E-Views

e-Views and I Have Moved, so please update your bookmarks and RSS feeds

Cheryl LaGuardia — Tue, 01 Nov 2011 18:33:11 +0000

e-Views and I are on the move to a brand new site with a new look — please look for us at: http://reviews.libraryjournal.com/category/eviews/, and do update your bookmarks / RSS feeds. See you over at the new place, thanks for reading, and…

Move as it happens,
Cheryl

Try World Religions from ABC-CLIO here for free

Cheryl LaGuardia — Fri, 28 Oct 2011 18:31:19 +0000

ABC-CLIO describes their World Religions: Belief, Culture, and Controversy as “a virtual textbook that covers religion across the globe, making student research on faith and belief across humanity easier, and enabling a deeper understanding of the complex issues facing us in the 21^st century.” The file includes thousands of reference entries covering belief, celebration, practice and holidays, as well as important individuals, events, and places, along with scholarly essays, 50+ religion overviews, and primary sources (documents, images, and video). The advisor for the file is J. Gordon Melton.

Now you can try the file for free: just go to: http://religion.abc-clio.com and use these log-ins:

UserName: ljeviews

Password: ljeviews

This free trial is good through November 27^th, so do enjoy it till then. And look for my full review of World Religions in the December 2011 Library Journal.

More as it happens,
Cheryl

Free Trial for Gale Business Insights: Global Extended

Cheryl LaGuardia — Tue, 25 Oct 2011 17:45:32 +0000

Gale has generously extended the free trial to their Business Insights: Global file, to give researchers enough time to explore the resource fully.

So if you just go to: http://infotrac.galegroup.com/itweb/gale_big

and use the Password: eleven

you’ll now have access through November 11th. Enjoy!
And more as it happens,
Cheryl

UC Press Beefs Up OUP’s University Press Scholarship Online

Cheryl LaGuardia — Mon, 24 Oct 2011 19:08:12 +0000

Just got the word this AM that the University of California Press will be partnering with Oxford University Press in launching California Scholarship Online / CALSO as part of OUP’s University Press Scholarship Online in March 2012. They’ll be adding over 450 e-book titles across four subject areas: Biology, Classics, History, and Sociology.

Watch for my November 1, 2011 full e-Review in LJ of University Press Scholarship Online — in it I note that, “They need to … increase content (more presses).” Adding UC Press titles is just the kind of thing this reviewer wanted — kudos to both Presses for a big win-win development!

And more as it happens,
Cheryl

Try the VAST Video Collection from Alexander Street Press here for free

Cheryl LaGuardia — Thu, 20 Oct 2011 23:03:06 +0000

The VAST package is Alexander Street’s premiere collection of video content, offering videos in the following 21 individual discipline collections:

Viewing the videos requires no special software, no downloads, and no user manual – all you need is a Web browser and a broadband connection. Videos are accompanied by synchronized, scrolling transcripts, and there are rich clip-making and playlist functions, along with an embeddable video player for integration into course management systems. All educational on-site and remote access permissions are included in the license terms, too.

And you can try the VAST Collection now for free — just go to: http://videotrial.alexanderstreet.com and use these log-ins to access the free trial:

Username: eviews
Password: academicvideo

And enjoy this trial till November 19, 2011. My thanks to Audrey DeGregorio of ASP for setting this trial up.

More as it happens, clip by clip, frame by frame (sort of),
Cheryl

The Public Domain Review

Cheryl LaGuardia — Thu, 20 Oct 2011 01:42:22 +0000

Got an e-mail from Adam Green, one of the editors of The Public Domain Review, “a curated collection of exotic scraps and marvellous rarities” along with links “to freely distributable copies of works in online archives and from far flung corners of the web.” The editors “hope to encourage readers to further utilise and explore public domain works by themselves.” The Review includes public domain audio, films, images and texts, as well as invited articles from scholars, writers, critics, artists, archivists, scientists and librarians about “interesting or curious work[s] with a brief accompanying text giving context, commentary and criticism.” The Review is now accepting open submissions.

The editor asked for my thoughts about the Review, and I noted that it would be an improvement for the site to be searchable (it isn’t as yet). Right now the content is small and quickly browsable, but they’re adding to it each week, and as it grows a search feature will be a must.

The Review launched on January 1, 2011, timed to coincide with Public Domain Day. It’s a project of the Open Knowledge Foundation. Do take a look at this when you get the chance — it’s certainly something library patrons will want to know about and peruse. And since they’re accepting open submissions, you might consider offering them an article about a public domain item that’s caught your interest….

More as it happens,
Cheryl

P.S. — film buffs, you will find some truly delightful things here, including Buster Keaton’s The General! Prepare to spend some time looking through this one — I think it’s a site I’ll be returning to often, C.

Try Black Studies Center from ProQuest here for free

Cheryl LaGuardia — Wed, 19 Oct 2011 01:43:58 +0000

In my October 8th post about ProQuest’s free new resource, Black Literature Index, I idly wondered if it might be possible to get a free trial to their Black Studies Center and Historical Black Newspapers… and ProQuest came through with a free trial in very short order. To get access to Black Studies Center (with all the links to Historical Black Newspapers activated), just go to:

http://bsc.chadwyck.com/?instit1=hbcutrial2&instit2=hbcutrial2

and enjoy it till October 31st! My thanks to Beth Dempsey for setting this up.

