Looking for ideas for your paper? Or background information?
Looking for quick explanation of a theory or theorist?
Looking for company history? Or demographics?
Need it fast?

Try the online database, Gale Virtual Reference Library

The Gale Virtual Reference Library is a collection of full-text encyclopedias, almanacs, and specialized reference sources in every discipline taught on this campus. The collection is made up of more than 1,700 volumes of college-level reference sources, including fields of arts, biography, business, education, environment, history, law, literature, medicine, multicultural studies, nations and the world, news, political science, religion, science, social science, technology and more.

This database includes an intuitive three-box search engine that makes it simple to narrow your search and focus on the information you need. Search results are all full text and full image. They can easily be emailed, printed, downloaded or saved to your mp3 player.

The topics covered are useful for undergraduate students, graduate students, and faculty.

This is a fast way to warm-up to your research and get things going.

Give it a try.

To find the Gale Virtual Reference Library; start at the Library home page, then click on Databases and enter in Gale Virtual Reference Library.

Use the "Databases" tab on our home page tabbed search box.

Are you receiving 404 server error messages when trying to access full-text articles from the library website?

We are currently experiencing some technical issues with the Basic Search tool for Articles & Books (see above image). This issue relates to the search box feature that is located on the library homepage.

There is an issue related to the retrieval of PDF documents from the search results screen. In the example above you can see that there is a direct link to retrieve the full text of this article in PDF format. However, clicking on this link will not bring up the article; instead it brings up a 404 error page.

You might experience this issue when trying to access the full-text .pdf version of articles retrieved searching via our "Basic Search" tool.

Clicking on the link for the .pdf full-text of an article, sometimes brings up this error message.

This is a temporary issue and we are working to resolve it. In the meantime, there is a simple workaround that you can use to access the full text.

When you want to retrieve the full text of an article follow these steps, or watch this brief video:

1. From the results screen click on the title of the article.
2. On the following screen, click on Full text available, not Full-Text in PDF.
3. On the next screen, click on any link that reads Full Text Online.

If you are still having issues accessing your article, please contact a librarian for assistance.

Thank you for your understanding.

Today marks what would have been author Ray Bradbury’s 92nd birthday if he had not passed away this past June.

Did you know that the Pollak Library’s University Archives and Special Collections is home to the manuscripts for Bradbury’s classic novel, Fahrenheit 451, first published in 1953? We own the original manuscripts for the novel, as well for the short story “The Fireman”, from which Fahrenheit 451 originated.

Corrections made to the typescript in Bradbury's own hand.

The Pollak Library acquired this collection directly from Bradbury, who was close friends with Dr. Willis E. McNelly — a former Cal State Fullerton Professor of English and Comparative Literature. You can request to view this collection, along with other notable works from our larger Science Fiction Collection, by visiting the University Archives and Special Collections during open office hours (Monday & Tuesday 1pm-4p, Wednesday – Friday 9am-12pm), or by making an appointment with our Special Collections Librarian:

Sharon Perry
Special Collections Librarian
sperry@fullerton.edu
(657) 278-3444.

We are pleased to announce that the Pollak Library, along with the Academic Technology Office and the College of Humanities and Social Sciences, is hosting the 2012 Southern California Humanities and Technology Camp (aka THATCamp SoCal 2012)!

The event will be held at the Titan Student Union on Friday and Saturday, September 14-15, 2012.  Registration, breakfast, and lunch are all FREE — thanks to sponsorship from:

• Academic Technology Officer Chris Manriquez
• H&SS Dean Angela Della Volpe
• University Librarian Richard Pollard
• Occidental College Center for Digital Learning and Research
• UCLA Center for Digital Humanities.

What is THATCamp?

THATCamp is an unconference movement that started at the George Mason University Center for History and New Media, but has spread globally over the last few years.  Its motto of “More hack, less yack” pretty much sums up what THATCamp is about: no formal presentations, and no pre-set schedule (read more at http://thatcamp.org/about).

The focus of THATCamp is on innovation, emerging technology, collaboration, active learning, and evolving pedagogy.

Who Should Attend?

Anyone with energy and an interest in the humanities and technology!

Specific examples might include: professors, teachers, grad and undergrad students, librarians, archivists, programmers and web developers, public historians, and heritage professionals.

How Do You Register?

Hop on to the THATCamp SoCal 2012 website, at http://socal2012.thatcamp.org, and click on the “Register” link. Register soon, because the event is capped at 100 Campers, and we do expect to have to wait-list some people.

Want to Learn More?

Learn more about the philosophy behind, and the activities at, the THATCamp movement. Photos, video, Tweets, and testimonials tell it best.

If you need help with research, try one of our online help options. We can help demystify the search process and get you the information you need. So if you are looking for peer reviewed articles, books, demographic data, business information, websites, or anything else, visit our Ask a Librarian page.

We are available 24/7 to help you find the information you need.

Ask a Librarian

Need help with research, but can’t get to campus? We can help! The Pollak Library now offers online research appointments. Just fill out the Research Consultation request form and make sure to select “Online Appointment.” Using web-conferencing software, we will set up a virtual appointment and meet you online.

Did you know that the Pollak Library has a huge collection of full-text electronic books waiting to be discovered?

About the collection

Currently, the Pollak Library provides access to well over 50,000 eBooks through the online Catalog. Our eBook collection covers a broad range of subject areas for academic, technical, and reference books.

