Tune in to New Developments from JSTOR!

At this point, some of you may be wondering what JSTOR is. It’s an online Journal STORage company that sells access and content to libraries and individuals. It’s a competitor to EbscoHost, which many of you will have used.

Development # 1: “Early Journal Content” (http://about.jstor.org/participate-jstor/individuals/early-journal-content). In September 2011, JSTOR began offering free access to over 300 of its journals published prior to 1924. As you may know, 1923 is the most recent year for printed material in the public domain. Check out the following link to an excel spreadsheet (http://about.jstor.org/sites/default/files/ejcmytitles2012-12-23.xls) if your research interests gravitate to this older material. Online access to these titles is an important benefit to researchers because the print form of it is so scarce and in many cases so fragile. A few of the titles to arouse your curiosity: Advocate of Peace through Justice; International Journal of Ethics; The American Journal of Theology; Hebraica; The Journal of Negro History; and, Mnemosyne.

Development # 2: “Register and Read” (http://about.jstor.org/rr). Just announced, this new initiative allows any individual who registers for a free MyJSTOR account to view page images of 1-3 articles from 75 of JSTOR’s in-copyright titles for a minimum of 14 days. Registered users may remove and replace an item from their “bookshelf” by waiting for 14 days or by buying a downloadable pdf of the article. The current title list (http://about.jstor.org/sites/default/files/jstor-register-read-titles.xls) will be growing in the future using this iTunes-like sales model.

Check out JSTOR at http://www.jstor.org/ and follow these and other developments via Facebook and Twitter!

Controlled Access Library Resources

In my last blog I discussed “open access” research materials – resources freely accessible to anyone with an internet connection and a browser. At the opposite end of the spectrum are library resources with tightly controlled access. These resources are very valuable to you and the owner of the resources. They are rarely owned by the library. Copyrights are usually retained by the original publisher. We purchase a user license to gain access to the electronic book, full-text article, or bibliographic information through a vendor who owns the “search platform” (like EBSCOhost).

Controlled access resources are valuable to you for a few reasons. First, our subscription databases are designed for academic use. The resources are vetted and selected by librarians, scholars, or other information professionals dedicated to providing the most credible research resources available. The databases also target subjects most useful for the fields studied at Saint Paul School of Theology (SPST). Finally, the search platforms feature robust search and storage tools to facilitate extended periods, or even a lifetime of study.

You will need to pass through the proxy server via the “Database Login” under the Library dropdown on the SPST home page to gain access to our controlled resources. Your username is your last name and your PIN is the 13-digit number below the barcode on your SPST ID card.

Three major controlled access resources you may find helpful are EBSCOhost, the ATLA Religion Database with Serials, and the ebrary electronic book collection. Our EBSCOhost search platform offers 24 databases. The ATLASerials database is hosted on the EBSCO search platform. Follow the ebrary link to access our electronic book collection containing over 70,000 academic titles covering a broad range of subjects. In my next post I will talk about the fuzzy world of “limited” access resources.

Not a New Preaching Resource

Day1 is a radio broadcast which began its history in 1945 as the Protestant Hour featuring sermons from some of the best preachers of the mainline denominations.  Today it is affiliated with the ecumenical Alliance for Christian Media and has a website with blogs, podcasts and videos at http://day1.org/.

Open, Controlled, and Limited Access

What does all this mean?

As Catherine pointed out in her last blog post, we’re not even close to everything being on the internet. However, because of the internet, we do have unprecedented access to books, journals, and a multitude of other information materials. Many of these resources we could never have seen or even found without the internet. Perhaps describing internet resources more specifically will help us to better evaluate and understand their usefulness for our research.

One way of classifying internet resources is by their accessibility. Internet resources may have open access, controlled access, or some form of limited access. A prime example of open access is our online catalog.

Anyone with internet access can see, manipulate and explore the SPST, Kansas City Cluster, and MOBIUS catalogs free of charge, 24 hours per day, 365 days per year. The cost of these catalogs is paid for by the member schools of the MOBIUS library consortium.

Another type of open access information is the Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ). This is a collection of 7437 journals (and growing) intentionally published online, and for which there is no charge. There are 81 journals dedicated specifically to religious studies. DOAJ is where you will find Methodist Review, Homiletic, and the Journal of Religion and Society. Only 1351 of the 7437 journals are published in the US. Many, if not most, of the journals are published in English as well as the source language. Of course, the scholarly practice of critical review that applies to all materials is important when evaluating open access materials. Just think of the breadth of new thought the internet is enabling us to reach! Take a look and explore how these journals might impact the quality of your research.

Stay tuned for more on controlled and limited access resources and their role in your research.

What a Difference a Summer Makes!

If you have already been on the Library database selection page, or into the EBSCOhost databases, you will have noticed some major changes and additions.

But first, in case you don’t know what I’m talking about, go to the SPST homepage, and select “Database Login”  under the gray “Library” dropdown menu. If you get a security warning, go ahead and do what they warn you not to do – proceed to this site that we know and trust. For the username, enter only your last name. For the password enter the 13-digit number below the barcode on the front of your SPST ID card. This should take you to the online database selection screen for Dana Dawson Library.

When you scan the list, you’ll notice a new item – “ebrary”. This is a continually expanding collection of over 70,000 scholarly electronic books – e-books.  You can search for materials directly in ebrary, or all of the titles are also in the SPST / WILO online catalog with direct links to the ebooks. Just click on the link for the SPST holding and you will be prompted to sign in using the Database Login procedure as outlined above.

