Free stuff to celebrate National Library Week!

This week is National Library week and to celebrate some database vendors are offering free stuff! This week�s BRAIN_blog features links to the free stuff, information about a trial database on the BRAIN and our new �Ask Us!� link.

1) Thomson Gale Free-for-All!
This week and this week only, in celebration of National Library Week, Thomson Gale is offering free, unlimited access to two dozen of their databases to anyone and everyone with Internet access!! Check the Thomson Gale web site for a list of the databases up for grabs and the computer requirements for getting to such great resources as Times Digital Archive, Testing and Education Reference Center, Busines & Company Resource Center – and many more!
Once you get to the web site, choose �other�, then you can choose from these great collections of databases:
History, Biography and Literature : need a recommendation for your next great read or looking for some author info? Check it out at the database �What Do I Read Next?� included in this collection;
General Knowledge: And who couldn’t use some general knowledge? Check out the �Health and Wellness Resource Center� database for some authoritative, up-to-date health information;
Business & Law : some great (albeit U.S.-centric) directories in here; and
Student/Homework Help: all-purpose resources for the student.

More Free Stuff: Xrefer free for one week
Xrefer is another database offered for free this week and it offers access to 150 reference books. Access dictionaries on a wealth of topics (such as food, science, medicine, arts, literature, law, etc.), a full whack of atlases, a stunning array of books of quotations, a plethora of thesauri (very useful!), a gaggle of encyclopedias, well, you get the idea. You�ll need to register first (for free) at: http://www.xrefer.com/libraries/oneweektrial.jsp

2) Trial Database @ The BRAIN
The Library has, for a limited time, a trial of the IEEE Computer Society Digital Library. This database provides online access to 22 society magazines and transactions and over 1,200 selected conference proceedings. Topics covered include multimedia, security and privacy, software, Internet and more. To access, go to the Databases page on The BRAIN and scroll to the bottom of the list.

3) New way to get help @ The BRAIN: Ask us!
Check out the new Ask Us! page on the BRAIN for a comprehensive list of service points @ the Library! Here you�ll find links to our online chat help service, email address, and phone numbers and addresses of all campus libraries. The Ask Us! page is accessible from wherever you are on The BRAIN�just click on the Ask Us! link on the far left side of The BRAIN navigation bar. Now getting help @ The Library is easier than ever…. Just ask us!

It’s Raining Magazines and Journals!

The excitement doesn�t stop at the BRAIN_blog. Have you heard the song “it’s raining men”? Well, at the Library it’s raining magazines and journals! Hallelujah! This week we feature searching tips and news about online magazine and journals�1) a searching tip for ProQuest databases, 2 and 3) free full-text journal databases, and 4) a news byte from the e-Library.

1) ProQuest Searching Tip
As you know, ProQuest is a proprietary database of thousands of magazine and journal articles to which the Library pays to subscribe. The coverage runs the gamut: there�s a nursing database (ProQuest Nursing Journals), a science and technology database (Applied Science and Technology Plus) and a news, business and current events database (Canadian Business and Current Affairs). All can be accessed on The BRAIN�s databases page.
With so many resources available in one database, you may find that you are getting huge result lists! Here is a tip that will help you to be more specific about what you are looking for and cut down on the superfluous results.
The default search looks for your search words in the article citation and in the full-text. This tends to get you rather large hitlists because many of the databases are 75% fulltext. Why not start at the “other end” and search by”article title”? This works well in the nursing literature especially (ProQuest Nursing Journals)…when many titles are long and wordy and descriptive of the content. You might want to try this approach with some of the other ProQuest databases as well to focus the search quickly. How do I do that, you ask? On the search page you will notice a drop-down list to the right of the search box. Click on the little arrow on this drop-down box. From here you can select “article title”. Now you are off to the races! (Thanks to MM for the tip.)

2) Something new and exciting – and FREE!!
Free Full Text is a website that provides
direct links for over 7000 scholarly periodicals that allow all or some
of their online content to be viewed for free – by anyone with Internet
access! The site is best used by researchers who already have their
citations and are looking for specific articles. There is no subject
search feature – you pretty much need to know what you’re looking for
when you go there – but you can certainly browse issues of journals
that interest you, to see what recent articles might catch your eye.

The journals are arranged alphabetically by title. Select a letter of
the alphabet and the list of journals beginning with that letter is
provided, along with the details of which issues are available.
Sometimes the entire journal is free – from the first issue through to
the present day – other times a single year, several issues, an entire
volume, etc. – whatever the publisher has decided. You can check the
site’s Criteria for Inclusion .

As an example, I looked in the �E� section for early childhood education journals. Lo and behold there were several scholarly journals available: Early Child Development and Care (latest issue online is January 2004 with coverage back to 2002!), Early Childhood Education Journal (with the Spring 2004 issue available for free!), Early Childhood Research Quarterly (with the March 2004 uncorrected proofs available!) and others. Check it out!
(Thanks to e-L for the tip.)

3) More free online journals
There are a few other free online journal databases on the Web as well. Electronic Journal Miner is similar to Free Full Text but it offers a keyword and subject search. You can narrow your search to free publications and/or to peer reviewed publications. You can also browse the available journals by title or LC subject headings.
Simlarly, the Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ) offers free access to 815 journals, all of which are �quality controlled scientific and scholarly journals�. Many subject categories are represented. You can search by keyword or browse by subject area.
The Public Library of Science (PLoS) offers free access to the scholarly, peer-reviewed journal Public Library of Science Biology and will offer access to Public Library of Science Medicine in Fall 2004. Both the PLoS and the DOAJ are part of a larger global movement called the Open Access Movement which is attempting to make publicly funded research available to all for free over the Internet. More info about the OAM Watch the PLoS site for further info!
FindArticles allows you to �search and read 3.5 million articles from over 700 publications.� Search by keyword, browse by subject heading or browse by alphabetical title list. While I did find many great magazines for free online there were a few that were not available in full-text. These magazines however are available through the Library�s subscription databases. Yet another reminder that the Library should be our first stop in our journey to quality information!

4) Music in the Library wraps up
The e-Library continues to be �where it�s @!�
The third performance in the Music in the Library series took place in the e-Library on Wednesday, March 31st . The Mohawk College Student Jazz Ensemble entertained the crowded library with a medley of lively jazz numbers during Common Hour.
Feedback from faculty, staff and students about this new series has been overwhelmingly positive. The e-Library is planning to continue to partner with the Music Department to bring more music to this dynamic new space in the fall.
Previous performances were given by the Mohawk College Classical Guitar Ensemble, and Jonathan Earp, a professor from the Music Department. (Thanks to JD for the news.)