Sage databases are working

As of this morning, access has been restored to the Sage databases.  Thanks for your patience!

Sage databases are down

Update on Sage databases, 4:00 p.m.
The vendor reports that their platform is down and hopes to have the problem fixed by tomorrow.  PLEASE NOTE:  BVU Library subscribes to other databases that provide citations to the articles available in Sage databases, however if the full-text resides in a Sage database you will be unable to access the full-text until this software issue is fixed.
For articles from the Education databases, search ERIC.
For articles from the Psychology databases, search PsycINFO.
For articles from the Communication Studies databases, search Communication & Mass Media Complete.
For articles from the Criminology database, try Academic Search Complete, or PsycINFO.

We apologize for this inconvenience and we will let you know as soon as Sage is operational again.  If you need assistance obtaining articles or in finding alternative articles, please contact the Library and we'll be happy to assist you!

Original notice:
We just received word that the Sage Databases (Communication Studies, Criminology, Psychology and Education) are not working.  We are working now to figure out why we are unable to access these databases and will restore access just as soon as we figure this out!  Stay tuned for updates!

Value Line service down for maintenance

Value Line will be performing system maintenance on our website and support servers over the Thanksgiving weekend. This service may cause periodic interruptions to Valueline.com and your subscription access. This maintenance will begin tonight after 6 pm and continue through the weekend.

Web Site Evaluation for Hart English 50

Group 1: Who is the Author?

• Is it an individual or group?
• What are the author's credentials, educational background, area of expertise?
• Has this individual or group published elsewhere?
• Have other scholar's cited this author's work?

Group 2: Why was the source written?

• Is the information presented fact, opinion or propaganda?
• Does the author want readers to take action in some way?
• What sorts of claims are made?  Do they seem reasonable and in line with other books, articles, web sites?
• Is the author's point of view impartial and objective?

Group 3:  How was this web site written?

• Does the author tell how facts were gathered?
• What types of sources are used?
• Is there any sort of documentation, for instance, a bibliography or "credits"?

Group 4: What has been written?

• Do you trust the information?
• Is there a potential conflict of interest?
• Is there another source for this same information that could be more trustworthy? 

(KeyWord Challenge)

Blodgett University Seminar Website Exercise

Rate a web page below based on currency, relevancy, accuracy, authority, and position (or objectivity).  Would you feel confident using this web page as a source of information for your paper? Why or why not?

 Webpage #1

Webpage #2

Webpage #3

 Webpage #4

Webpage #5

Update on Library Access from Off-Campus

The solution to fix the remote access problems with new student accounts was not successful.  Apparently our old computer system (Poise) is preventing our new students from accessing the system and overriding the changes we make in the new computer system (Jenzabar).  Breaking the link with Poise has turned out to be more difficult than anticipated.  The new solution posed by our computer center staff is to run a new update from Jenzabar each day early in the morning to reset everyone's account to allow access to the library resources.  This solution means that there may be time between midnight and 6:00 a.m. when you are not able to access the library resources from off-campus.  If you try again after 6:00 a.m, you should have access.

The BVU Library is open Saturday afternoon and Monday evening for the Labor Day weekend.  I will monitor the library@bvu.edu email address over the weekend and will attempt to help those who contact us.

I apologize for the technical difficulties we are experiencing and beg your continued patience as we try to find a permanent solution to rectify this situation.  If there are particular assignments that you are trying to complete and having difficulty because of sporadic access, please email library@bvu.edu

Access to BVU Library from Off-Campus

A problem has been identified that is preventing any new students from logging in to the library resources from off-campus.  A fix for this problem will be put in place this evening and then we will test the fix in the morning to make sure that this solution really does indeed address the issue.  Thanks for your patience, and thank you for letting us know when you ran into problems!  We very quickly realized the scope of the issue when we had many people contacting us the first few days of classes to tell us they were unable to log in to the library.  Now that the problem has been identified and a potential solution put in place, we hope to have all new students up and researching to their heart's content very soon.

If you need immediate access, before the file is run, let us know.  It is possible to fix individual accounts "on the fly."  We just need your username. Library@bvu.edu is your best address for letting us know.

Anatomy of a Scholarly Article

I'm posting this for use by the General Psychology class today, as they learn about different types of publications.  Thanks to NCSU Libraries.

Anatomy of a Scholarly Article

Database Use in 2013-2014

We just compiled the final statistics for database use for the last academic year.  A few of our databases do not let us track usage, but most of them do and we keep an eye on that throughout the year. Here are some interesting numbers for the FY 13-14.

Total database searches, July 1, 2013 through June 30, 2014 : 457,468
Most used database:  Academic Search Complete, 78,545 searches
Heaviest database use month: April 2014, 72,003 searches
Total full-text articles obtained: 103,588
Total e-book use: 5,537 titles
Total Films on Demand video views: 1,335

ValueLine updates

Value Line, a database that allows you to check out corporate stock information, has updated their search interface.  They've also put out some helpful videos to help library users understand how to get the information they want most efficiently.  I found the Basic Navigation video helpful.  If you need the more advanced features that Value Line offers, there are other videos available.