If you venture into the EBSCOhost database you will see new databases listed on the initial EBSCO screen including:

• Biography Reference Center
• Science Reference Center
• Consumer Health Complete

When you go into the EBSCOhost “Choose Databases” section, look below the familiar ATLA and Academic Search Premier. Browse the descriptions of the databases, some never before available to SPST students, faculty, and staff including:

• Child Development & Adolescent Studies
• Humanities International Complete
• Bibliography of Native North Americans
• Violence & Abuse Abstracts
• ERIC (Education Resource Information Center)
• MEDLINE

If you encounter any problems accessing these resources, contact John Oyler in the library or at joyler@spst.edu. We will be offering general database overview training as well as training and helps for each of these specific resources. Let us know what you think!

King James Bible Anniversary Site

The ABC (Australian Broadcasting Corporation) has a nicely done site for coverage of Religion and Ethics. It is currently featuring a special page dedicated to the 400th Anniversary of the King James Bible, featuring multimedia presentations and articles by Robert Alter, N. T. Wright, Diarmaid MacCulloch, Phillip Jenkins and others.

http://www.abc.net.au/religion/king-james-bible.htm

Via Faith and Theology 

One-stop Shopping for Bibliographic Organization

Zotero [zoh-TAIR-oh] is a free, easy-to-use tool to help you collect, organize, cite, and share your research sources. It “lives” in your Firefox browser as a 2.4MB add-on. You can easily capture bibliographic information from library catalogs, online journals, databases, Amazon, and web pages with one click of the mouse. You can also collect and store PDFs, images, screenshots, and links to websites, preserving them for later access.

Zotero Homepage

Zotero allows you to edit collected records to correct errors, or standardize bibliographic format. You store records in logical files, relate items directly to one another, or group them via tagging. Insert notes about how you found the source, create abstracts, or comment on the item’s usefulness to other research opportunities.

You can output data in many formats including bibliographies, html code, lists, reports, and more. Zotero integrates fully and directly into Windows or OpenOffice so that footnotes and bibliographies are pre-formatted to the desired citation style.

Your data is available to you both on and offline with up to 100MB free server space. Your personal account login allows you to access, add to, update and edit your information with online synchronization from different locations and equipment. Collaborate and share resources openly or privately with others with similar research interests.

Zotero is developed by the Center for History and New Media at George Mason University. It is sponsored by the Institute of Museum and Library Services, and the Andrew W. Mellon and Alfred P. Sloan foundations.

See John at the Dana Dawson Library circulation desk for help in setting up and personalizing your Zotero account. It took me 15 minutes to install Zotero and enable all of the features listed above. How long does it take you to type footnotes and a bibliography for a 10-page paper? Oh, and did I mention it was free?!

Religion & Ethics Newsweekly

Because I’m a cataloging librarian, much of my job involves creating accurate descriptions.  Lately I’ve been puzzling over some viewer’s guides from the PBS television show Religion & Ethics Newsweekly:  are they print guides that include a DVD, or are they DVDs that include a print guide?  (It’s a small distinction in most contexts, but in a library it affects everything from the way the catalog record is constructed to where we shelve the item and how it circulates.)

Examining these guides, however, led me to a larger resource:  the website of Religion & Ethics Newsweekly, which provides streaming video, podcast downloads (for iTunes), lesson plans for elementary school through high school age groups, and links to other online resources.    Individual stories can be accessed by date, by faith, or by topic.  At the bottom of each page is a link to the archive, which goes back to 1997 in transcripts.   Most of the video segments are between 5 and 10 minutes long, which doesn’t allow for much depth but does make them excellent for conversation starters and an easy way to keep up with some current events.

The website, by the way, also helps you find the local TV schedule for the program.

Digital Images and Manuscripts

There are numerous sources of digital images to support research in religion, theology, church history, etc.   The American Theological Library Association has an initiative to create and maintain a searchable database linking various digital image archives in theological libraries around the country.  Users may also browse one or more specific collections by selecting them from a list.  Some will be of particular interest for Saint Paul students and faculty, such as the Wesley manuscript collections from Drew University and Southern Methodist University.

There are also some very interesting digital image archives not included in the CDRI search, such as the EIKON Image Database for Biblical Studies from Yale University and an image collection from Emory University selected for use with the Revised Common Lectionary and searchable by weekly lectionary readings.

Please attend to the legal constraints and ethical issues involved when using these or any creative works you find online – in most cases this simply means that the images should not be used commercially and that you should properly acknowledge the authorship and source.

Image provided courtesy of the Digital Image Archive, Pitts Theology Library

 

Searching for Contextual Relationships with Quintura

Choosing search terms to begin a research project can be a guessing game. We often search topical words that are new, ambiguous, or off-target. In academic databases like EBSCOhost or online catalogs, the strongest keywords are often “controlled vocabulary” – words assigned by a cataloger or indexer. One example of controlled vocabulary is Library of Congress (LC) subject headings. Controlled vocabulary is one way these records are linked together.

Quintura Seach Engine

Outside the controlled environment of academic databases, search engine keywords often yield an unmanageable collection of results. Generous results are displayed in an order of “relevance” chosen by the search engine provider, such as the number of other web pages linking to a given site. What you often receive as most relevant is in reality most popular – this correlation may or may not be valid.

An alternative search concept for the academic researcher is the notion of clustering, or linguistic contextual relationships. Using this algorithm, search results are clustered around frequently grouped words assumed to be meaningfully related.

One contextual relationships search engine is Quintura. Results for searches in Quintura are displayed in a cloud as well as a list. The cloud denotes the clustering of results with larger, bolder, darker font signifying stronger contextual relationships. The smaller, grayer font indicates weaker relationships.

Quintura Search Results

If you rollover a cloud term, a window displays three results. If you click on the cloud terms, a new search generates results using that term. Try it and see what you think.

Have you ever thought it would be useful to save your internet searches? Quintura has a solution for this as well. Stay tuned for my next blog where I will introduce how Quintura preserves your internet searches for greater recall and more targeted researching.