Tuesday, September 29, 2009

Sailor Database Review: General OneFile


Gale’s General OneFile brings to your customers’ fingertips an impressive array of materials ranging from newsletters to major national newspapers in the United States and from popular and business magazines to peer-reviewed academic journals. There are 11,000 titles in all and more than 6,300 full-text titles. The database provides archival coverage back to 1980.

Database users can search both across and within publications. Both basic and advanced search options are provided in a highly user-friendly manner. In browsing publications, users can limit their browses to materials in one of four languages, from one of 49 countries, by general publication subject, by publication format, by target audience, to full-text publications, and to peer-reviewed publications. Database users can also browse an alphabetical list of highly specific subjects to find articles.

General OneFile users may set up RSS feeds on particular subjects with articles delivered either to their email accounts or appearing on their individually configured homepages.

Tuesday, September 22, 2009

Sailor Database Review: Custom Newspapers


Gale's Infotrac Custom Newspapers database, available through Sailor, makes available to your patrons full-text transcriptions of several medium circulation dailies, which mix marginally adequate national coverage with excellent regional coverage, such as the Chicago Tribune, the Boston Globe, the Star Tribune (Minneapolis), the San Francisco Chronicle, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, the Miami Herald, the Philadelphia Inquirer, and the Detroit Free Press. The database does not include full access (though a few columns are available) to any of the large-circulation national newspapers -- USA Today, the Los Angeles Times, the Washington Post, the New York Times, or the Wall Street Journal -- but is a valuable supplement to a national newspaper database (eg. ProQuest “National Newspapers”). Archival coverage extends back as far as 1980 for some of the database newspapers.

Conservative news consumers will welcome access to the Washington Times and the New York Post while liberals will enjoy the availability of the Independent (London) and the Guardian (London). English-language and Spanish-language newspapers are available from 11 countries, and the database is especially strong in its collection of papers from the United Kingdom. “Custom Newspapers” also includes a wealth of local papers from the United States. Papers local to Maryland are the Capital (Annapolis, 2/1/2009-current) and the Frederick News-Post (12/31/2004-current).

Users may search across publications as well as within publications. Publications can be browsed alphabetically, by country of publication, by language, by target audience (general or trade), or by publication subject (e.g. law). Browsing within countries by state or city of publication would be a useful feature if it were provided but, unfortunately, it is not. Database users may set up RSS feeds on news topics with articles delivered either to their email accounts or appearing on their individually configured homepages.

Thursday, September 17, 2009

Review Thursday: Nonfiction

Film Art: An Introduction, 8th edition, by David Bordwell and Kristin Thompson (2008)

Anyone who believes that film is a true art, whether student or serious viewer, will gain new insights into “the seventh art.”

David Bordwell and Kristin Thompson are pioneers in the teaching of film. Their writing is clear and precise. The first edition of Film Art was published in 1979, and now film students and cinephiles have the Eighth Edition of this classic text. They clarify such misunderstood terms as mise-en-scene and explain how to distinguish between “story” and “plot.”

The order of the text has been honed over the years for optimal use. The authors start with the basics of production, distribution and exhibition of different types of film. They then move to an extensive examination of film form, drawing on The Wizard of Oz and Citizen Kane for illustrations, and the finer points of filmmaking. The core of the book is an examination of that all-encompassing thing, mise-en-scene, cinematography, editing, and sound, always with good examples. While the fictional feature film is emphasized, documentaries, experimental, and animated films are not slighted.

The text is capped with analyses of 10 films of various genres and nationalities and an appendix for students on how to write a critical analysis of a film.

A short, final section of the book, which covers “Film art and Film History,” a good preview for the equally fine companion volume, Film History: An Introduction.

The icing on the cake is the extremely useful extras – a DVD with examples and commentary, suggestions for further study (“Where to Go From Here”) at the end of each chapter, sidebars within each chapter (“A Closer Look”), recommended DVD supplements and a glossary.

The candles on the cake are a Web site for the text and the blog that Bordwell and Thompson maintain, Observations on film art and Film Art, which is always being updated with useful links and articles.

Tuesday, September 15, 2009

Several customers have been asking me for help...

