Category Archives: Databases
British Standards Online New Feature – Tracked Changes
British Standards Online has launched a new tracked changes feature to some of its key standards.
You’ll now find it easy to identify what’s changed between different versions of standards at a glance, using a clear colour-coded system: green equals an addition, red equals a removal.
To find out more, visit the BSOL website here – https://bit.ly/2DJjCDK
Database Trials – Women & Social Movements and Revolution & Protest
We’re trialling two resources from the Alexander Street stable of databases for the next couple of months that should interest social science and politics students.
Women and Social Movements, International (1840-present) is a landmark collection of primary materials on the subject. Through the writings of women activists, their personal letters and diaries, and the proceedings of conferences at which pivotal decisions were made, this collection lets you see how women’s social movements shaped much of the events and attitudes that have defined modern life.
Secondly, we have Revolution and Protest Online, which explores the protest movements, revolutions, and civil wars that have transformed societies and human experience from the 18th century through the present. Organized around more than thirty events and areas, representing a variety of time periods, regions, and topics, this collection will include at completion 175 hours of video, 100,000 pages of printed materials (personal papers, organizations, government documents, journals, reports, monographs, and speeches), and more than 1,000 images.
To begin searching WASI, go to http://search.alexanderstreet.com/wasi , and to sample RPO visit https://search.alexanderstreet.com/revo – access to both databases is via IP address and the trials run until 6th March.
We welcome feedback – good or bad – on this trial, please contact Steve Corn ( s.c.corn@lboro.ac.uk) with your comments.
“It was all started by a Mouse…”
Plastic Mickey Mouse figure from the Glud Museum, Denmark, reproduced under CC License
One of the most iconic characters of modern times celebrates their 90th birthday this very day – the one and only Mickey Mouse!
Created by Walt Disney and Ub Iwerks in 1928 for Steamboat Willie, one of the Disney Studios’ earliest sound animations, the character has gone on to appear in over 130 films and countless spin-offs in every conceivable medium – and became the figurehead of the Disney phenomenon. Walt Disney himself acknowledged the debt his studio owed to the lovable cartoon rodent – “it was all started by a mouse”, he declared in an interview in 1954!
We have a wide range of books about Walt Disney, his films and Mickey Mouse among our art and cinema books on Level 2.
You can also explore more about the history and influence of Disney (and Mickey!) at the British Film Institute website and our online art databases including Art Retrospective and Art & Architecture Source.
Spotlight On… Vogue
Interested in fashion, either for your studies or just in general? Then settle down and treat yourself to a browse through the archives of the world’s foremost fashion magazine, Vogue.
The Vogue Archive contains the entire run of Vogue magazine (US edition), from the first issue in 1892 to the current month, reproduced in high-resolution color page images. Every page, advertisement, cover and fold-out has been included, with rich indexing enabling you to find images by garment type, designer and brand names. The Vogue Archive preserves the work of the world’s greatest fashion designers, stylists and photographers and is a unique record of American and international fashion, culture and society from the dawn of the modern era to the present day.
In addition to the editorial content, all covers, advertisements and pictorial features have been captured as separate documents to allow for searching and discovery. For advertisements, the featured company and brand names have been assigned to the document records, and all image captions are captured to a high accuracy, allowing accurate retrieval of photographs and illustrations. Contributor names that appear in image credits, such as photographers, stylists and illustrators, are also indexed.
You can also limit your search by journal editor, and specialist indexing of full-page images from photo features. There are separate designated fields for Fashion Items, Trends, Colour and Prints.
The Vogue Archive is available through Library Catalogue Plus and seperately via Proquest here.
World Space Week 2018
Boldly going where no one has gone before, it’s World Space Week, the annual celebration of mankind’s exploration of outer space.
Each year, the World Space Week Association (WSWA) selects a theme for the upcoming World Space Week (WSW) to provide a focus of the activities and events that take a place throughout the world, during 4th-10th October . The 2018 theme is Space Unites the World, which celebrates the role of space in bringing the world closer together. The theme is inspired by UNISPACE+50, an historic gathering of world space leaders which will occur in 2018. UNISPACE+50 will promote cooperation between spacefaring and emerging space nations and help space exploration activities become open and inclusive on a global scale.
