I Want You to Know...

the Paul Bechtold Library is going green. Going green is the responsible thing to do; even the Pope says so. Paul Bechtold Library staff have been looking at ways to save natural resources. Effective immediately, we will stop printing due date slips—patrons can check their own record easily in the online catalog by clicking on the “My Account” tab at the top of the page. We will be happy to demonstrate this if you do not know how to find it! Also, we will no longer be providing printed lists of items on reserve for specific courses. This information is also easily available by clicking the tab, “Course Reserves” in the online catalog. Reserves can be searched by Instructor, Department, or Course.

Other paper forms (Interlibrary Loan requests, meeting room and AV equipment requests) will be transferred to electronic format over the next few months. We have already made substantial reductions in paper waste in the Cataloging Department by discontinuing printouts of cataloging information and cards for the shelf-list. The library responsibly discards its unused books by furnishing them to third world seminaries, as well as working with Better World Books, which sells and donates books for literacy programs.

The photocopier in the library is being reconfigured so that patrons may scan and email rather than print articles and books. We encourage users to use the blue recycling bins that are located in the Copy Room and near the computers in the back of the library.

Please see Melody McMahon, Library Director, if you have questions, comments or other suggestions for preserving resources.

I Want You to Know...

Late yesterday, the Illinois State Library announced that budget cuts have forced them to discontinue their subsidized subscriptions to Periodical Abstracts and Wilson Select Plus effective immediately. CARLI is trying to make subscriptions to these databases available at a cost-effective rate, but until further notice we no longer have these databases available.

I Want You to Know...

that we have reconfigured the study furniture in the library. The facilities survey told us several things: you want it to seem less crowded, you want quiet, comfy reading areas, you didn't want to see the study carrels when looking up from the atrium. We listened; we'd like for you to come see the results and give us more feedback.

I Want You to Know...

that EBSCOhost2.0 is coming soon. It will offer much more functionality, especially while viewing images, using the citation manager and with personal folders. It also has a cleaner look. If you want a preview, use the 'New Features' function at the top of the EBSCOhost page. Feel free to stop in to see me if you'd like some help on using the more advanced features of EBSCOhost (like searching multiple databases together or setting up search alerts).

I Want You to Know...

that we now have Origins online. This allows for keyword searchability of the documents that are covered in the print version. Please let me know if you need help with this resource.

I Want You to Know...

ATLASerials and CPLI do not have much overlap. American Theological Library Association and Catholic Library Association (the people that create CPLI) have an agreement that they will not index the same journals, so only the few that were duplicated in the past are in both. ATLASerials indexes only a handful of Catholic journals, so if you are trying to do a comprehensive search or one that provides a Catholic viewpoint, you should search both databases. You can search both databases at the same time! Ask me how!

...how you can ask me about ATLA Serials and CPLI (or any other reference or research question you have). Email, phone, make an appointment, stop by on a whim, leave a comment on this blog, and possibly by end of summer, IM.

Electronic Reference Works

The big improvement to library resources this week is the access to lots of major reference works through the library webpage. Go to Find Books and look at the lists under Gale Virtual Reference Library, Oxford Digital Reference Shelf and Oxford Reference Online Premium. Now you have online access to the New Catholic Encyclopedia, Encyclopedia of Religion, Encyclopedia of Islam and the Muslim World, Encyclopedia of Bioethics, Encyclopedia of Latin American History and Culture and twelve other major Gale encyclopedias. You can click on any reference book listed and do a search of all the works at once. If you want to only search in that particular work, make sure you click the box, "within this publication." Note that there are basic search and advanced search capabilities.

Oxford Reference Online Premium puts an entire reference collection at your desk. Browse the subject areas to see what all is available. A few of the religion titles included are Oxford Dictionary of the Popes, Oxford Dictionary of Saints, A Dictionary of Buddhism. You can search the entire database at once, or just a single title. The Oxford Digital Reference Shelf is a separate component of more major reference works published by Oxford, but they are also searchable in the Oxford Reference Online Premium.