index Retrospective allows users to search 55 years of art journalism at a keystroke. Users can research leading English-language sources, plus others published in French, Italian, German, Spanish, and Dutch. Besides periodicals, users have access to data from important yearbooks and select museum bulletins. A unique resource, Art Index Retrospective helps users find contemporary criticism of art at the time of its debut, track the body of work of an artist or movement, find artists’ interviews and other commentary, and much more.

Book Review Digest Plus: A library classic for nearly 100 years, Book Review Digest Plus now has select full text —dramatically expanding its scope with entries drawn from over 8,000 periodicals covered by other Wilson databases. With coverage back to 1983, Book Review Digest Plus indexes reviews of current fiction and non-fiction, and provides review excerpts and over 100,000 full text reviews. Every book in Book Review Digest Plus appears with all of its reviews together. A single book can have as little as one review citation and as much as a descriptive summary and many reviews with excerpts and full text, depending upon the coverage the book received in the reviewing literature. The database includes children’s books as well as books for adults and young adults. Entries currently encompass some 1,300,000 reviews covering over 550,000 books and grows with daily updates.

Book Review Digest Retrospective (1905-1982): Reflecting nearly eight decades of H.W. Wilson’s Book Review Digest, Book Review Digest Retrospective provides excerpts from, and citations to, reviews of adult and juvenile fiction and non-fiction. Citations with excerpts of reviews of juvenile and adult fiction and nonfiction in the English language are included. Virtually every book has at least one substantial review excerpt, and most have at least two.
Education Index Retrospective (1929-1983): Covering a century of research, this database provides cover-to-cover indexing for an international range of English-language periodicals and yearbooks. It includes accurate, detailed, cover-to-cover indexing of some 500 periodicals, as far back as 1929! It cites nearly one million articles, including book reviews. Combining the Education Index Retrospective database in a multiple database search with other Wilson databases such as Education Full Text or Social Sciences Full Text is a particularly exiting way to uncover a century of research.

DEADLINE - NEW ID CARDS

By Monday, November 5, 2007, if you do not have a NEW ID CARD, you will not be allowed to use the computers or check out library materials. OLD ID CARDS will no longer work as your library card or your copy card or for using the computers attached to printers.

Just as a reminder - We will not look you up by your Banner number.

So please - if you don't already have a NEW ID CARD, head on over to the Bronco Card Office, Room 242 in the Rudolph Jones Student Center.

Hours: 9-5 Mon, Tues, Thurs, and Fri. And 9-7 on Wed.
Phone numbers: 672-1762 or 672-1735

New Databases @ Chesnutt Library

The following new databases (brought to us through Ebscohost) can be accessed through Chesnutt Library's Database Finder or by selecting the links below:

EconLit w/Full Text:
EconLit with Full Text contains all of the indexing of available in EconLit, plus full text for more than 400 journals, including the American Economic Association journals with no embargo (American Economic Review, Journal of Economic Literature, and Journal of Economic Perspectives). This database also contains many non-English full-text serials in economics & finance. Volume and issue browsing is available for all full text journals. Dating back to 1969, this database is the world's definitive research tool for economic literature.

Environment Complete:
Environment Complete (created by the International Academy at Santa Barbara), Environment Index offers deep coverage in applicable areas of agriculture, ecosystem ecology, energy, renewable energy resources, natural resources, marine & freshwater science, geography, pollution & waste management, environmental technology, environmental law, public policy, social impacts, urban planning, and more.

Film & Television Literature Index w/Full Text:
Film & Television Literature Index with Full Text is the definitive online tool for film and television research. It is a comprehensive bibliographic and full text database covering the entire spectrum of television and film. Subject coverage includes film & television theory, preservation & restoration, writing, production, cinematography, technical aspects, and reviews.

Hospitality & Tourism Complete:
Hospitality & Tourism Complete covers scholarly research and industry news relating to all areas of hospitality and tourism. This collection contains more than 670,000 records, with coverage dating as far back as 1965. There is full text for more than 330 publications, including periodicals, company & country reports, and books. Full text periodicals include Asia Pacific Journal of Tourism Research, Current Issues in Tourism, Hotel & Motel Management, International Journal of Tourism Research, Journal of Ecotourism, Journal of Leisure Research, Journal of Sport Tourism, Journal of Sustainable Tourism, Leisure Sciences, Leisure Studies, Nation's Restaurant News, Restaurant Business, Tourism & Hospitality Research, Tourism Review, and many more.

International Bibliography of Theatre & Dance with Full Text:
International Bibliography of Theatre & Dance with Full Text,is the definitive research tool for the study of theatre and the performing arts. International Bibliography of Theatre & Dance with Full Text was initiated by the American Society for Theatre Research, and since 1984, the Theatre Research Data Center (TRDC) at Brooklyn College has published 14 volumes of the IBTD. These volumes comprise a fully indexed, cross-referenced and annotated databank of over 60,000 journal articles, books, book articles and dissertation abstracts on all aspects of theatre and performance in 126 countries.