Black Studies Center Now Available

USC has just purchased ProQuest's Black Studies Center, which includes the complete full-text run of the Chicago Defender and many other resources important for a wide range of fields.

BSC includes:

• The Schomburg Studies on the Black Experience, which includes interdisciplinary essays written by leading scholars. The Schomburg resources include:
  • Schomburg Essays -- on topics such as Theory, Method, and Pedagogy; Ideology, Identity and Assumptions; Origins; Cultural Life; and more
  • "Required Reading" -- selected from articles, book chapters, and dissertations
  • A Timeline and Timeline Related Materials
  • Video clips
  • Images
    

• Journal indexes
  
  • The International Index to Black Periodicals, which covers scholarly and popular Black Studies journals, including full text for many titles, and
    
  • The Marshall Index, which is a guide to black periodicals, 1940-1946.
    

• Newspapers (full text backfiles), including:
  • The Chicago Defender (1910 - 1975)
    
  • The Daily Defender (1956-1975)
    
  • The Los Angeles Sentinel (1969-2005) -- this summer, we got the Historical Los Angeles Sentinel, from 1946-2005
    

• The Black Literature Index -- this provides over 70,000 bibliographic citations for fiction, poetry and literary reviews published in 110 black periodicals and newspapers between 1827-1940.

Springer Titles to be Preserved by Portico

Portico is pleased to announce the signing of an agreement with Springer to preserve 824 titles from its online journals collection. Additional journals published with partner societies and other third parties will be incorporated into the agreement over time. Springer is one of the world's largest publishers of journals in the STM (Science, Technology, Medicine) sector, the largest publisher of STM books, and the largest business-to-business publisher in the German-language. Springer is comprised of around 60 publishing houses in about 20 countries in Europe, Asia, and the United States.

Through this agreement with Portico, Springer ensures that its online journals are preserved and available for future scholars, researchers, and students. Springer has also agreed to make an annual financial contribution to Portico.

With the inclusion of Springer's publications, over 7,200 titles have now been entrusted to the Portico archive. The complete list of titles is available at http://www.portico.org/about/committed_titles_alpha.html and a list of participating publishers is available at http://www.portico.org/about/part_publishers.html.

Please visit the Portico website to view a current list of participating libraries http://www.portico.org/about/participating_libraries.html.

ProQuest Provides LA Sentinel Access Back to 1934

Update to the October 11th announcement below: ProQuest will be providing USC access to their recently digitized content of this publication back to 1934!

"The Historic Los Angeles Sentinel provides full-text access to THE most important African-American newspaper published in Los Angeles, from its founding in 1946 through 2005. This acquisition greatly strengthens our electronic resource offerings in African-American studies, particularly for Los Angeles. There's much more we need to do but this is a major addition."

JSTOR's 2,000th Domestic Participant

JSTOR launched its first collection 10 years ago, with 200 initial library supporters. Today we are proud to announce that we have reached the milestone of 2,000 participating libraries in the U.S., with an almost equal number of participants from outside the U.S. While JSTOR remains a resource that most college and university researchers rely upon, increasingly other communities are finding value in having access to the archival material in JSTOR. In the U.S. more than 350 secondary schools, 250 community colleges, 50 museums, 30 public libraries, and lately a growing number (more than 200) of government and not-for-profit research organizations are JSTOR participants. While this diversity is heartening, JSTOR remains grateful for the initial and continued enthusiastic support of the higher education community in our mission to provide for the long-term preservation of the scholarly material for which we have been entrusted. JSTOR's growth is contingent upon hearing and responding to your voices and encouragement. Thank you.


Training Others to use JSTOR

We are pleased to announce that regularly scheduled online training webinars are now available. Webinars will cover the basics of using the JSTOR search and browse interfaces so you can in turn train patrons to use them. We will also cover statistics reports, citation management, and how to get information or help. READ MORE

Reaching out to Students

Web 2.0 is a collective term for a wide array of community-based, interactive web tools and networking sites found on the Internet. College and High School students spend an increasing amount of time in these online environments. We are experimenting with two of the most popular social networking sites in order to put JSTOR information in the places where students spend their time.