...proof-reading their papers. I’m not always sure about grammar and want to refer them to some really good sources. What would be good to recommend to them?

There are a number of good sources for English grammar and style. Remember that it is always wise to have someone else proofread your writing, as you might only see what you meant and not what you have actually written. There are some good Web sites to consult, and there are books with clear examples as well.

Where do I put that comma? A good place to start is Rutgers University’s Guide to Grammar and Style. Arranged in an accessible, alphabetical way, it is easy to use and clearly written. With its emphasis on style and clearly written English, Strunk and White’s Elements of Style is probably the best known guide to English usage. It is also available in updated paper editions at most libraries.

Are you taking a brake or a break? When it comes to which word to use and which phrase is correct, a great site is Washington State University’s Common Errors in English. Arranged alphabetically, each word or phrase has a link to an explanation.


The Little, Brown Handbook, now in its 10th edition, is an excellent paper source for grammar, style, and manuscript writing.

Thursday, September 10, 2009

Review Thursday: Children's Books

The Crossroads by Chris Grabenstein (2008)

Eleven-year-old Zack Jennings moves to Connecticut with his father and new stepmother. On their property is an old oak tree that harbors ghosts. The ghosts are part of a bad accident that happened years ago involving a bus and car. One ghost decides to kill Zack. Can Zack save himself? Pair this book with Skeleton Man by Joseph Bruchac for a double dose of terror!


The Problem with the Puddles by Kate Feiffer (2009)

The problem with the Puddles is that they don’t agree on anything. Their daughter, Baby, has two other names. On the way back to the city (from their country home), the Puddles realize that they’ve left their two dogs, Big Sally and Little Sally, behind. Should they go back for the dogs? Can Mr. and Mrs. Puddle agree on anything? A good companion book to read would be The Elevator Family by Douglas Evans.


11 Birthdays by Wendy Mass (2009)

Amanda and Leo were both born on the same day. They’ve always celebrated their birthdays together. This year, though, they are celebrating their eleventh same-day birthdays separately. It seems that Leo made some unkind remarks about Amanda on their tenth birthday. The day of their latest birthday begins to repeat itself over and over again. Can Amanda and Leo get along and stop their eleventh birthday from reoccurring? (For those adults who saw Groundhog Day with Bill Murray, this is a pint-sized version). Another funny book about birthdays is The Big One-Oh by Dean Pitchford.

Tuesday, September 8, 2009

Sailor Database Review: Using Gale’s History Resource Center

A student comes into your branch looking for material on women’s suffrage. Her teacher wants her to use books and magazine articles for her research paper. You readily locate several books using your catalog. Now what? Here’s where Gale’s History Resource Center stands out. Its resources include reference sources, magazines and journals, current news stories, primary sources, maps, and multimedia. Magazines and scholarly journals covered by this database include American Heritage, American History, History Today, Journal of African American History, and Journal of Women’s History.

The History Resource Center is divided into two parts: History Resource Center: World and History Resource Center: US. The search interface allows us to search both databases simultaneously and makes it easy for us to search for either individuals or subjects. Another option is using the advanced mode which allows us to limit our search by time period, date of publication, or document type. For example, we could search the History Resource Center for audio files on the topic of slavery.

You may be interested in examples of reference sources available through the History Resource Center. A search for materials dealing with the Fourth Crusade resulted in articles from the following reference volumes: Dictionary of the Middle Ages, DISCovering World History, History in Dispute, and World Eras. Trying a search for materials discussing the Trail of Tears brought up additional sources such as Americans at War, the Dictionary of American History, Encyclopedia of the American West, and the Gale Encyclopedia of U.S. Economic History. If you work at a small or medium-sized branch, the History Resource Center, in effect expands the size of your reference collection.

But now let’s go back to our student researching women’s suffrage. When we search this topic in the History Resource Center: US, our results include reference sources, articles, primary sources, and multimedia. Our customer is particularly interested in primary sources and the History Resource Center makes it easy for us to access quite a few. Among these are the 1890 Constitution of the National American Woman Suffrage Association, Dorothy Dix on Women’s Suffrage, and an account of the Proceedings in the Trial of Susan B. Anthony on the Charge of Illegal Voting at the Presidential Election in November 1872.

