Ohrstrom Blog » Web Resources

The Primary Source Hunt: OAIster

Lura Sanborn — Thu, 20 May 2010 12:00:00 +0000

Are you too looking for primary sources? Most Humanities V teachers are requiring at least two for completion of a successful research paper. If you’ve looked in all the usual places (such as those listed here in our primary source round-up), yet still aren’t finding quite what you want, consider OAIster.

What is it? OAIster is an online catalog of digitized sources. It is made available by OCLC, a company that provides many library-related services.

It might help to compare this to Ohrstrom Library’s catalog. The Ohrstrom Library catalog searches through the records of our 70,000 print titles. OAIster searches through the records of 23 Million digitized sources from over 1,000 contributors.

What might you find?

A copy of Redon’s journal, contributed by the Bibliotheque Nationale de France.
Correspondence from Sigmund Freud to Albert Einstein regarding war contributed by I-Revues.
Sanitary Statistics of Native Colonial Schools and Hospitals by Florence Nightingale contributed by University of California Libraries.
An image of an Alice in Wonderland Float, from Mardi Gra 1938 contributed by the Indiana University Digital Library Program (see image above).
An abstract of a report from the National Program for Inspection of Non-Federal Dams regarding the St. Pauls School Dam contributed by the Defense Technical Information Center (DTIC) Repository.

Is it hard to use? The search function is very straightforward, offering a basic search or advanced search. As always, if you would like a little help using this resource please be in touch!

New Reference Book: Consider the Source

Lura Sanborn — Tue, 04 May 2010 12:00:50 +0000

Consider the Source: A Critical Guide to 100 Prominent News and Information Sites on the Web by James F. Broderick & Darren W. Miller, Information Today, 2007.

Find it in Ohrstrom at: REF 070.579 B78C

Using news or newspapers in your research? Not sure of the quality, the bias or the history of the source? Consider consulting this volume.

Focusing on 100 news and newspaper sites this book provides an overview, type of coverage, leaning and the authors’ personal rating of each site discussed.

Examples include: Asia Times Online, BBC, Congressional Quarterly, Times of India, Rotten Tomatoes.

Helpful for: Humanities IV, Humanities V, Media Watchers, Journalism, Those conducting news and newspaper related research

New Database: American History in Video

Lura Sanborn — Thu, 21 Jan 2010 12:00:31 +0000

Ohrstrom Library is pleased to announce its subscription to American History in Video. This database provides access to over 5,000 titles from the 1920s to 2008 including: newsreels, documentaries and government footage.

Every video includes a complete and fully searchable transcript, readable alongside the video.

Videos can be selected from the database by keyword searching, or by multiple categories, including: subjects, historical eras, years, historical events, people, places and topics. Consider browsing by year to locate primary source videos created during the time period you are studying.

Click HERE to access the database.

To cite this source, be sure to give credit to both the creator of the video and to the database.
Example:

Burns, Ken, dir. Civil War. Episode 3, Forever Free (1862). PBS, 1990.

American History in Video. Web. 12 Dec. 2009. .

Fourth Form Paper: Go with the Flowchart!

Lisa Laughy — Thu, 14 Jan 2010 01:00:20 +0000

You’ve received your assignment and had your class with Ms. Sanborn in the library, but where do you go from there? Go with the flowchart – the Fourth Form Paper Flowchart, that is.

The Fourth Form Paper Flowchart was developed as a companion to the Fourth Form Paper Research guide – as an easy way to visualize the process of writing your Humanities paper. The flowchart is available as a one page PDF document (click HERE) that can be downloaded, saved to your computer desktop, printed out for ready reference, and/or hung on the wall as a constant guide. Hypertext links have been embedded into the PDF for the online elements, making it possible to click through to the resource described. Following the flowchart step-by-step will help you see where you are in the research process and what still needs to be done – assisting with time management so you can avoid a last minute crunch.

Save it, print it, post it, bookmark it, or favorite it, just be sure to take advantage of this great new reference resource!

New Reference Book: Encyclopedia of Weather and Climate

Lisa Laughy — Tue, 18 Nov 2008 14:04:29 +0000

Deb Baker – Interim Reference Librarian

Encyclopedia of Weather and Climate by Michael Allaby, illustrated by Richard Garratt, Facts-On-File, 2007.

Find it in Ohrstrom at: Ref. 551.5 AL5 v.1 & v.2

Allaby, author or editor of over 90 books on environmental science, has revised, updated, and reorganized this two volume set to reflect the latest science, with over 1400 entries, 350 illustrations, and 10 appendices. Looking for maps of ocean currents? Wonder why ice storms occur, when thermometers were invented, how wine harvest records help climatologists, or what in the world a cloud street is? Look no further.

HELPFUL FOR: Terrestrial Ecology, Topics in Global Events, Limnology and Marine Biology, Origins of Modern Science

FUN FOR: Weather Channel fans, amateur meteorologists, Eco-Action members

Image courtesy of ms4jah under this Creative Common license.

New Embedded Search Box is EBSCO-licious!