Facebook (a social networking site originally aimed at college students):
We have created a Facebook group for the purpose of pointing students in the direction of helpful information about using JSTOR. The idea is that if a student is working on research late at night and needs help using the JSTOR interface, they may find the Facebook group via a general search and get exactly the information they need. Contents of the JSTOR Information Facebook group include links to JSTOR help pages, a short online tutorial on “How to Search JSTOR”, frequently asked questions and answers, and a link to the JSTOR Search application also on Facebook.


YouTube:
The second venue we chose was YouTube, the enormously popular site that provides users with the ability to upload videos and make them available to the world. Since students are likely to search for almost any topic on YouTube, we uploaded two short video tutorials on searching and browsing JSTOR. So far this has not been as frequently accessed as the Facebook applications, but we believe it is yet another promising avenue for providing information in an online location easily discovered by students.

Fall 2007 Enhancements to the Ulrich’s Online Services

New in Ulrichsweb.com

Abstracting & Indexing databases added to Ulrichsweb.com record displays

Our Fall 2007 release introduces the display of abstracting and indexing databases on the "Abstracting, Indexing & Article Access" tab of Ulrichsweb.com records, with indexing coverage dates for many titles. This exciting new enhancement means that librarians, faculty, staff and students can view even more comprehensive lists of A&I coverage than ever before. The new displays provide information about the availability of indexing coverage in A&I-only databases and in databases that contain both A&I coverage and full-text coverage, including databases from Chadwyck-Healey, EBSCO, H.W. Wilson, OCLC and other providers.

Latest annual JCR® Web Impact Factor links available

Ulrich's is pleased to continue its bi-directional linking relationship with Thomson's JCR® Web. Links for the 2006 Science and Social Science Impact Factor journals were updated with the latest release of the 2006 Impact Factor annual data. Reciprocal links have been established to and from Ulrich's, so that mutual subscribers can link back and forth between their Ulrichsweb.com and JCR Web accounts at the journal level.

New in Ulrich's Serials Analysis System

Currency Converter for List Prices

It is now possible for Ulrich's Serials Analysis System users to convert the list price currency provided by the title's publisher into one of more than 15 major international currencies, all from within an active report display. This new feature will allow librarians to approximate a publication's list price in the institution's preferred currency, using daily conversion rates reported by the Federal Reserve Bank of New York.

New Full-Text Limit To Option

A brand new Limit To option labeled "Full-Text" allows users to limit their results specifically to titles that are available in an online full-text format. This new feature provides a further refinement for identifying electronic versions. The broader Limit To option that was formerly labeled "Electronic Journal" has been renamed to "Electronic Edition" and continues its function of helping librarians identify titles that have an electronic edition of any type - whether that edition is CD-ROM, email-only, online or another electronic delivery format. Both the new "Full-Text" option and the renamed "Electronic Edition" option are available in all of the Ulrich's Serials Analysis System reporting modules, including Top Publisher Reports.

New Academic/Scholarly Limit To Option

A new Limit To option labeled "Academic/Scholarly" gives users the ability to limit their report results to titles that are designated Academic/Scholarly in the Ulrich's database. The designation of Academic/Scholarly identifies serials that target the academic and research communities and is determined by a process of publisher self-reporting and Ulrich's editorial research. The range of Academic/Scholarly titles in Ulrich's includes both refereed and non-refereed serials. The new Academic/Scholarly Limit To option is available in all reporting modules.

LC Classification Numbers in Report Displays

Users have the option to display a new "LC Classification" report column that contains the Library of Congress Classification Number for a title when present in an Ulrich's record. The initial launch of this feature covers approximately 70,000 active-status titles (primarily academic/scholarly titles) and will be expanded to cover thousands of additional titles in the coming months. Users can enable or disable the display of the LC Classification column using the Report Profile feature.

