What’s New

Four More Programs Begin Contributing Theses and Dissertations Online

Four programs recently joined the OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center and began contributing theses and dissertations online. The four newest ETD Center members are: John Carroll University, the Ohio University Honors Tutorial College, the University of Toledo's honors program, and Walsh University’s honor’s program.

There are now 30 programs, from 23 member institutions, participating in the OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center. The ETD Center is a free, online database of more than 19,700 graduate theses and dissertations and undergraduate honors theses from students at participating Ohio colleges and universities. For more information about the OhioLINK ETD Center, visit the frequently asked questions page.

Some Database Cancellations and Changes Coming July 1

Beginning July 1, several OhioLINK databases will no longer be available. The affected databases are funded through the combination of an Institute of Museum and Library Services LSTA grant awarded by the State Library of Ohio and the state appropriations of the Libraries Connect Ohio (LCO) partners, and are available to all Ohioans. LCO is a collaborative effort of OhioLINK, OPLIN, INFOhio, and the State Library of Ohio. Libraries Connect Ohio is constantly striving to provide the strongest portfolio of research resources possible within budgetary limitations to serve the diverse lifelong learning needs of all Ohioans.

The following databases will be modified or no longer be available as of July 1:

• Consumer Health Complete (EBSCO) – Try Health Source Consumer Edition instead.
• America's News Magazines (NewsBank) – Search for magazines in the E-Journal Finder instead.
• America's Newspapers (NewsBank) – State and national papers will no longer be available, except for four major statewide newspapers -- the Columbus Dispatch, the Cleveland Plain Dealer, the Toledo Blade, and the Dayton Daily News (as well as archives of the Cincinnati Post). This package is being funded by the Ohio Public Library Information Network (OPLIN). If state budget developments reduce the OPLIN budget to the point where OPLIN cannot afford this newspaper package, then it will be discontinued before the fall term. For other newspaper coverage, try LexisNexis Academic and Newspaper Source instead.

Got Research Questions? Get Answers Online from a Librarian! (Even During Summer)

Taking classes this summer? Tackling a paper or research project? Whatever the reason, sometimes you really need help from an information expert. When you have research questions, turn to the research experts, your librarians!

Save time and frustration, chat online with a librarian!
Even during the summer you can depend on KnowItNow Academic to get live online help with any and all research questions from a librarian at a participating OhioLINK library. KnowItNow Academic is available to students, staff and faculty members at OhioLINK member institutions. Summer 2009 hours: Mondays through Wednesday, from 11 a.m. to 9 p.m.; Thursdays; from 11 a.m. to 7 p.m.; and Fridays, from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m.

Outside of these hours, or if academic librarians are not available, you can get online help with your research questions from public librarians using the regular KnowItNow service.

When you use KnowItNow Academic you may be helped by an academic librarian from another OhioLINK library than your own. If you prefer to talk to a librarian at your library, please contact your library directly.

More About KnowItNow
KnowItNow is a live online information service provided free of charge for the citizens of Ohio by the State Library of Ohio and your local public library. Professional librarians are available 24 hours a day, seven days a week to answer your reference questions and assist you in finding information. KnowItNow is made available free of charge to all residents of Ohio through a federal Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS) grant awarded by the State Library of Ohio.

Maintenance Alert: Quick Search May Be Unavailable During Maintenance, June 12, 12-4 AM

OhioLINK staff will be performing planned maintenance on the machines that run Quick Search @ OhioLINK on Friday, June 12, from 12-4 a.m. Quick Search may be unavailable or not fully-functioning during this time.

Other services that rely on Quick Search will also be affected during the maintenance period, including:

• the search options on the OhioLINK home page,
• the all EBC Collections search in the OhioLINK E-Book Center, and
• Quick Search boxes on local library Web sites.

Heading Home for the Summer? Don't Forget About OhioLINK!

Ah summer, time to hit the beach, travel to parts unknown, and grab every possible minute of sunshine. But if your summer plans also include doing research, please remember that you can have your OhioLINK books and other library materials delivered to any participating library, including two public libraries, Cuyahoga County Public Library and Westerville Public Library. Here's how: 1. Request an item from the OhioLINK Library Catalog. 2. Select your institution. Enter your name and ID. 3. Select a pickup institution (any participating library of your choice) from the list. 4. Select a pickup location at the pickup institution. You'll need to take your library card and a picture ID (for some people these are one and the same) with you when you pick up your requested materials. OhioLINK materials can also be returned to any participating library.

And whether you're leaving the state this summer or not, you still have millions of articles, 55,000+ e-books, 3,000 digital videos, online practice tests and much more available to you anytime, anywhere from OhioLINK and your library. All you need is your name and ID information to access OhioLINK online.

About the image: Little Girl at the Beach, a photograph by Ernst Niebergall, is part of the Lake Erie's Yesterdays collection. The collection is available in the OhioLINK Digital Media Center.

