NEWS for WOMEN'S STUDIES FACULTY
News Items:
See also:
Palgrave Connect E-books
January 2012We have purchased a new e-book package from Palgrave Connect, a multidisciplinary collection of 2010-2011 online books. Among the relevant subject areas: Language & Linguistics, Political & International Studies, Religion & Philosophy, Social Sciences, Media & Culture. The good news is that the books can be downloaded without annoying interfaces and DRM restrictions, and some can be used with e-readers. The less-great news is that books published in late 2011 onwards are not necessarily available in the collection, and these cannot be individually added. We would have to buy them in print or wait a year for the next package. The titles we purchased will be gradually making their way into CLUES, but for now you will still need to visit the Palgrave Connect site to browse the content.
Concordia Open Access Author Fund
December 2011The Libraries and the Office of Research have established a fund to support Concordia authors publishing peer-reviewed journal articles in open access journals which charge author processing fees. Find out more about it or contact Annie Murray to ask questions.
TRIAL: Films on Demand
December 2011Films On Demand, a multidisciplinary collection of over 6,000 streaming videos, is on trial at Concordia Libraries until December 20, 2011. I invite your feedback on both the online product and individual film titles.
E-books worth trying
November 2011If you have ever been frustrated by the clunky interface of many of the e-books available through CLUES, join the crowd. Two newer e-book collections - one on trial and the other an ongoing subscription - may be worth checking out, however, for their download-friendly options and more:
- Palgrave Connect: trial ended November 22:
7500 Palgrave Macmillan PDF ebooks, subject collections include Media & Culture, Social Sciences, Political & International Studies, Language & Linguistics. The 2011 Subject Collections are available in iPad-compatible EPUB format. - Springer E-books Collection
Searches automatically default to all formats, but books and book chapters can easily be isolated via the Content Type filter. An added bonus for those who enjoy owning books: click on the BUY A PRINT COPY option when viewing a chapter or book entry, and have a copy delivered to your door for about $25.00.
New ways of searching for videos
The Recent Videos list has been updated, and now includes new quick-search and subject browsing features.
New Subscription to HeinOnline
We now have a subscription to HeinOnline Law Journal Library, a resource much-requested in connection with the new Law & Society program.
Human Library event
In case you missed the What's New annoucement on our main page, take a look at the Human Library event planned for September 17.
New Material at the Libraries
April & May 2011
- On a trial basis until May 29,
Filmakers Library Online,
a streaming video collection of documentaries and independent films.
- The Recent Videos of Interest
list has just been updated with many new titles. All but one of the newest videos come with Public Peformance Rights for worry-free
classroom viewing.
- Three Development Fund Requests for material in subject areas of interest have recently been approved:
International Women's Issues; Sexuality Studies; Law, Society & Human Rights.
Approximately 280 additional books and videos in these areas will be purchased over the next few months.
Contact me if you
are interested in knowing more about specific titles.
- Our new journal subscription request for Feminist Review, approved last year, is now active. Additional new journals in sociology and anthropology might also me of interest.
FYI: trial and video license agreement
February 2011
Some general library happenings that might be of interest:
- A trial of International Studies Encyclopedia Online has begun and will continue until February 23, 2011
- Concordia has signed a public performance license agreement with AudioCine. This will allow more feature films to be shown in classrooms.
New Video List Updated
November 2010
Starting to think about videos to show in your class next semester? Take a look at the updated Recent Videos list to see what has just been ordered, or to search for what is available Concordia-wide. All but one of the new library videos come with Public Peformance Rights.
Trial of Hein Online Law Database
October 2010
HeinOnline is a collection of resources on legal history, law, and law-related journals.
Our trial continues until October 31, 2010 and is is being organized in the context of the new Concordia minors in Law & Society and Human Rights Studies as well as the Cross-Disciplinary Research Current in Law & Society.
The HeinOnline trial collection consists of the following resources:
- Law Journal Library: Law and law-related periodicals. Coverage is from the first issue published
for all periodicals and goes through the most-currently published issues allowed based on contracts with publishers.
- English Reports: More than 100,000 of the early English cases that laid the
foundation for the laws of nations under the British Empire and influenced the development of laws across many lands.
- Foreign & International Law Resources Database: International law publications, including publications of the
American Society of International Law, international law yearbooks, Hague Permanent Court of International Justice series
and more.
- World Constitutions Illustrated: Still under development. Includes the current constitution for every country in
its original language format and an English translation, as well as substantial constitutional histories of the United
Kingdom, France, Brazil and Colombia, among others.
- Harvard Research in International Law: Includes both the actual Harvard Research in International Law
(originally published in the American Journal of International Law between 1929 and 1939) and Contemporary Analysis and
Appraisal.
Please send me your comments and questions about this resource.
Locating Videos at Concordia
September 2010
Locating videos at Concordia to show in your classes or to recommend to students is currently still not a one-stop affair.
Here are your current main options:- See my Recent Videos guide to browse new video lists and to find videos via the resources described below. There are also links there to video booking forms and more.
- Search our catalogue, CLUES. Use this help guide to find out how.
- Search the Visual Media Resources catalogue. You can also contact VMR directly.
- For ethnographic films also search Ethnographic Video Online.
- Contact me for help with any or all of this.
Also feel free to send me your suggestions and requests. Note that requests should be made about one term in advance.
More Journals on EBSCO
September 2010
Our selection of databases on the EBSCO platform has significantly expanded. Academic Search Premier, a multidisciplinary database familiar to many of you and your students, has become Academic Search Complete, with approximately 3000 more journals included. Additions of interest might include Women's Studies Journal from New Zealand, Bitch magazine (fulltext online!) and thirdspace (Open Access journal, but not widely indexed). Unfortunately, however, many other titles come with 12-month embargoes on full text.
We have also acquired some entirely new databases on the EBSCO platform, including:
- SOCIndex (Sociological Abstracts' main competitor)
- MEDLINE (an alternative for those who like the content of PubMed but not the interface)
TIP/REMINDER:
If you would like to see the entire selection of EBSCO databases or search a few of them at once,
just start with any EBSCO database such as
Academic Search Complete, and once connected click on the "Choose Databases"
link at the top of the search screen:
you can then select as many databases as you would like.
Ethnographic Video Online
September 2010
This summer we acquired Ethnographic Video Online, a digitized collection of ethnographic films. The collection is still growing, but should include 1,000 film titles by the time it is completed. You can search for films by title, ethnographer, cultural group, location, subject and more, or simply browse the collection.
There should be plenty of material to critique from a postcolonial perspective, as well as some selections, such as those from filmmakers Melissa Llelewyn-Davies and Trinh Minh-ha (promised but not yet online), which could easily spark lively classroom conversations. There are not very many recent titles, so simply browsing the entire collection by most recent date could be useful. Feel free to contact me if you have questions about current or future content.
Note that the list of Recent Videos Orders has also been recently updated.
LibX Concordia for power searchers
August 2010
The LibX Concordia browser extension might be of interest if you do lots of research on the web from home while trying to keep easy tabs on Concordia collections and subscriptions, or if you are interested in Google Scholar search shortcuts. Opinions on LibX range from "wonderfully useful" to "an unwanted extra layer of confusion".
If you would like to try it out, your feedback both pro and con would be appreciated. I would also be very interested to know whether you use the Concordia VPN to connect to Concordia resources from home, in which case some of the LibX features become less relevant.
Spectrum deposit workshops
A workshop on depositing articles in Spectrum, Concordia's new institutional depository, will be offered at Webster Library on October 9.
- Read the workshop invitation
- Find out more about Spectrum
- Find out more about Open Access.
