Author: Mr. Ian M. O'Hara

SpringerLink Ebook Collections

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April 27, 2015

2:49 pm

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Springer has been in the publishing business since the early 1840’s and has been an industry leader in innovative publishing methods. The Weinberg Memorial Library provides access to the Springer Complete ebook collections from 2005 through 2014. We have also just added the Springer 2015 ebook collection into which new titles will be added throughout the entirety of 2015. Springer is actually home to the world’s largest Scientific, Technical and Medical ebook collection currently published. The library has access to over 42,000 ebooks via Springer. The titles included in the 2015 ebook collection will be gradually implemented throughout the year until eventually all 6,750 new titles within the collection are available.

There are no limits on page downloads or printing, so it is possible to download every page of all 42,000 plus titles if that is what you need. Also, SpringerLink is now available in the form of a mobile app, for both Android and IOS, allowing a University of Scranton student to utilize the Springer ebook collection for research from virtually anywhere.

It is a simple process to access the ebook collection from the library’s home page (http://www.scranton.edu/academics/wml/index.shtml).  Choose the articles and databases tab, click the link to the databases page. From there, choose the letter S and click on SpringerLink (http://link.springer.com/).  SpringerLink allows the user to browse by discipline, see book or articles that were recently accessed by other users within the University of Scranton, or use a keyword searching function for your research subject area or specific topic. You can refine by content type (book, article, chapter etc.), discipline, subdiscipline, primary language.   You can also further refine searches by date of publication and relevance (whether the keyword is in the title, subject or in the fulltext make the results a better match).

Although best known for sciences, medical research, and also computer science and mathematics there is a wealth of information in all disciplines including philosophy, theology and psychology. Any member of the University community studying these fields in any capacity should utilize Springer as a truly invaluable research tool.

Times-Tribune and Citizens’ Voice now available online

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March 25, 2015

10:29 am

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The Weinberg Memorial Library provides electronic access to the Times-Tribune (Scranton) and to the Citizens’ Voice (Wilkes-Barre) via the ProQuest Central and ProQuest Newsstand databases. The Times-Tribune is available from August 7th of 2005 to the present. Coverage for the Citizens’ Voice is from January 23, 2006 to the present. Articles are text only (no images), since access is currently only in HTML format.

To view the Times-Tribune or Citizens’ Voice articles electronically, either enter the title in the catalog search, the periodical search, or select ProQuest Central or ProQuest Newspapers from the A-Z list of databases (http://www.scranton.edu/academics/wml/databases.shtml). These links can be found either on the library tab of my.scranton or accessed from the Library’s home page http://www.scranton.edu/library. Searching the library catalog for the Times-Tribune gives two results, one labeled “Times Tribune-Blogs ” and the other labeled “Times-Tribune (Scranton, Pa. 2005). “Times-Tribune Scranton, Pa 2005” is the article content with links listed to both ProQuest Central and ProQuest Newsstand. Clicking on either of these links provides the same level of access to the Times- Tribune content.

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On the ProQuest page, there is a link to “view current issue” for articles published in the current issue of the newspaper. “Search within this publication” provides keyword searching in all of the electronically available issues of the Times-Tribune (Aug. 7, 2005-present). Search results can be sorted by relevance (the search term is in the title or in the subject descriptors) or by the date of publication, from oldest to newest or newest to oldest. Another search option is “browse specific issues,” click on the year and then month of  the issue. The month expands to a list of specific dates of the issues published that month. Clicking on a specific date, results in a listing of all of the available articles from that issue, sortable by page number order. These search strategies work in the same way for the Citizens’ Voice.
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Select ProQuest from the A-Z list of databases to browse the entire list of newspapers in:
(http://www.scranton.edu/academics/wml/databases.shtml)
Select the letter “P,” scroll down, and select ProQuest Newspapers. Click on the “publications” heading listed at the top of the page for an alphabetical listing of 1,107 newspapers sortable by language, publisher, or publication subject. ProQuest Newsstand provides access to everything from the Washington Post to Estonian Business News, including our own Scranton Times-Tribune. It is a welcome alternative to sifting through reels and reels of microfilm.

NEW Library A-Z List of Databases

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February 12, 2015

10:06 am

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There are recent changes in how the Library presents and manages our A-Z list of Databases.

Utilizing the relatively recently adopted and implemented Electronic Resource Management (ERM) component of our integrated library system, we can now dynamically update in real time the list of databases to which we provide access. This allows our A-Z list of databases to be the most up to date list of electronic resources that we provide to you.

In the past the A-Z list required a much more involved and labor intensive process in order to update content and manage what the list actually looked like to the user. This new system requires a very simple alteration within the records found in our library system and monitored by the library technical services staff. These changes immediately take effect, altering what is displayed on the Library’s list of A-Z databases within seconds.

This new dynamic A-Z list of Databases presents a more modern but also more easily navigable interface for the researcher. It is uncluttered and extremely simple to use.

As a researcher, you can click on a letter listed alphabetically at the top of the page and immediately be linked to a list of all of the databases that we subscribe to whose name begins with that letter.

Directly underneath that feature there is a drop down menu labeled “Database Subject.” By selecting a subject, you see a list of all of the databases we subscribe to that provide content related to that subject matter.

The next feature of the A-Z list is labeled “Search for Databases.” Here you can use the drop down menu to choose “Database Name”, which allows you to type in the specific name of the database you are looking for or you can choose “Database Subject” which allows you to type in a subject you are researching and then be provided with a listing of databases that provide content related to that subject.

The Final feature of the new A-Z list is an area labeled “Trial Databases”. This is the section where there will be a listing of any databases for which the Library has trial access as a way to examine whether or not the resource will be added to the collection.

Access to the A-Z list of databases is available via the Library’s homepage by clicking on the “Databases” link under the Articles & Database tab or by clicking on the “Databases” link under “Library Resources” in the My.Scranton portal under the Library tab. The URL for the A-Z  list page is :

http://www.scranton.edu/academics/wml/databases.shtml

The dynamic A-Z list of Databases provides a more elegant solution to the question of providing our library users with a more intuitive and functional research interface.