New Trials, Tutorials, Tools and Tons More!

This week we cover: 1) new online resources from the Library @ Mohawk, 2) new resources for educational research enthusiasts (and I know you’re out there!), 3) news from the web world (that you might not be able to live without), and 4) news from LibraryLand!

1) News from the Library @ Mohawk

New Trial Databases to Try Out, Crammed Full of Quality Magazine and Journal Articles!

We have a tantalizing array of new magazine and journal article databases for you to try out! Give them a taste and let us know what you think. These trials cover the subjects of computers and applied sciences, education, environmental science, health, medicine, social science, and business. (Sorry – no remote access available for the trials!) Here’s the rundown on these tasty information treats:

Computers @ Applied Sciences Complete: covers the spectrum of the applied sciences, representing knowledge on traditional engineering challenges and providing material for research concerning the business and social implications of new technology. CASC provides indexing and abstracting for more than 1,300 academic journals, professional publications, and other reference sources. Full Text is also available for more than 500 periodicals. Subject areas include the many engineering disciplines, computer theory, and new technologies.

Education Research Complete: Education Research Complete is the definitive online resource for education research. This massive file offers the world’s largest and most complete collection of full text education journals. Education Research Complete also covers areas of curriculum instruction as well as administration, policy, funding, and related social issues.

Environment Complete: Environment Complete contains all of the content available in Environment Index, as well as full text for 400 journals, including many of the most used journals in the discipline, such as Environment (back to 1975), Ecologist, Conservation Biology, etc. Environment Complete also provides full text for 80 monographs, such as Encyclopedia of World Environmental History (3 volumes), Advances in Water Treatment & Environmental Management, etc. Further, the database offers full text for the conference papers of the North American Association of Environmental Education.

Evidence Matters: A user-friendly knowledge management system that allows a user to create an instant meta-analysis of the peer-reviewed clinical literature to answer questions on best practices and therapies for a patient with a confirmed diagnosis. : Requires a password which you can get from any Library @ Mohawk reference staff member.

MarketLine: access company profiles, business news, the latest business research and reports. Requires login for trial – please ask any Library @ Mohawk staff member.

MyiLibrary: contains thousands of e-books, in the fields of medicine, engineering and health, ready for quick lookup or in-depth research. Requires a password which you can get from any Library @ Mohawk staff member.

SocINDEX with Full Text: the world’s most comprehensive and highest quality sociology research database. SocINDEX with Full Text contains full text for 344 “core” coverage journals dating back to 1895, and 129 “priority” coverage journals. This database also includes full text for more than 700 books and monographs, and full text for 6,800 conference papers.

Quick Refresher on How To Find Magazine Articles! Two New Tutorials…Now with Audio!

Rusty on your magazine article searching? Can’t remember where to start? No worries! Access the Library’s tutorials that now include audio – 8 minutes that will save you time and frustration! To access the new tutorials with audio, go to the How to Find dropdown menu on TheBRAIN homepage, (top right corner), choose Articles and then click either the EBSCOhost demo or ProQuest demo. An audio tour of TheBRAIN is also available… Take a BRAIN Tour.

How Can You Get Some Help Around The Library? (New Podcast)

A new podcast has been uploaded to TheBRAINcast web site. This week we feature a rundown of all the myriad and sundry ways you can get help from the Library! Listen in for the grand finale when the Library’s lovely Lois counts down the top 5 ways you can reach us! Oh the excitement! At only 6 minutes in length, it’s a quick way to get up to speed on important library info when you’re on the go!

Want to learn more about how YOU can use podcasts in the classroom? See this EDUCAUSE article that describes the process by which a university department chose podcasting as an instructional tool: Podcasting Lectures: Formative evaluation strategies helped identify a solution to a learning dilemma. Or, just want to know what this crazy pod thing is all about? Check out this indispensable guide from EDUCAUSE: 7 Things You Should Know About Podcasting.

2) New E-Resources for Educational Research Enthusiasts!

Wikiversity: it’s all about sharing!

A new web site for the creation and sharing of free learning materials and activities has just launched and it’s called Wikiversity! Wikiversity is a multidimensional social organization dedicated to learning, teaching, research and service. Its primary goals are to: 1) create and host free content, multimedia learning materials, resources, and curricula for all age groups in all languages and 2) develop collaborative learning projects and communities around these materials. And the great thing about it is that you can add content yourself – it’s completely collaborative!

