USU LiBlog

Religion is dominating today’s headlines like no other time in modern history. Whether the issue is sectarian violence, stem cell research, or political elections, religion plays a critical role. But what is the story behind the headlines? The Britannica Encyclopedia of World Religions gets to the heart of the matter by providing a deeper understanding of the religions that shape our world.

Prepared by the editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica and Merriam-Webster, with the assistance of hundreds of scholars and experts, this authoritative, comprehensive, and up-to-date book answers your questions as well as exposes you to the concepts, movements, people, and events associated with living and ancient religions, including Islam, Judaism, Christianity, Hinduism, and Buddhism.

Britannica Encyclopedia of World Religions will be available with free, unlimited access July 1-31, 2008.

The Merrill-Cazier Library has recently purchased 100 engineering titles on the Morgan & Claypool Synthesis platform. Synthesis includes brief titles (called lectures) on significant research and development topics relating to engineering and computer science and authored by prominent contributors to the field. Titles should be searchable in the online catalog in the near future, but you can also access the database from the e-books page of our website.

Based on her lauded commencement address at Sarah Lawrence College, this stirring essay by bestselling author Ann Patchett offers hope and inspiration for anyone at a crossroads, whether graduating, changing careers, or transitioning from one life stage to another. With wit and candor, Patchett tells her own story of attending college, graduating, and struggling with the inevitable question, What now? Free and unlimited access through June 30, 2008. Read the rest of this entry »

• The Phillips Collection is now represented in ARTstor with over 1,000 images of Modern and Contemporary art from around the world.
• The Council of Independent Colleges and ARTstor announce that the Historic Campus Architecture Project is now available through ARTstor.
• The ARTstor Digital Library now includes 300 additional Quick Time Virtual Reality (QTVR) panoramas from the Visual Media Center, Department of Art History and Archaeology, Columbia University. QTVR enables faculty and students to complement traditional side-by-side image comparisons with a mode of representation based on space and context. This addition brings the total number of QTVR files available through ARTstor to over 1,200.
• ARTstor and The Metropolitan Museum of Art have added over 1,700 images to Images for Academic Publishing (IAP). IAP allows scholars to download and use, free of charge, high-resolution digital images for academic publications.
• ARTstor has released an additional 4,200 images from the Larry Qualls Archive, bringing the total number available to ARTstor users to approximately 29,500. Images from the Larry Qualls Archive document contemporary art exhibitions at galleries and other exhibition spaces throughout New York City and elsewhere.
• Approximately 4,000 additional images were added to the Islamic Art and Architecture collection in the Digital Library. This latest release focuses on textiles and manuscripts from Turkey and brings the total number of images in this collection to over 18,700.

Just as a reminder, the library cafe is open 8-5 weekdays during the summer. If you need a study or a work break, swing by and find a seat under one of the outdoor umbrellas!

George Soros has written a new book on the current financial crisis that will be available as the NetLibrary eBook of the Month selection for May. Print editions of this new work will not be released until May 19. George Soros speaks about the book here. The publisher, Perseus, describes the book:

In the midst of the most serious financial upheaval since the Great Depression, legendary financier George Soros explores the origins of the crisis and its implications for the future. Soros, whose breadth of experience in financial markets is unrivaled, places the current crisis in the context of decades of study of how individuals and institutions handle the boom and bust cycles that now dominate global economic activity. “This is the worst financial crisis since the 1930s,” writes Soros in characterizing the scale of financial distress spreading across Wall Street and other financial centers around the world. In a concise essay that combines practical insight with philosophical depth, Soros makes an invaluable contribution to our understanding of the great credit crisis and its implications for our nation and the world.

There will be a service upgrade to Web of Science/Science Citation Index on Sunday, April 20th, which will start at 8:00 Eastern Time. Thompson Scientific reports that there will be disruptions to Web of Science and EndNote Web throughout the day.

The Library will have a trial of three Adam Matthew Digital Collections through April 23rd:

* Eighteenth Century Journals Portal
* Empire Online
* Slavery, Abolition & Social Justice
* Victorian Popular Culture

Each collection module represents collections sourced from major archives and libraries around the world including the Newberry Library in Chicago, the Harry Ransom Humanities Research Center, the Bodleian Library, and the British Library. Don’t forget the off-campus access requires authentication.

Find short videos and step by step instructions for using library resources, including:
Finding E-Journals
Using Article Linker to Find Full-Text Papers
Setting Up An Account in the Online Catalog

Please contact your subject librarian if you have any questions!

The Merrill-Cazier Library has recently purchased access to the Oxford Scholarship Online Literature Collection. Covering topics from the 16th Century forward, this collection includes the full text of 53 titles published by Oxford University Press. Link to individual books or chapters or link out to additional electronic content from the bibliographies and footnotes. These titles will eventually be added to the online catalog, but for now, access the collection here (off-campus access requires authentication):

Oxford Scholarship Online, Literature