How to find our eBooks

There are different approaches you can take to discovering our eBooks.

• If you do a keyword or subject search in the Catalog and limit your search to internet resources only, you will access eBook titles on your searched topic, as well as other electronic sources such as government documents and ejournals.
• You can also do a keyword or subject search and add the word, “ebook”, for example, “psychology and ebook”.

Accessing eBooks is very easy.

• Select your title from the list and click the link in the orange “Connect To” box.
• In some cases however, due to the fact that the Library purchases eBooks from several different vendors, you may be asked to login after clicking the link, to access the eBook.

So, the next time you’re researching from home and need a book, remember that a wealth of information is just a Catalog search away!

Cynthia Bruns and Lin Ford contributed to this post.

About Open Access

“Open Access” to information – the free, immediate, online access to the results of scholarly research, and the right to use and re-use those results as you need – has the power to transform the way research and scientific inquiry are conducted. It has direct and widespread implications for academia, medicine, science, industry, and for society as a whole.
– Source: Open Access Week

Our Open Access Electronic Resources

Since it’s Open Access week, we wanted to highlight a few of our electronic resources that you might find useful. The databases below are in addition to the wealth of Open Access journals like PLoS One and e-books like those offered by the National Academies Press. Find a whole list of journals in the Directory of Open Access Journals.

• English Short Title Catalogue (British Library): Descriptions and holdings information for all types of materials published in Great Britain and its dependencies or in English anywhere in the world from the beginnings of print to 1800 — including materials ranging from Shakespeare and Greek New Testaments to anonymous ballads, broadsides, songs, advertisements, directories, almanacs, newspapers, periodicals, and other ephemera.
• National Criminal Justice Reference Service Abstracts Database (NCJRS) (government source): Professional criminal justice database from the US Department of Justice which indexes journal articles, government reports, books, research reports, Congressional hearings, and training materials. Topics included are crime trends, crime prevention, deterrence, juvenile justice, police, courts, punishment, sentencing and more.
• PubMed: A comprehensive index to biomedical and life sciences journals with citations to over 18 million articles back to 1948. Note: To limit to full-text articles, search PUBMED CENTRAL.
• World Bank Open Data: This site is meant to provide all users with improved access to World Bank data and to make that data easy to find and use. The World Bank provides free and open access to a comprehensive set of data about development in countries around the globe, together with other datasets cited in the data catalog.

For Faculty and Others Who Publish

Before you publish, do you check out copyright and self-archiving policies? Make sure you’re keeping control of your own copyright! A good way to do this is through the journal’s (or publisher’s) web pages, or through RoMEO.

October is American Archives Month and Family History Month.

When a History major here at Cal State Fullerton (Class of 2001), I spent endless weekends in the Pollak Library scrolling through rolls and rolls of historical newspapers on microfilm, thanks to Dr. Gordon Bakken and Dr. Wendy Elliott-Scheinberg. As a genealogist, I continued to spend much of my own free time doing the same exact thing over the past 10 years. So, while not all historical newspapers or records are available in digital format, I am always thrilled when my historical research projects converge with a source that is conveniently available online.

Access to the Collection

One such source provided by the Pollak Library is the ProQuest Historical Newspapers database collection, available for free (within the library and remotely) to current Cal State Fullerton students, faculty and staff. Members of the public may also conduct research with this database collection for free from inside the library, by setting up Guest Access credentials to use our computers and e-resources.

The Pollak Library provides access to the following ProQuest Historical Newspapers:

• Los Angeles Times – Historical 1881-1986.
• New York Times Historical – 1851-2004.
• The Wall Street Journal (1889-1989).

About the Collection

Details about the collection can best be explained by ProQuest itself.

ProQuest Historical Newspapers™ is the definitive newspaper digital archive offering full-text and full-image articles for significant newspapers dating back to the 18th Century. As part of the ProQuest Historical Newspapers™ program, every issue of each title includes the complete paper-cover-to-cover, with full-page and article images in easily downloadable PDF format. The full collection of ProQuest Historical Newspapers™ contains nearly 30 million digitized pages.

Although our interface (the higher education version) does not look like the version used in this ProQuest presentation, this video provides a good short overview of the key highlights of the database collection.

Collection Use Case

To illustrate how one might use the database collection to conduct historical or genealogical research about a person, I will use an example from my own family history research.

My father’s family immigrated to the Los Angeles area from Mexico in the second decade of the 1900s.  I had always heard that my now-deceased great-uncle Frank Cueto had been a Golden Gloves boxer, so I did a quick search of his name in the Los Angeles Times – Historical 1881-1986 database, then scanned the results for boxing-related articles. And sure enough, I found a handful — including this one dated August 23, 1937 — that mention my Uncle Frank.

Oden Faces Fields in Amateur Feature at Olympic Tonight. (1937, August 23). Los Angeles Times (1923-Current File),A10. Retrieved October 7, 2011, from ProQuest Historical Newspapers Los Angeles Times (1881 - 1987). (Document ID: 396875131).

In-depth Research consultations are now available online to CSUF students and faculty . Using web-conferencing software, we will set up a virtual appointment and meet you online.

Just fill out this form and be sure to mark the “Online Appointment” option. We will arrange the appointment within a few days. If you prefer to meet us in person, we can do that too. Just indicate your preference on the form.