Database Trials

Are You a Road Warrior?

As you think about traveling this year, whether for Christmas or spring break, take a look at Global Road Warrior, an online web site available as a trial for Northeastern-affiliated users. Global Road Warrior is supposed to help travelers, especially business travelers, know what to expect when they go to unfamiliar countries. It has information about transportation infrastructure, useful foreign phrases, how to dress, what to see. Details like currency conversion (updated daily) and types of electric plugs are also available. It shies away from recommending particular businesses (like hotels and restaurants). So the real question for us is, after all, this information is free on the internet, so is there a special value to paying for this particular site? Does it stand out in the internet crowd? Bottom line: Is Global Road Warrior worth the library paying for it, for Northeastern users? Try it for yourself, between now and January 9, and let us know what you think.

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!

Try Mango Languages to Learn a New Language Online

Buongiorno! Guten Tag! Ni hao! As the librarian at Snell for foreign languages and literatures, I’ve received quite a few requests for the library to provide online language-learning products to the NU community. So I’m very pleased to report that we are currently offering a free trial of Mango Languages, a completely web-based language-learning system that focuses on actual conversation skills. The trial will last until the end of October. The languages currently available from Mango are Brazilian Portuguese, French, German, Greek, Italian, Japanese, Mandarin Chinese, Polish, Russian, Spanish, and English as a Second Language for speakers of Spanish, Brazilian Portuguese, or Polish. They plan to add more languages in the future. Mango is a very popular product with many public libraries and is supposed to be very easy to use. We are running the free trial now with the hope that we will be able to buy either this product or one like it. So, we need your feedback! Try Mango Languages and let us know what you think!

New Sustainability Resource – BuildingGreen Suite – Try it out

BuildingGreen Suite, is a resource you can try out via the Library until Oct 10.  If you want to take a look, you’ll find articles, reviews, and news stories covering energy-efficient, resource-efficient, and healthy building practices. We also look forward to your feedback! BuildingGreen Suite,  updated monthly, offers full access to BuildingGreen.com, a key source of information about improving environmental performance. It also includes information on a wide range of topics related to sustainable building, including energy efficiency, recycled-content materials, land-use planning and indoor air quality. The BuildingGreen Suite brings together material from Environmental Building News (EBN) since 1992, product listings from the GreenSpec products directory, and a database of project case studies from the High-Performance Buildings Database. If you are trying out this resource from off-campus, just login with your myNeu account information.  From on-campus, you should be able to access this resource.  Any problems, please contact Amy Lewontin, Collection Development Librarian, (617)373-2001.