You might be scratching your head and wondering, what in blazes is a wiki? Well wonder no more – read all about it in the Wikipedia! Generally speaking, it is a free, open source piece of software that allows you to manage online content and it allows sharing of information and collaboration on the creation of content. Awww…isn’t sharing nice?

facultyspace: New Content!

We’ve recently added some exciting new web sites to the Plagiarism and Copyright sections of the facultyspace! (To access, click Classroom Corner from the top navigation bar, then select either Plagiarism or Copyright from the dropdown menu…or, just type plagiarism or copyright into the search box!) See for example the great new tutorial produced by Acadia University on plagiarism called You Note It, You Quote It!….could come in handy when describing plagiarism to your students!

Educational Database of Journal Articles…for a limited time only!

And as you read above, we have on trial a fab new database crammed to the brim with journal articles and reports on educational research….all kinds of topics like curriculum development, social policy, educational administration and more are included! Check out Education Research Complete for a limited time and let us know if you find it useful!

3) New Web Developments…A Quick Rundown

Lots happening in the “must-know new web developments department” so here is quick rundown:

Google has just released a new tool that makes a web search accessible to people with disabilities. Check out Google Accessible. Don’t be fooled though – this tool doesn’t reformat the web sites that you find so that they are accessible. Only the search page and search results page are more accessible (than regular Google.)

Educational You Tube? You bet!
You’ve seen regular youtube…that mad menagerie of video media… well, now there’s educational youtube…video content for the educational community. Currently there is only content from U.S. colleges and universities and you need to have an email address with .edu in the domain name to view the content but I’d imagine it won’t be long now before you are viewing videos from the Canadian educational community…let’s keep our eyes peeled!

Can’t get enough video? New tool Clipblast lets you search for video content from premium content sources such as CBS, Today Show, CNBC, and Expanded Books. If you’re looking for videos of something other than teenage rockstar wannanbes, Clipblast is the ticket!

Pandora, the online music tool that I’ve written about in the past that lets you choose a genre of music and then listen to it on your computer to your heart’s content, added the Pandora Backstage last summer….this is a searchable database offering information about thousands of artists and individual songs. Search by artist or song title. In many cases you can also hear samples of tunes via Backstage! The dreamyness of it all!

Last summer also saw the expansion of web offerings from Zoho. The read/write web has spawned many collaborative and free software programs that mimic the functionality of office programs we use everyday. Zoho is one example. Access free spreadsheet, presentation, word processing, chat, project management and more kinds of software programs at the zoho site. Not only is it free software but it is online…this means that you can share information with colleagues without having to email them entire files. Just edit a document online and ask your colleagues to view it….they can edit it too! And it’s all free, free, free!

Over the past little while there has been a lot of buzz coming across the border about net neutrality…but what’s it all about, alfie? Check out We Are The Web for an interesting and informative take on the issues. Still confused? Check out Jon Stewart (Daily Show)’s piece on it….all the facts in an (albeit sarcastic) nutshell! Or, for something a bit more comprehensive, there is this from Wikipedia.

4) News from LibraryLand

What are librarians getting all hot and bothered about this week? Well, first off, it’s banned books week this week! You can find a list of The 100 Most Frequently Challenged Books of 1990-2000 and The Top 10 List of Most Frequently Challenged Books via the American Library Association web site! Yes, this gets us pretty excited!

In other LibraryLand news, The World eBook Fair is having another month of freebies for the month of October! We wrote about these folks last summer…the web site offers loads of free ebooks that are in the public domain….and you know what that means – no copyright restrictions – yay! Download any ebooks you want for the whole month (regular cost is $8.95US/year). The e-tomes are available in PDF format, plain text and MP3 and can be read on your computer or portable device. Browse the collections page to see what’s available.

Everything Old is New Again!

Welcome back to another new semester at Mohawk and for the newbies, welcome to Mohawk! As usual, our first blog posting of the school year features loads of new stuff from both the Library @ Mohawk and the world of web research. Here’s the rundown of what we’ll cover in this issue: 1) newly designed facultyspace, 2) new StatsCan interface, 3) new look for netLibrary, 4) new face for the EBSCOhost databases, 5) new EBSCOhost database, 6) makeover for Choices Explorer, 7) new podcasts from the Library, and new instant help menu.

