Product Update: New Titles to InfoTrac

New Titles Added to the InfoTrac Collections in March 2017 The titles below have been recently added and can be located in the product using Basic or Advanced Search forms. Titles can be found via Browse Publications within two weeks. For complete coverage information please see the product title lists. Academic OneFile Collections:  A Journal … Read more

Pellissippi State Community College Librarian Shares Why Gale Resources are Successful

|  By Jennifer Mezick, Acquisitions and Collection Development Librarian Pellissippi State Community College |

At Pellissippi State Community College (PSCC), our users have access to many Gale resources through the Tennessee Electronic Library (TEL). Through our TEL setup we are able to track only statistics for PSCC users. From our statistics, we know that Gale resources are heavily used by PSCC patrons and there are a few reasons behind this success:

In Class Instruction
Our students primarily use the resources shown to them during class. PSCC librarians provided research instruction to 137 classes this past fall semester. PSCC librarians and teaching faculty find that students who receive in-class research instruction achieve higher grades on their research assignments. One of the lessons we present to students is the importance of finding background information before searching for journal articles. Opposing Viewpoints In Context is our go-to database for demonstrating background research. All the “In Context” databases contain Topic Pages for select topics, which provide histories and explain the different viewpoints of those topics or issues.

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Faculty Outreach
Because not all of our faculty can find the time in a 5 to 16 week semester to have us in their classes, educating our faculty about our resources is the next best way to reach our students. Our faculty learn about Gale databases at our New Faculty Academy, where we introduce library resources, and at Faculty In-Service, where we demonstrate new databases or changes and new features to current databases. Librarians at PSCC are faculty and serve as subject liaisons. With this designation comes the responsibility to serve on campus academic committees and attend academic department meetings (and sometimes share after-work beers). Relationships with faculty are formed through these committees. I find that these relationships make faculty more comfortable talking with librarians about research assignments and available resources, which provides us the opportunity to recommend the most appropriate resources for their upcoming assignments (or their own research).

Read morePellissippi State Community College Librarian Shares Why Gale Resources are Successful

Irish Short Fiction: A Saint Patrick’s Day Review

| By Eric Bargeron, Layman Poupard Publishing |

This Saint Patrick’s day, readers of Literature Criticism Online can distinguish themselves from the masses by eschewing green beer and shamrock kitsch, and contemplating instead the many contributions of Ireland to the world of literature. As critic Terence Brown notes in Short Story Criticism, volume 226, “it is scarcely a disputable fact of literary history that Irish prose fiction writers have been drawn to the short story form and have indeed excelled in it.” That volume, which is devoted entirely to Irish writers, includes a lengthy entry on James Joyce. His stories, all of which are contained in the collection Dubliners, are widely considered to be among the best in the English language. Joyce himself was fairly convinced of the importance of the book, even before its publication, as Morris Beja writes in his essay “One Good Look at Themselves”:

During their dispute over the problems in bringing out an edition of Dubliners, James Joyce wrote the publisher Grant Richards that ‘I seriously believe that you will retard the course of civilization in Ireland by preventing the Irish people from having one good look at themselves in my nicely polished looking-glass.’

Read moreIrish Short Fiction: A Saint Patrick’s Day Review

Cornell Professor and Librarian Collaborate to Contribute to Gale Researcher

Gale has partnered with Cornell College Professor of English Katy Stavreva to curate introductory British Literature content for Gale Researcher. In an article Cornell College’s News Center Stavreva describes the challenge of mapping out foundational content for the British Literature module, “This is no small challenge because the field is not only dynamic, but there are numerous ideologies and theories involved in deciding who and what may be foundational in it.” 

Stavreva also collaborated with her Cornell colleagues to create content for Gale Researcher. Cornell Interim Director of the Center for Teaching and Learning and Consulting Librarian Jennifer Rouse contributed to the collection with the essay “The Literary Research Process.” A recent article on the Cornell College News Center goes into more detail about Gale Researcher and Stavreva’s contributions.

Read moreCornell Professor and Librarian Collaborate to Contribute to Gale Researcher

Encyclopedia of Islam and the Muslim World, 2nd Edition: One of the Best Reference Titles of 2016

Encyclopedia of Islam and the Muslim World, 2nd ed., has been named to Library Journal‘s “Best Reference Titles of 2016” list. Released annually and “compiled by a group of Library Journal’s top reference reviewers and editors” the list serves as “a roundup of the best databases reviewed in Library Journal this past year.” The resoundingly positive review published earlier … Read more

A Look Back at International Women’s Day Celebrations

Today is International Women’s Day, a day to celebrate and recognize the achievements of bold and inspirational women who have enacted positive change in the world. Through the study of primary sources we can shed light on stories of powerful women who may have previously been largely ignored in public discourse.

Read moreA Look Back at International Women’s Day Celebrations

American Civil Liberties Union Papers, 1912-1990 is “Rich” and “Absorbing”

In recent years, decades-long movements in civil liberties have been at the forefront of the news. The struggle for civil rights and liberties defines our past and affects our present. Students and researchers can immerse themselves in civil rights history like never before with our new archive American Civil Liberties Union Papers, 1912-1990, part of the Making of Modern Law collection. Drawing from the records of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), it focuses on civil rights, race, gender, and issues relating to the U.S. Supreme Court—topics intensely relevant to today’s curriculum and debates at both national and local levels.

See what Henrietta Verma, Senior Editorial Communications Specialist at Library Journal, thinks of this groundbreaking archive:

Read moreAmerican Civil Liberties Union Papers, 1912-1990 is “Rich” and “Absorbing”

The Woman Behind National Women’s History Month

Our understanding of history shapes the way we see the world and helps us define who we are as individuals. When Molly Murphy MacGregor was asked to define the women’s movement by one of her high school students in 1972 her search for an answer not only redefined her view of the world but helped redefine the … Read more

Raise Your Hand If You Want to Know More About Usage, Part II

By Scott Steward

Welcome back to the Gale Technical Solutions blog series!

This is part two in a two part series.

In my last issue (usage part l), I focused on Gale’s definition of the usage metrics we report and how they are counted.  If you haven’t read it yet, you can find it here: http://blog.gale.com/raise-your-hand-if-you-want-to-know-more-about-usage/.

For this issue, I will be continuing my discussion about usage, focusing on the factors that affect usage such as discovery services, LMS, openURL and direct links.

Read moreRaise Your Hand If You Want to Know More About Usage, Part II