Launched specifically on 4th October by the UN General Assembly to mark the successful launch of Sputnik 1, the first man-made satellite, in 1957, and the signing of the ‘Treaty on Principles Governing the Activities of States in the Exploration and Peaceful Uses of Outer Space, including the Moon and Other Celestial Bodies’ on October 10th 1967, World Space Week has been held every year since 1999, and seeks primarily to educate people about the positives of space exploration and encourage better public understanding and support for space programmes.
We have many and various astronomical and astronautic resources in the Library, including access to the National Geophysical Data Centre database, which provides the latest satellite geophysical data from the Sun to the Earth and Earth’s sea floor and solid earth environment, including Earth observations from space, and the NASA Scientific & Technical Information database, which includes up-to-date information about NASA’s space projects. We also hold a good selection of books about space & space exploration in general.
To find out more about World Space Week, visit their website here:
New Resource – Global Digimap
We’ve recently added a new resource to the Digimap stable, our popular geographic database.
Global Digimap provides access to global datasets in cartographic styles and downloadable formats that are useful to you. The service provides the following:
- An easy to use interface to allow you to browse, annotate and print global maps.
- A data download facility to providing access to global datasets for use in GIS software.
Please note that as this is a new service and still in development it is subject to change and may be unavailable while Digimap works on it.
Visit https://digimap.edina.ac.uk/global to find out more.
While You’ve Been Away… Changes in the Library Over the Summer
A warm welcome back to all of our returning students! As usual we haven’t been resting on our laurels during the long summer break, and we’ve made a few changes since June…
Single Sign On. Over the summer we’ve begun work on streamlining access to our electronic resources by moving away from Athens authentication to a single sign on process using the University username & password. The project is ongoing and so you need to be aware that there are:
- Some resources which have moved from Athens log in to Single sign on
- Some resources are in progress
- Some resources are still Athens authenticated.
- You can keep up to date on developments through our news link here.
Self Collection of Hold Requests. We have started storing hold requests on the shelves in the High Demand section on Level 3 so that users can collect them and issue them without having to ask for them at the main desk. This only applies to our stock – Inter Library Loans will still be stored in the office behind the desk.
It’s very easy to use – books can be found in alphabetical order on the shelves filed under the first three letters of the user’s surname and the last three numbers of their ID. For example, our own Matt Cunningham would be CUN331. Where a user only has two letters in their surname, just use those two letters followed by the last 3 digits of their ID number.
New Decor. All the old workstation desks on Levels 1 & 2 have been replaced with new ones. We’ve added plasma screens displaying booking details outside of every Group Study Room in the Library, and the Help Desk on Level 4 has been removed to expand the study area.
Wifi Upgrade. IT Services completed their upgrade of the Wifi coverage throughout the building, so hopefully you won’t encounter any more dead spots!
Oh yes – and as you can see from the picture above, we had the Red Arrows fly over for the Graduation Ceremony. As the old police recruitment poster used to say – “Dull it isn’t!”
Changes to Accessing Online Resources
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The Library is currently working with IT Services to remove Athens authentication for accessing online resources and moving to Single Sign-On using your University username and password. This means that when you access resources that previously required your Athens username and password, you will be taken to a University sign on page and prompted to enter your University username and password.
Some resources have already switched including Box of Broadcasts and ProQuest resources. Over the course of the next few months we will be continuing to switch other online resources to Single Sign-On. In most cases you should notice no difference when accessing resources on campus. While we are in a transition phase, we recommend that you use the Cisco AnyConnect VPN client to access resources off campus.
We will update the list of resources that are changing on this post as they make the switch. If you have any queries or experience any issues with logging in to resources during the changeover please contact us at library@lboro.ac.uk
The following resources have made the transition:
- Box of Broadcasts (BoB)
- Lexis Law
- Gale Resources, including many newspaper archives listed here: http://www.lboro.ac.uk/services/library/students/subjectguides/newspapers/
- ProQuest Resources, including ASSIA, DAAI, ERIC, IBSS, LISA, and Vogue.
Emerald Insight Resources Access Changes
We have now moved our access to the Emerald Insight database to Single Sign On from Athens authentication, and are in the process of updating all catalogue links and Subject Guides.
However, there is an off-campus access issue with journals linked from the catalogue to Emerald. Until it is resolved, to access these off campus you need to follow these steps:
- Log into the VPN or Emerald first.
- Select Institutional Log in, then UK Federated, then Loughborough University.
If you experience any further issues or problems, please let us know.