1.) newly designed facultyspace
The web site designed just for faculty at Mohawk has had an extreme makeover. In addition to the new look, there are additional features! You can now search for a resource by keyword, limit your search to Canadian content only or to faculty faves (our picks) or search by format of material (blog, podcast, reports, tutorials, etc.) In addition, you can save results you like and email, print or save them! And don’t worry – the same great services that you�ve come to rely on are still available! For example, the video booking form, place an item on reserve form and recommendations form are still on the site – click “library info” from the navigation bar and make your selection.

Are you wondering, “just what exactly is a facultyspace?” The facultyspace contains just over 200 web sites grouped into four main subjects: classroom corner (sites dealing with classroom management such as plagiarism, assessment, etc.), learning4you (a collection of sites on conferences and courses), reading room (online magazines, journals and reports in the field of education) and technology toolbox (sites on instructional technology, e-learning and new technologies in the classroom.) You can browse by subject area by clicking on the top navigation bar or the “explore the space” box, or you can search by subject, keyword, type of info, etc. Take ‘er for a whirl and let us know if you’d like to see anything added or changed – it’s your space, faculty!

2.) new StatsCan interface
That venerable and trusty source for all things statistical, StatsCan has also had a facelift. The new site offers an improved search function, access to statistics by subject and more! Check out the new and improved side bar for ease of navigation, the lovely Statistics by Subject box in the lower right corner, and when you choose a subject, check out that nice, clean layout! Admit it – you’re excited!



3.) new look for netLibrary
NetLibrary, the massive collection of electronic books that you can access through the Library web site, TheBRAIN has also introduced a new look! My, it’s pretty! And in addition to the new look, there are loads of new features such as: spell checking (like Google’s “Did you mean…?”), ability to see related terms to narrow a search, ability to search and view results in a few other languages such as French, Spanish, Chinese, etc. To access netLibrary, click Find electronic books from TheBRAIN homepage, then, click netLibrary. Check ‘er out!

4.) new face for the EBSCOhost databases
Yes, everyone put on a shiny, new face this summer, including EBSCOhost! Check out the nice, new face on all of the EBSCOhost databases and be amazed by the vibrant colours and 3-D effects! And just in case you’ve forgotten – EBSCOhost is the provider of a wealth of online journal and magazine articles in a whole whack of subject areas (health, business, humanities, science, etc.) To access, click on the link Find articles from magazines and journals on TheBRAIN homepage!



The Library has purchased access to another EBSCOhost database: Scientific and Medical Art Image Database which is a collection of 10,000+ high quality illustrations and animations depicting anatomy, physiology, surgery, diseases, conditions, trauma, embryology, histology, and many other topics. You can download these images to use in your classroom and presentations! Coming soon to the Other Databases section of TheBRAIN!

6.) makeover for Choices Explorer
Choices Explorer, the career information resource that you can access on TheBRAIN has also received a makeover. After you sign in at the top right corner, you will see a Choices Explorer image on the next screen. Click that image and you’re off to the races. Remember, if you need the login, just get in touch with Library staff. To access Choices Explorer, click Databases from the blue navigation bar on TheBRAIN, then select Careers from the Subject dropdown menu.

7.)new podcasts from the Library!
This month, the Library launched TheBRAINcast: Podcasts from the Library @ Mohawk. Every two weeks, we will feature a unique audio segment about some exciting aspect of the Library @ Mohawk! Each segment will last approximately 5-10 minutes. We’ll feature tours of each campus Library, Library tips and tutorials, research guides and more! Check out the podcast information page, head right to the BRAINcast web site or download the first podcast here (requires QuickTime). This week, we feature a tour of the Library @ Fennell campus!

new instant help menu
Check out the colourful menu on TheBRAIN homepage to get to the information you need quickly and easily. From this flashing menu you can access the Library AskUs! page (which lists all the ways you can get help from the Library @ Mohawk), a BRAINtour (a five minute whirlwind tour of TheBRAIN in Flash, with audio), the tutorials page, the Library Frequently Asked Questions, and the Library catalogue – go to TheBRAIN homepage to find the instant help menu, click on the box of your choice and you’re there!