It's here!

The new and improved Lexis Nexis is available through GALILEO!

Today is Fat Tuesday also known as Mardi Gras . The day many Christians clean out the cupboard of dairy and meat products to spend the next 6 weeks fasting. I did a search in the new Lexis Nexis for Fat Tuesday.


Searching for Fat Tuesday (no quotes) turned up 971 articles that emphasized fat. It must have only looked for the word fat.
Searching for "Fat Tuesday" (with quotes) pulled 993 articles.
Sorting both results by publication date shows -
- the no quotes search has a GlaxoSmithKline Health care article first.
- the quote results search lists the Feb 16, 2010 Washington Post article on DC Fat Tuesday activities first.

The sort options are intriguing - chronological puts the articles in publication date order so the oldest article is first. Publication date puts the most recent article at the top of the list. I wonder why they didn't choose one term and note oldest and most recent as options for the sort?

And then, as long as I'm complaining - after you've selected an article, look to the right of the screen. See the icons? The printer, the envelope, the disc are all self explanatory . It was the open book that confused me. It is the icon they are using to send the bibliographic notes to RefWorks (Export of RefWorks format will be redirected to the RefWorks login center.). I know my institution does not subscribe to RefWorks but as an experiment, I clicked on the links.

I could apply for a 30 day trial account (an individual RefWorks subscription would be $100 per year). Why can't they just use whatever ProQuest and Ebsco use to create the citation?

I like Lexis Nexis for the legal information for our Business Law classes. I like it for transcripts of television or radio programs that I want to check.

It isn't as friendly for students to use for research because of the lack of a durable URL to an article. The lack of citation information isn't critical but they obviously know people want citation information or they wouldn't have the link to RefWorks.


I'm glad the new interface for Lexis Nexis is available. I hope they'll add a durable URL and a better citation system.

Get the password to access GALILEO from your Georgia librarian.

-kls

The links for Fat Tuesday and Mardi Gras are thanks to Encyclopedia Britannica, another resource available through GALILEO!