The Library has added a web page listing our new acquisitions from the previous month. The list includes regular books, children's literature, teaching materials, reference books, bestsellers, and multimedia items. There will be a new list each month at the same location on the website. It's a very nice way to get a sense of what we are buying to support the University's needs.
The new issue of the UMD Library Connection newsletter is out. It includes items on the upcoming Northeast Minnesota Book Awards (NEMBA), the kids from the Children's Place who come in and use the library on Tuesdays, the new statewide 24-hour online reference service AskMN, profiles of three of our student employees, and other interesting news.
The new issue of the UMD Library's Newsletter, the Library Connection, is out. It's out in print and online as well. This issue has items about this semester's Student Video Contest, the transfer of the Media Hub to the library, the call for nominations for next year's Northeast Minnesota Book Awards, an article on the David Berman exhibit and event, and other news.
The library website has an updated section about the various collections in the library. There is a page for each collection, and the majority of these collections can be searched separately from those pages.
The collections you'll find there include:
Archives
Audiobooks
Bestsellers
Books
Center for Economic Development
Children's Literature
DVD/Video
E-Books
Government Documents
Microform
Music Recordings
NRRI
Northeast Minnesota Historical Center
Plays
Ramseyer-Northern Bible Society Museum
Reference Collection
Special Collections
Teaching Materials
Tweed Museum Library
Voyageur Collection
The reference department has set up a "chat widget," which allows anyone to chat with a librarian at the reference desk by going to the "Ask Us" page. This chat doesn't require the user to have any kind of account with any instant messaging service. I think this is pretty nifty.
Additionally, I offer chat service from my office to students and faculty in my subject areas. My IM accounts:
I hope some folks find these services useful.
Here is an Excel file listing all of the books we acquired for the Philosophy Department last year.
The Spring issue of The Library Connection, the UMD Library's newsletter, has been sent out in print form and uploaded to the web. Enjoy the news from the library....
UMD Library Newsletter Fall 2006: The Library Connection: A Newsletter for Friends of the UMD Library.
I want to just mention a little-known service of the library website: the Citation Linker. This allows you to put in a citation to an article, and the system will attempt to link you directly to that article in one of our databases. Take it for a spin...
The library is providing access to a number of online encyclopedias, including the new, major work, the Gale/Macmillan Encyclopedia of Philosophy, which was released in 2006. In its print version this is a ten volume work. Our access to it is online, which many of you will find useful. This acquisition was strongly recommended by Jim Fetzer.
We also recently acquired a briefer work in electonic form, Routledge's Concise Encyclopedia of Western Philosophy, which was published in 2005.
In addition, for users on the campus network (on campus only, not VPN) there is Routledge's larger Encyclopedia of Philosophy, another major work.
Of course, the world also has access to the ever improving Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy.
Philosopher's Index, the main indexing service for philosophical literature, is now coming to us on a different database platform than before, due to a decision by the library to switch vendors.
In my opinion, this is good news. I think that if you try searching Philosopher's Index on the new platform, which is by Cambridge Scientific Abstracts, and explore some of its tools you will agree that you can do more faster and easier in the database than previously.
One feature that I highly recommend you try is the "Alert" service, which is available under the "Search Tools" tab. This service allows you to save searches into a profile you set up and then emails you new results to your search as new records are entered into the database. This is a handy way to be quickly informed of new publications in your areas of interest that you might not otherwise learn of so quickly.
To try out the new CSA interface to Philosopher's Index, go to:
http://www.d.umn.edu/lib/lurl/LibGo.php?TiPrimaryID=692
We now have Google Scholar working with our Find-It system, which is very very nice!
Google Scholar is Google's effort to provide access to scholarly resources of the kind needed in college. It's searchable like regular Google, but what it comes up with is (mainly) all scholarly and reliable.
Among the results in Google Scholar are a lot of things that we only have access to through our subscription databases. But in order to get from Google Scholar to the full text of these articles via our databases, you have to set up some settings in Google Scholar to connect it with us. This page explains the steps, but I will repeat them here:
1. Go to http://scholar.google.com/
2. Click on Scholar Preferencesto the right of the search box.
3. In the Library Links field type in UMD.
4. Click on Find Library.
5. Put a check next to the University of Minnesota Duluth.
6. Click on Save Preferences.
Once you have done that, when you search Google Scholar you will often see a Find-It link next to a citation. If the link is in large type, it will lead you directly to the full text of that article in one of our databases. If it's in small type, it will lead you to the other steps you can take for getting the article (e-journal locator, library catalog, ILL form).
JSTOR update:
JSTOR has added a nice new title of interest to the Philosophy Department:
Law and Philosophy (Arts & Sciences IV Collection)
Release Content: Vols. 1 - 21, 1982-2002
Moving Wall: 3 years
Publisher: Springer Science + Business Media
ISSN: 0167-5249
In mid-April we announced an instant-messaging IM service, where you can chat with the librarian who is working at the reference desk during the times that the desk is staffed.
I have decided to offer research help by instant messaging from my office as well. So if you are working on a project in Philosophy that requires some kind of research, or if you want to recommend a book or a database or ask a question that I might know the answer to, you can IM me in my office as long as I'm here.
My IM screennames at work are:
AIM: umdlibraryrory
MSN: umdlibraryrory
YM: umdlibraryrory
GTalk: rlitwin@gmail.com
Pop me a message just to let me know you are reading this.... I don't know if anybody is reading this blog at this point....
Here is an Excel spreadsheet listing books (and a few DVDs) of interest to the Philosophy Department acquired by the library in the 2005-06 fiscal year:
Acquisitions for Philosophy, 2005-06
This includes all the books and DVDs requested by Philosophy faculty as well as some other books selected by the librarian for Philosophy (Rory Litwin) and purchased using a mix of funds, including library funds devoted to developing the collection to support the Philosophy curriculum, funds for other subjects where titles cross over into Philosophy, and funds for replacing missing books.