The news

Started today with an e-mail request from a staff member for an article from yesterday's Wall Street Journal that mentioned our school. None of our 8 campuses subscribe to the print edition. This request gave me the opportunity to share the news resources we do have access to.

I went to GALILEO, selected the tab Journals A-Z to see which database carried the WSJ. Turns out both NewsBank and Abi/Inform Complete carry the full text of the WSJ.

We subscribe to NewsBank for the Georgia papers. I checked to see if our subscription included the Wall Street Journal. It didn't come up under national papers or New York papers. I wandered around for awhile and decided it just wasn't worth the time to keep digging.

Abi/Inform Complete is a ProQuest product. ProQuest databases feel easy and clear to use. I selected the Publications link, clicked on W, scrolled to Wall Street Journal, selected WSJ.

In the search box I typed 'Chattahoochee'. 71 articles were retrieved. A sort by date revealed yesterdays article - Long-Term Unemployment Ripples Through One Town. I was able to e-mail the article to the staff member. Even though we don't subscribe to the print editon, we are able to supply the request in a timely fashion.

Your Georgia librarian can give you the current password to access GALILEO password.
Select Databases A-Z
...Select A
....Scroll to ABI/Inform Complete (not archive)


-kss

Who, what, where

Citations are so simple. Really, they are very simple. The pattern is - who did it (the author), what did they do (the title) and how does my reader get it (the publisher). The complications arise with punctuation.

We have several resources to help students cite their sources. On our Library Guide page we have links for printable pdf files - APA and MLA. Each document serves as a pattern for the citation style. Just follow along and make sure you use the correct punctuation.

In addition to these printable documents, there is a Library Guide. The tabs break down MLA and APA with book and electronic sources.

It's the beginning of the term. Students are starting to do research. Now is the time to do the citation correctly. As I said to my children, if you don't have time to do it right, when will you have time to do it over?


-kss

It's dark out there

To heighten awareness of the 'Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA)' bill going through Congress, Wikipedia has gone 'dark' for 24 hours.

Where might I find information about the actual bill? We have access to Westlaw (Campus Research). WestLaw is used by the Business Law classes for legal information.
A search for SOPA in Westlaw (Campus Research) using the law tab pulled up 47 references. All dealt with 'Schedule of proposed actions (SOPA).' It occurred to me, the SOPA we're looking for isn't a law yet, so that search was futile.

A search, limited to the past 30 days, using the News & Business tab, for SOPA pulled 460 articles. I was intrigued by the number of foreign press articles on this topic. I went back to limit my search. There is a check box for 'Identify duplicate documents'. That action narrowed the results list to 79 items. All of which were news articles.

Where can I find the bill? A search with Google (where the logo is blacked out in protest) gave me clues about the bill number, HR 3261. A search for HR 3261 pulled up The Library of Congress - Thomas site where I found the bill in its entirety :Bill Text 112th Congress (2011-2012)H.R.3261.IH Stop Online Piracy Act.

Please do wade through the bill. Please do contact your Senators and Representatives to share your feelings on this piece of legislation. The more voters voices they hear, the more informed the elected officials will be about this topic.

To access Westlaw (Campus Research) you'll need the current GALILEO password. The password is available from your Georgia librarian.

-kss

Triangular theory of Love

Just finished library instruction for a Psychology class where the research topic is Robert J. Sternberg's Triangular Theory of Love. The instructor noted the topic is in their textbook. It's not a familiar concept to me. As any student would do, I hit Google first. I confess, I use Google when I'm not sure and worse still I use Wikipedia!

So you're not surprised to hear the first result in my Google search was a Wikipedia article.

It is a teachable moment to show how some Wikipedia editors put references at the end of an article. These references point one to more academic sources.

You're thinking how does this tie to Library Resources? GALILEO has a feature called the Toolbar. You need to download it from GALILEO. The link is on the left side, 6th link 'Get your GALILEO toolbar'.

This is what the Toolbar does to a Wikipedia article.

See those purple Find It buttons? They take you to GALILEO and the original resource. It's pretty amazing.

Get the current password to GALILEO from your Georgia librarian. Download the Toolbar. Turn your Wikipedia search into a foray into GALILEO.

-kss

Speeches

Yesterday, I noted the Martin Luther King, Jr Archive has released digital copies of many of Dr King's papers. Do we have access to his speeches through any GALILEO databases which offer a 'speech' search limiter?

Academic Search Complete was my first choice.
To get to the 'speech' limiter, you need to select Advanced Search.
Martin Luther King was my general search term. There are a lot of speeches about Dr. King given on Dr. King's holiday. I wasn't finding any speeches by Dr. King. A sort by relevance, date ascending (oldest first) showed only articles back to 1971.

A search with Martin Luther King as the author of a speech turned up zero results in both Academic Search Complete and ProQuest.

GALILEO provides a link to the Digital Library of Georgia . A search for Martin Luther King provided a subject box on the left with Martin Luther King 1929-1968 (Contributor). There are 53 television clips starting in 1957 and ending in 1967. These are sound bites from television news. They do offer another look at this Civil Rights leader.

No complete speeches by Dr. King in my brief look at three resources in GALILEO. The Martin Luther King, Jr Archive is the place to go for a complete look at what Dr. King had to say.

-kss

Remember Martin Luther King, Jr

Several news stories noted the digital release of many of Martin Luther King, Jr's papers via The Martin Luther King Jr Archives.
The Spotlight drop down is fascinating.

There are nearly a million documents associated with the life of Martin Luther King Jr. These pages will present a more dynamic view than is often seen of Dr. King’s life and times. The documents reveal the scholar, the father, and the pastor. Through these papers we see the United States of America at one of its most vulnerable, most honest and perhaps most human moments in history. There are letters bearing the official marks of royalty and the equally regal compositions of children. You will see speeches, telegrams, scribbled notes, patient admonitions and urgent pleas. This spotlight shows you a glimpse of the remarkable history within this collection.

Thank you JP Morgan Chase for making this possible.


-kss