New Look for Library Websites

Just a bit of advance warning: we're making a switch to a new front page for the library's website and a new look for all the secondary pages that will match the college's current web design. We hope to launch it before school starts. The new front page will be streamlined, drawing on the findings of a study that involved focus groups and user testing with students. You can take a sneak peek at the new front page, but be forewarned that not everything is hooked up and functional yet.

You might also notice several databases sporting a new look. All of the Proquest databases - Biological Sciences, the New York Times Historical archive, and Proquest Newsstand - have switched over to a new platform. You might also notice some differences in the ISI databases -  Arts and Humanities, Social Sciences, and Science Citation Indexes, plus the whole-ball-of-wax version, Web of Science - but you won't find the changes there too jarring. It seems as if nearly every one of our databases has gone through a major overhaul in the past year. Maybe things will settle down for a while.

One last thing: if you use the LibX toolbar with Firefox or Internet Explorer, you'll want to download the new version. It's a plugin that makes it a snap to see what's available in our library from Amazon, Google Scholar, and from any ISBNs, DOIs and PubMed IDs.  You can even highlight a phrase and drag it to a Google Scholar icon to search that phrase - slick!

For the latest news about electronic resources, check our E-Resources Informer.

photo courtesy of Rodney Shupe

New library databases available!

We are pleased to announce that a suite of new library databases are available, ranging from a collection of works of art from museums around the world, to full-text databases covering education and health, to online encyclopedias. These new databases are part of the Electronic Library for Minnesota (ELM), which is brought to you by Minitex (an information and resource sharing network) and State Library Services (the MN state library agency). Visit this page to read about and explore the databases:
http://gustavus.edu/academics/library/libdata_pos/page.phtml?page_id=245

Sage Advice - and News for Chemists

We have two changes in our database offerings.

1. Sage Premier now includes the full text of over 500 Sage Publishing journals in a variety of subject areas. You may search all Sage journals together, or you may limit your search to one of ten collections: Communication Studies, Criminology, Education, Health Sciences, Management & Organization Studies, Materials Science, Political Science, Psychology, Sociology, and Urban Studies & Planning. If you've used one of these subject-specific collections in the past, you'll notice a new search interface as well as more journals and a deeper backfile. And if you're wondering why we're expanding these collections when dollars are tight - well, it's a package deal, a prix fixe, a one-size-fits-all deal. No substitutions, no special orders. You want ten of those journals, help yourself, but you have to pay for the entire buffet.

That said, there are many great full-text journals in there, so help yourselves - and return for dessert as often as you like.

2. Attention chemists! SciFinder web version is now available. We're transitioning from the client version (the version we've been using until now) to the web version; only the web version will be available after April 10, 2009. Follow the instructions on our SciFinder web version page to register for an account from on campus; once you register and respond to the registration confirmation e-mail from on campus, you'll be able to use the web version from off campus.

Questions or problems? Contact e-resources@gustavus.edu.