More Designations Added to ISSN Audit Report

Additional designations have been added to the ISSN Audit Report. Users can now generate more details about Cancelled ISSN, Title History ISSN, or Merged/Incorporated ISSN, and better identify Invalid ISSN and other non-match categories. The list of designations has been expanded to cover 10 individual categories within the ISSN Audit Report to give users more information with which to update their local catalog records with ISSN and title data from Ulrich's.

Major A&I Resources added to Aggregator Comparison Reports

Among the new providers and databases added to the Aggregator Comparison Reports are two major indexing resources - Thomson Scientific's Web of Science® and Elsevier's Scopus®. Ulrich's Serials Analysis System users can now compare titles lists from these two vendors to one another, to Ulrich's, or to the library's own uploaded serials lists. It is now possible for users to see how many of their own serials are found in these rich indexing sources by Ulrich's Subject, refereed status, or other data points.

Accessible Archives Alerts Client Base to Launch of Revamped Website

ACCESSIBLE ARCHIVES, INC. ALERTS CLIENT BASE TO LAUNCH OF REVAMPED WEBSITE

Malvern, PA (October 18, 2007) - Accessible Archives, Inc., a publisher of electronic full-text searchable historical databases, will debut its totally revamped website October 24, 2007.  The website features new and exciting advancements to its online databases of 18th and 19th century American newspapers, periodicals and county histories.

Rob Nagy, Accessible Archives Sr. VP of Sales and Marketing, addressed current subscribers: During the last 17 years our efforts to provide unique and comprehensive historical materials to the research community have been supported by you, our incredibly loyal customers.  Without your unfailing support we would not have been able to progress as we have, and we are very grateful.  In order to better accommodate your requirements, we have wanted to upgrade the search capabilities of our databases for some time, and have been diligently working toward that end since spring.  We wanted you be among the first to learn that the launch of the new system is finally here.  We look forward to continuing to provide you with both the highest quality content and search experience.  We will add further enhancements on an ongoing basis, and welcome all suggestions.

A major and immediately apparent enhancement is the addition of full imaging for all newspaper databases.  Each page image has been checked individually in order to provide the highest possible quality, rather than being simply scanned and mounted.

The Information Retrieval System has been upgraded to a base of XML tagged documents.  This upgrade provides the ability to enhance the system in terms of search capability and print output formatting. Improved system aspects allow the user to search all elements of the Archives in one query, limit query search results by Collection and/or Publication Title and/or Date Range,  sort search results by Collection, Publication Title or Date, and Browse as well as Search the Archives.

Vastly enhanced document navigation is available in both Search and Browse modes:

From a Table of Contents based on available Publication Titles to a specific Publication Title to a list of issues available for that title to a list of articles in the issue selected to the actual articles themselves

From a search results selected article to additional articles in the same issue to/from the table of contents for the articles issue to/from the Publication Title list of issues

From a search results article to/from other articles in the search results list

Additional system augmentations enable the user to move through page images from an issues Table of Contents or from an article, retrieve results from prior Search Queries (search history), print an article or print the results list, and peruse the list of searchable words to select a query from that list

About Accessible Archives, Inc.

Founded in 1990, Accessible Archives utilizes computer technology to provide vast quantities of archived historical information previously available only in microformat.  Diverse primary source materials reflecting broad views across American history and culture have been assembled into comprehensive databases.  Developed by dedicated instructors and students of Americana, these databases allow access to the rich store of materials from leading books and periodicals then current.  Accessible Archives will continue to
add titles covering important topics and time periods to assist scholars and students at all academic levels.

Portico Announces Preservation Agreement with the American Marketing Association

Portico is pleased to announce the signing of an agreement with the American Marketing Association (AMA) to preserve its online journals collection of 4 journals. The American Marketing Association is one of the largest professional associations for marketers with 38,000 members worldwide in every area of marketing. For over six decades the AMA has been the leading source for information, knowledge sharing and development in the marketing profession.

