Help Test New Resources: Jewish Studies, Research Methods, Travel

Here at Snell we are always looking for new online research tools that would be useful to the Northeastern community. They are often expensive, however, and so we usually try them out before we buy them. You can always see what’s currently on trial by going to the All Databases and Trials page and clicking on the link that says “check out our current database trials.” (Also, note the evaluation form on that page — be sure to fill that out so we can have your feedback on these resources!) Right now we have some very interesting products on trial. To welcome Dr. Lori Lefkovitz, the new director of Northeastern’s Jewish Studies Program, we have a couple of Jewish Studies resources to sample. The Index to Jewish Periodicals provides access to English-language articles and book reviews on Jewish history, activity, and thought in more than 220 journals devoted to Jewish affairs, with coverage back to 1988. Jewish Studies Source offers a multidisciplinary view into the study of Jewish civilization from its historical origins to the present, drawing across multiple areas of study, and contains much full text (over 350 titles). Both resources are available to try out until the end of 2010. Another new tool you can try is Sage Research Methods Online. This resource provides full text for more than 500 books and several encyclopedias offering relevant research methods content across the social and behavioral sciences, covering quantitative, qualitative, and mixed methods (it includes the well-known QASS or Little Green Book Series). You can try this until the end of 2010. Finally, an interesting departure from our usual resources: Global Road Warrior. According to its description, this is “a source for practical travel information and intercultural communication. You may want to make use of it to get acclimated to a country’s business culture and etiquette (greetings & courtesies, ethics, meetings, attire), society and culture (gift giving, food, media, time & punctuality) and travel tips (money & banking, transportation, and more) for 200+ countries.” This sounds like it would be great for students heading off to study-abroad programs or international co-op jobs. Global Road Warrior is on trial until January 9, 2011. Remember, when you test out any of the products on trial, be sure to fill out our feedback form letting us know what you thought!

Snell On Your Cell

As usual, Snell is keeping up with the times and mobile technology is an area we wouldn’t want to miss out on. So don’t be surprised if you start seeing some of these little numbers popping up around Snell or elsewhere on campus. If you have a barcode scanner on your smartphone, try this QR code out and let us know what you think! (Of course, you can also access our mobile website at this address: http://www.lib.neu.edu/m)

Rolling Stone Columnist: Matt Taibbi at Snell Library

Tomorrow, Wednesday, November 17th, Rolling Stone columnist Matt Taibbi will be featured in Snell Library’s Meet the Author series with his new book Griftopia. Come for refreshments and a lot of laughs. Matt Taibbi takes a humorous and at times very serious stance on just about all of the big headlines of the news. Notorious for his political comments, Matt wrote Griftopia to report the inside scoop on America’s failing economy and who’s to blame. Come to learn about all of the latest struggles America is facing and some that undoubtedly will be challenges for the future. Want a taste? Check out his blog on True/Slant for a small dose of the excitement about to come. You can purchase a book at the event and even get it signed. Don’t forget to bring your questions and/or rants! This event is sponsored by NU Libraries and the NU Bookstore.

Science Direct Scheduled Outage This Weekend

We’ve learned from the publisher Elsevier that ejournals in Science Direct and the search engine Scopus are expected to be offline and unavailable for approximately 9 hours on Saturday, November 13th, 2010 due to scheduled upgrades. The journals are generally high-quality, high-demand peer reviewed titles.  Downtime by region is expected to be as follows

* U.S. Eastern Standard Time (EST): 7:30AM EST – 4:30PM EST * Greenwich Mean Time (GMT): 12:30PM GMT – 9:30PM GMT * Singapore Time (SGT): 8:30PM SGT, November 13 – 5:30AM SGT, November 14

This is an exceptionally long and nearly all-day outage at a busy time of year.   Please plan accordingly and get your ScienceDirect ejournals now!

Advice and research for teachers of writing

Three research journals from the NCTE (National Council of Teachers of English)  are now available electronically through the NU Libraries:

College Composition and Communication focusing on practical strategies for teaching based on the latest research and theory

Language Arts, a magazine for those who teach elementary and middle school writing

Research in the Teaching of English for original research and scholarly essays on teaching English at all levels

I’ve been enjoying looking at these as I reflect on how I was taught to write, and on the NU Libraries’ support for First Year and Advanced Writing in the Disciplines programs at NU.  Of all the skills I learned in school and college, writing has been the most important, hands down. What do you think helps students learn to write?  Do you find the essays in the NCTE journals helpful? Practical? Provocative?