Favorite "cult" novels

Summer is the perfect time to catch up on those books you've been meaning to read if you only had the time.  If you are lucky enough to enjoy a break from classes at the moment, consider choosing a few titles from this list of Fifty Essential Cult Novels.

What are "cult novels"?  Emily Temple writes on Flavorwire, " Any book with a squadron of rabid fans swearing that it changed their lives quickly seems cultish. Cult novels often come from the fringes, they often represent countercultural perspectives, they often experiment with form."

What titles would YOU add to the list that have changed your life?

Database changes

We have changed suppliers for some of our databases.  This was a financially-driven decision as both companies (Ebsco, that supplied these databases for years and ProQuest, a competitor of theirs) were offering the exact same information from a third party, but had the databases priced differently.  This year, ProQuest offered the better deal so we changed the following databases:  PsycINFO, PsycARTICLES (both from the American Psychological Association) and Philosopher's Index.(published by the Philosopher's Information Center).

What does this mean to you?

The search screens are slightly different than what you may be used to.  The biggest change for me is that the options to narrow your search are on the right side of the screen instead of the left side.

When you click on "Search for Fulltext" there is an intermediate pop-up screen that you need to click again to see if fulltext is available in the BVU Library.  You can also use this intermediate pop-up to click to go to an interlibrary loan form if you've discovered that fulltext is not available for that journal.

The biggest change may be that you will no longer be able to search a psychology database and an education or general database simultaneously.  Only databases from the same vendor may be searched simultaneously at this time.  Because educators and education students often need cross-disciplinary information from both the education and the psychology journals, you will now need to search the psychology databases separately from the other discipline's databases. 

As we become more familiar with the new ProQuest databases, we'll post additional information here to inform everyone.

We've been a little short-staffed this week.  We had one librarian retire on June 30, another is on vacation, and a third staff member is home recovering from a broken leg.  This is just a temporary dip in the usual census.  We should be back to full strength in August.  Meanwhile, to fill the void, we have a special visitor today who will be hanging out at the library while she awaits her first vet appointment this afternoon.  Meet Hermione!

Some e-journals unavailable this weekend

Taylor & Francis Online will be unavailable for a period of two hours this weekend due to scheduled database maintenance. This will take place on Saturday, June 21 from approximately 8:30 p.m. to 10:30 p.m.  This down-time should only limit access to e-journals available from Taylor & Francis Online.  Access should be restored to all e-journals after that time.  We apologize for any inconvenience.

Summer at the Library

You'd think the library would be quieter in the summer and it is.  We have graduate students on campus and they come in after class each day at around 3:30 or 4:00 p.m. and work until we close at 6:00, but otherwise we see very few students.  The group study rooms stand empty, there are fewer books to shelve, and less garbage in our trash cans.  Ah, summer!

But we have lots going on!  We are working with our friends in University & Marketing Communications to update our web pages.  This is new blogging software that I am trying out.  Whoo-hoo!  I am also working on compiling a list of material to support our first-year students reading They Poured Fire on Us from the Sky. 

I hope to start the book myself this weekend.

We are also planning to work closely with some sections of University Seminar next fall, and we are in the planning stages for that pilot program.

We've been tying up loose ends as the fiscal year concludes, which also coincides with Margaret Stangohr's last day.  Margaret will be retiring after 18 years at BVU on June 30.  We've hired someone to assume the position on August 1, so I am hopeful that I can get through July relatively unscathed.

Enjoy your summer, and read something just for fun.

Ebsco schedules down time, Friday, May 30

Ebsco is scheduling network upgrades on Friday evening, May 30 between 8 p.m. and 10 p.m.  EBSCOhost databases and services may be intermittently unavailable during this two-hour service window.

Choose Privacy Week, May 1-7

In the spirit of civic values that allow people to freely seek information in all formats without fear of retribution or exploitation, it’s time to reclaim our right to privacy.

Choose Privacy Week is a new initiative by the American Library Association that invites people into a national conversation about privacy rights in a digital age. The campaign gives individuals the resources to think critically and make more informed choices about their privacy.  Learn more now by watching this 60 Minutes video clip about how data brokers track and sell our personal digital information.

Credo Reference Mind Maps

Here's a video about how to use the Credo Reference Mind Map feature.  This seems like a good tool for narrowing a topic that has proven to be way too broad once you start researching it.  Been there, done that!

Databases on trial

We have some links posted on our Social Science, Philosophy & Religion database page for some familiar sounding databases.  We are currently running a trial of PsycINFO, PsycARTICLES, and Philosopher's Index on the ProQuest (as opposed to Ebsco) platform.  Same content, but the screens are different. The trial is not available for our off-campus community, and it also doesn't contain quite as many links to full-text as Ebsco does.  That is because we haven't hooked all that extra stuff up for the trial.  We are assured that the same functionality will be there if we do decide to go this route.

I hope you'll try out the ProQuest databases and let me know how you like them.  The trial will be good until the last week of April.