Lisa Laughy — Mon, 17 Nov 2008 13:23:19 +0000

Lisa Laughy -Archives Assistant

The Ohrstrom Library Database web page now has a new search box for the EBSCOHost suite of databases. The new embedded search box allows users to start searching EBSCO’s sixteen databases right from the library website without the need to navigate through the EBSCO launch and database selection screens. The new embedded search box provides seamless access to EBSCOHost’s thousands of resources including:

magazines
journals
newspapers
selected reference material

Once your search is executed you can access advanced search options including selecting specific databases to focus your search results. EBSCOHost database searches are faster and more direct thanks to the new embedded search box. Try a search now and see how efficient it is: then consider adding EBSCOHost to your arsenal of research tools for your next homework assignment.

New Reference Book: Historical Dictionary of Renaissance Art

Lura Sanborn — Thu, 16 Oct 2008 11:00:25 +0000

Lura Sanborn – Reference Librarian

Historical Dictionary of Renaissance Art by Lilian H. Zirpolo, Scarecrow Press, 2008.

Find it in Ohrstrom at: Ref. 709.02 Z6

The newest addition to Ohrstrom’s art reference collection features a chronology of Renaissance art, an introduction & overview of the period, and hundreds of brief entries featuring painters, sculptors, architects and patrons. Other topics include: themes, specific artwork and technical terms. Alphabetically arranged, the entries are short, sweet & direct.

HELPFUL FOR: Humanities V – especially scholars looking for just a bite of information. Particularly useful when looking to decide which artist or artwork to research.

ARTstor Image Resources for Humanities V

Lura Sanborn — Tue, 14 Oct 2008 19:08:36 +0000

Lura Sanborn – Reference Librarian

In Hum. V? Looking for inspiration for your Renaissance art research project? Deciding which artist/painting combination to write about? Try ARTstor!

What is it? – ARTstor is an image database containing nearly one million images. (We have other databases, such as Oxford Art Online, ProQuest & JSTOR, to help with artists biographical information & art analysis.)

How do I use it? – Visit the library web site & select ARTstor from the list of databases. You can search by keyword, such as artist’s name or title of work.

(The ARTstor search page with detail below)

Now, browse the results for inspiration:

Too much? Overwhelmed? For a smaller selection of images, try the advanced search mode and add another keyword:

(Select “Advanced Search” from the pull-down menu to bring up the window shown below.)

(You’ve gone from 171 entries to 8 by adding one additional keyword.)

Once you’ve found your inspiration, consider using these other library online databases for biographical and analytical information: Oxford Art Online, ProQuest, and JSTOR.

Librarians’ Seal of Approval: Online Research Resources

Deb Baker — Mon, 29 Sep 2008 14:29:26 +0000

Deb Baker – Interim Reference Librarian

The internet is full of valuable information — and useless junk. How to discern the difference? If you’ve attended library instruction classes at Ohrstrom you’ve probably learned tips for evaluating web pages. For a quick reminder (courtesy of the Olin and Uris Libraries at Cornell University) you can visit (and bookmark) this page.

For times when a librarian isn’t close at hand there are two websites that are particularly helpful at pointing you in the right direction. On the Ohrstrom website under “Other Resources” on the Catalog tab, you can find links to the Internet Public Library and Librarians’ Internet Index. Both offer a collection of links to librarian tested websites covering nearly every subject.

The Internet Public Library website includes collections of links chosen especially for teens and kids, as well as a wide variety of reference tools. These include a list of census and demographic data sites, and subject selections such as a collection of literary criticism sites. IPL’s pathfinders, created to aid both online and library research, are well designed and thorough.

The Librarians’ Internet Index website adds dozens of new sites every week, and you can learn what’s been added by subscribing to “New This Week” by email or RSS. It has 20,000 websites listed in 14 categories and 300 subcategories. Both IPL and LII offer basic and advanced search options as well as online search tutorials.

Save these useful links, or refer back to the Ohrstrom Blog’s collection of “Research” links in the sidebar.

HELFUL FOR: Life, the Universe, and Everything; classes in all areas of the SPS curriculum

FUN FOR: library nuts, bookworms, curious types, everyone with an interest in anything

ProQuest RSS: Tap Into Search Feeds

Lisa Laughy — Fri, 26 Sep 2008 18:46:00 +0000

Lisa Laughy - Archives Assistant

Our third RSS feed related post this week is about using your feed reader to keep track of search results from the ProQuest database. It is very simple to set up a RSS feed for your searches and then receive automatic updates whenever new items are added to the search results. Here’s how it is done:

Once you have narrowed down your search in ProQuest, scroll to the bottom of the search list and locate the little RSS icon (see the image below).

Click on the “Create RSS Feed” link and a window will pop up with your customized feed address. Click on the feed address located in the yellow box in the new window (shown below).

This will open up a browser window that takes you to the feed address. You can now either select your feed reader from the drop-down list at the top of the page (I am using Bloglines – see picture below), or copy and paste the feed address from your browser’s navigation bar into your feed reader and follow the steps to subscribe.

Now that you have subscribed to your search feed in ProQuest, you can keep track of updates to your custom search without having to go back to the ProQuest website. It will save you time and ensure that you have the most current periodical resources for your research topic.