Gale’s History Resource Center has several additional features. The home page features a chronology useful to students who have to construct timelines. The student research guide clearly defines the difference between primary and secondary sources while offering sound advice on how to write a research paper. If you host school visits, you might want to point out the helpful faculty guide that can provide teachers with questions that will facilitate class discussion of historical topics. With all these assets, Gale’s History Resource Center is definitely worth exploring.

Thursday, September 3, 2009

Review Thursday: All the Living

All the Living by C. E. Morgan (2009)

If it is true that all novels have one of two plots--someone comes to town, someone leaves town--then C. E. Morgan's slim but stunning debut, All the Living, contains the first, with a twist: someone comes to town, then wanders away emotionally. Aloma, a gifted pianist, joins her sweetheart, Orren, on his Kentucky tobacco farm after a car accident kills his mother and older brother, leaving him alone in the world except for her. Herself orphaned too young ever to have truly loved anyone, Aloma has not learned the painful truth that the beloved is always partly a stranger. Thus Orren's grieving, which alienates him from her, spurs her own retreat from their union: she begins fantasizing about, and flirting with, the pastor at a church where she goes increasingly to play and practice. Gradually she realizes that she, more than Orren, is to blame for their relationship's unraveling and commits to it with a fuller heart.

Morgan makes her characters' inner dramas feel real through her painterly, poetic attention to externals; nearly every sentence offers a gem-like detail such as the "fawn brown carapace of the eggs," the wind's "soprano scream," the "first pursing blossoms," or a "hymnal, its leaves shagged by years of use." Her use of nature to symbolize emotions recalls writers of earlier periods, such as Hemingway or Melville. When she translates Aloma's growth into scriptural terms, filtered through the plainspoken but eloquent pastor, she resembles Marilynne Robinson, another female Midwestern novelist, while her serious tone, spare style, and psychological realism connect her to Alice Munro and Jhumpa Lahiri. All the Living is reason for rejoicing among all who prize vivid and insightful fiction.

Tuesday, September 1, 2009

Sailor Database Review: Heritage Quest

The availability of online tools, like the HeritageQuest database from ProQuest, has made genealogy, doing family history research, much easier than it was in the past. Here’s why.

Library customers working on their genealogy rely heavily on documents, the paper trail we all leave as we go through life, to discover important facts about their families, and this is especially true when they are searching for their more distant ancestors. Genealogists look for mention of their relatives in different kinds of documents, like birth, marriage, death, cemetery, and military records, plus directories, census reports, land records, wills, and many others. To locate all the records they need to get a complete picture of their ancestors, they would have to visit lots of different libraries, archives, courthouses, and cemeteries. This is where a genealogy database like HeritageQuest becomes a big time (and gas) saver for them, because it provides access to so many different documents, all in one place.

HeritageQuest offers images of actual documents that will be of interest to beginning family historians, to skilled amateurs, and even to professional genealogists. Using HeritageQuest they can access the U.S. Federal Census (1790-1930), one of the most widely used sets of documents among all genealogists, and an invaluable starting point in family history research. HeritageQuest also makes it possible to search for the names of ancestors in published family history books, in periodicals on genealogy and local history subjects, in Revolutionary War service records, and in records of the Freedman’s Bank (an institution set up by the U. S. government to serve former slaves following the Civil War).

There are a few things to remember about HeritageQuest:

  • It’s an alternative resource to Ancestry.com, another genealogy database that is commonly used in libraries for searching the U.S. Federal Census. Most family history researchers will use the census often.
  • HeritageQuest also provides access to records of the Freedman’s Bank, an important resource for African American genealogy researchers.
  • HeritageQuest is offered to customers of all Maryland public library systems via the Sailor project.
  • It is available for use from home, for free, with a library card. That’s another way it differs from Ancestry.com, which must be used from a library facility in order to avoid a fee.
HeritageQuest is easy to use, and you might want to try it out for yourself by searching for some of your own ancestors. Who knows? You could get hooked by the genealogy bug, too!