More as it happens,
Cheryl

The Healthy Eating Plate Online with Mollie Katzen

Cheryl LaGuardia — Mon, 17 Oct 2011 18:59:19 +0000

One of the high points of the term is going to a luncheon talk by Mollie Katzen (it is cool that so many great folks come to Harvard and I get to hear them), and today’s Mollie lunch talk was Understanding the Healthy Eating Plate, the healthy eating plate being a concept created by nutrition experts at Harvard School of Public Health, in conjunction with Harvard Health Publications.

Mollie was fabustrordinary, as usual (I believe in portmanteau words these days), giving us recipes for, and serving up Cozy Red Lentil Mash, Garlic-Braised Greens, Fantastic Bulgar Dish (it was), Roasted Squash with Pomegranate, Simple Celery-Date Salad (more of a poem than a dish), and Thai Eggplant Salad with Coconut Tofu Strips. She also talked about the “flipped plate,” whereby you still eat the foods you love, but you make vegetables the largest part of your plate, followed about equally with whole grains and healthy protein, and then fruits on a smaller scale (see the Healthy Eating Plate link, above, for more info.). She proceeded to show us some of the healthy eating plates she’s creating (many in preparation for her upcoming 12^th book, due out in 2013, to be titled, The Crispy Sage Chronicles — having already sampled some of the recipes I can highly recommend it!).

Mollie is working with Harvard University Dining Services, helping develop recipes “to more fully answer the unique dietary needs of people who choose a meatless diet.” She’s also working with folks in the medical and public health fields, and is a member of the School of Public Health Nutrition Roundtable (founded by Dr. Walter Willet).

Today Mollie asked for a show of hands of how many people at the luncheon were from the library – and 90%+ of the audience hands shot up. Some of us have dubbed ourselves Mollie Katzen Groupies (proudly). It’s my impression that many librarians are especially interested in healthy eating. A bunch of us who work in Widener Library are planning a dinner based on Mollie’s recipes (check out www.MollieKatzen.com for recipes and links to her existing 11 cookbooks, and check out her Facebook page, Mollie Katzen’s Get Cooking, to see more and watch her videos). Given the huge reorganization of the Harvard Library that’s going on, I’m wondering if a covered-dish supper might be a good community-building event – you get a roomful of librarians together over good food, and we’re inevitably going to talk shop – but in this case, healthfully.

More power to you, Mollie – I’m already anticipating your next visit to Cambridge!
More as it happens, healthfully and tastily,
Cheryl

The Sweetest Day

Cheryl LaGuardia — Fri, 14 Oct 2011 23:58:22 +0000

I’m on a post-Freshman-Parents-Weekend-tours high right now — every year we give tours of Widener Library on the kickoff day of Freshman Parents Weekend. We especially love giving these tours — the building, the collections, and our colleagues are amazing, and we enjoy showing them off and sharing the library stories and traditions with these folks.

The delightful parents who come on these tours are very engaged and fascinated by seeing the terrific library resources available to their kids in this, the biggest library at Harvard (my tours include directions to the quiet and comfortable “mystery” reading room that many can see but few can find without directions).

When I got back to my cubby, I checked my wall calendar, and saw that tomorrow, October 15th, is dubbed, “The Sweetest Day.” Since autumn is my favorite season, I thought that October 15th was chosen as the sweetest day because it’s the loveliest day of the year. But, being a librarian, I checked my favorite resource for this kind of lookup, and Wikipedia laid it on the line for me:

“Sweetest Day is an observance celebrated primarily in the Great Lakes region, and parts of the Northeast United States, on the third Saturday in October.It is described by Retail Confectioners International as an “occasion which offers all of us an opportunity to remember husbands, boyfriends,the sick, aged and orphaned, but also friends, relatives and associates whose helpfulness and kindness we have enjoyed.” Sweetest Day has also been referred to as a “concocted promotion created by the candy industry solely to increase sales of sweets.”

Hmm. I like my interpretation better than a “manufactured” holiday to sell candy. This will not keep me from giving my sister the pound of See’s candy I ordered for her, however (and if you have never experienced See’s candy, you should waste no time whatsoever in giving it a try. It makes Godiva pale by comparison. And if you’re an I Love Lucy fan, my LA expert tells me the infamous Candy Wrapping Episode was filmed at See’s).

Anyway, tomorrow being The Sweetest Day seems fitting any way I look at it. Hope you enjoy the weekend, too! and more as it happens,
Cheryl

College Students, Libraries, Technology, Crunch Time: The Latest PIL Report

Cheryl LaGuardia — Thu, 13 Oct 2011 15:19:21 +0000

Just got word from Alison Head about the newest research report released by Project Information Literacy – this one, “Balancing Act: How College Students Manage Technology While in the Library during Crunch Time,” by Alison and Michael B. Eisenberg,

reports on how students manage and use technology during the final weeks of the term (it presents findings from 560 undergraduate interviews conducted at 10 US campuses during spring 2011). Since crunch time is looming ever closer, this is great timing!

There are two versions of the report available, the Full version (includes appendices) (72 pages, 6.1 MB) and the Short version (without appendices) (54 pages, 6 MB). Both should provide interesting reading for anyone encountering students in the frenzied last weeks of the term.

Enjoy! and more as it happens,
Cheryl