Through this agreement with Portico, AMA furthers its preservation strategy. Since 2003, AMA has worked with JSTOR to provide a trusted archive of its journals' back issues and through Portico, it provides for the ongoing preservation of its born-digital current issues. Working in collaboration, JSTOR, Portico, and AMA also intend to include the born-digital versions of the AMA titles in JSTOR in accordance with the moving wall.

With the inclusion of AMA's publications, over 6,200 titles have now been entrusted to the Portico archive. The complete list of titles is available at http://www.portico.org/about/committed_titles_alpha.html and a list of participating publishers is available at http://www.portico.org/about/part_publishers.html.

ISI Web of Knowledge Upgrades

Marked List

• You can use the Marked List to help you manage your search results within ISI Web of Knowledge, to easily print, export, save or download records
• Every record you mark is automatically submitted to the Marked List when you navigate away from the page
• You can also click on the Submit Marks button to create your Marked List
• You can export your Marked List records to EndNote Web or other reference management tools

EndNote Web enhancements include:

• Newly designed interface for easy access to more functions
• References can now be tracked in multiple groups
• Access and modify your favorite lists of import filters, connections files, and bibliographic styles at any selection point
• Adjust the number of references viewed per page

WebPlus – New Web searching tool

• Launch WebPlus from "Further information" section on right side of All Databases and individual product search pages
• Complement your research in ISI Web of Knowledge by searching highly focused, high-quality Web content

Security

Because we take security issues seriously, SSL security layer protocol has been implemented to protect your personal information.

• This will protect your personal information within the ISI Web of Knowledge and EndNote Web environments
• You do not have to do anything. You will see https: instead of http: in all your personalized areas of ISI Web of Knowledge and EndNote Web.

Recently Acquired from ProQuest

C19: the Nineteenth Century Index is an important addition to both our indexing coverage of 19th century publications as well as a complement to selected full-text resources for this period. It is difficult to encapsulate all that this resource provides so it is most useful to explore it on your own, but this quote from the ProQuest web site offers a useful overview:

"C19 Index draws on the strength of established indexes such as the Nineteenth Century Short Title Catalogue, The Wellesley Index, Poole's Index and Periodicals Index Online to create integrated bibliographic coverage of over 1.4 million books and official publications, 64,891 archival collections and 15.6 million articles published in over 2,500 journals, magazines and newspapers. C19 Index now provides integrated access to 10 bibliographic indexes, including over 300,000 records from the ongoing digitization of British Periodicals Collection I."

The Historic Los Angeles Sentinel provides full-text access to THE most important African-American newspaper published in Los Angeles, from its founding in 1946 through 2005. This acquisition greatly strengthens our electronic resource offerings in African-American studies, particularly for Los Angeles. There's much more we need to do but this is a major addition.

ProQuest Latin American Newsstand exponentially expands our available coverage of Latin American newspapers and news wires. Full-text coverage is available for 41 titles from all over Latin America, commencing in most instances with either 2004 or 2005. USC's acquisition of this resource was facilitated by a very significant discount made available to a small group of ARL libraries with significant Latin American interests and was coordinated locally by Barbara Robinson.

Faulkner's Advisory for IT Studies (FAITS): free trial extended

Free trial for Faulkner's Advisory for IT Studies (FAITS) have been extended through November 8th. To review click here.

Unexpected Hardware Problems. CSA Illumina still available

CSA Illumina suffered a server failure on Thursday, October 4th. As a result, you may notice long wait times on the website and using the Z39.50 service. 

Blackwell Synergy unavailable Oct. 5 beginning 3 pm

To further improve the quality of our service, we are planning to perform system maintenance on the 5th of October 2007 at 3:00pm PDT/ 5:00pm CDT for up to two hours. Blackwell Synergy will be unavailable during this time. We thank you for your patience and apologize for any inconvenience.