Maintenance alert: ETD Center, OLinks and more unavailable for maintenance, June 5, 12-1AM

Several OhioLINK resources and services, including the ETD Center, OLinks, E-Journal Finder, and OhioLINK EZProxy, will be unavailable while planned maintenance is performed on Friday, June 5, from 12-1 a.m. The following services and resources will be affected:

• the E-Journal Finder
• MyEJC
• Electronic Theses and Dissertations database (search/retrieval and submissions)
• EZProxy, which provides remote access to databases and resource not hosted at OhioLINK (e.g. you will be able to access the EJC during this time, but not EBSCOhost databases)
• the List of OhioLINK Databases, including By Subject, By Type and By Name or Title. The OSearch databases themselves will still be available if you link to them directly.
• member library contact information
• OLinks, OhioLINK’s linking service

New Interfaces for Scholarly & Reference and Literature E-Book Collections

A newly upgraded version of the OhioLINK Electronic Book Center software will go live on Monday, June 1, 2009. This process involves a DNS change which may take up to 24 hours to been seen by everyone.

While the main OhioLINK E-Book Center page found at http://ebooks.ohiolink.edu will not change, the upgrade allows for several improvements to the software that runs the Scholarly & Reference and American & English Literature Collections, including:

• The ability to narrow search results by subject (Scholarly & Reference Books Collection only) and date (both collections)
• The ability to limit advanced searches by a date range or single year
• Improved navigation and browse capabilities
• Persistent links for individual books
• The ability to e-mail title, date and URL of saved records

10 Most Popular Digital Videos of 2008

OhioLINK's Digital Video Collection offers more than 2,300 digital, educational videos that you can stream or download from your desktop to show in class, link to from course pages and utilize for research. These videos can help you learn more about a particular subject, future career or foreign language. The 10 most popular Digital Video Collection videos in 2008 were:

1.) Impressing their Friends (Triumph of the Nerds series)
It happened more or less by accident; the people who made it happen were amateurs; and for the most part they still are. From his own Silicon Valley garage, author Bob Cringely puts PC bigshots and nerds on the spot, and tells their incredible true stories. Like the industry itself, the series is informative, funny and brash. Bob Cringely, Silicon Valley and some spectacularly successful nerds. Intel. The Altair 8800 and the Homebrew Computer Club. Enter Paul Allen and Bill Gates. The West Coast Computer Fair and hippie culture collides with nerds and hobbyists. Steve Wozniak spawns Apple II. Steve Jobs,at 25, worth $100 million. The imminent arrival of IBM. Computer nerds impressing their friends. (2002, 51 minutes)

2.) Sir Edward Evans-Pritchard: Strange Beliefs (Strangers Abroad series)
Edward Evans-Pritchard was the first trained anthropologist to do work in Africa, where he lived among the Azande and studied their belief in witchcraft. Later, he worked with the Nuer tribe in the Sudan. His work on witchcraft caused philosophers to ask how rational thinking could be defined; his study of tribal organization intrigued political theorists; his attention to the sophisticated religious sentiments of so-called primitive peoples has strongly influenced theologians. (2000, 52 minutes)

3.) The Common School: 1770-1980 (School: the Story of American Education series)
In the aftermath of the Revolution, a newly independent America confronted one of its most daunting challenges: how to build a united nation out of thirteen disparate colonies. This program profiles the passionate crusade launched by Thomas Jefferson and continued by Noah Webster, Horace Mann, and others to create a common system of tax-supported schools that would mix people of different backgrounds and reinforce the bonds of democracy. A wealth of research illustrates how this noble experiment--the foundation of the young republic--was a radical idea opposed from the start by racial prejudice and fears of taxation. (2000, 55 minutes)

4.) Franz Boas: The Shackles of Tradition (Strangers Abroad series)
Franz Boas was the first distinguished social scientist in the United States to challenge the prevailing concept of racial inferiority. He actively campaigned on behalf of black people in America in the early part of the 20th century. Considered the founding father of American anthropology, Boas taught at Columbia University for fifty years, encouraging his students to follow his example by actually working in the field. Among those who did so was Margaret Mead. (2000, 52 minutes)

5.) Do You Speak American? Up North (Do You Speak American? series)
In this program, Robert MacNeil canvasses the North to learn firsthand about linguistic dialect zones, the tension between prescriptivism and descriptivism, the impact of dialect on grapholect, the northern cities vowel shift, the roots of African-American English, minority dialects and linguistic profiling, biases against nonstandard speech, and the general perception of the U.S. Midland dialect as "normal American." Hip-hop street talk, IM slang, Pittsburghese, and Gullah and Geechee are sampled, and Bill Labov, the dean of American linguists; Jesse Sheidlower, American editor of the august OED; and New York magazine's John Simon are featured. Some language may be offensive. (2005, 60 minutes)

6.) Genocide in the First Half of the 20th Century (Genocide Factor series)
Continues the examination of the history of genocide. (2001, 51 minutes)

7.) The Afar Tribe: A Bride's Story (The Last Warriors series)
This program provides an introduction to the Afar by recording two major life events: the arranged marriage of a most reluctant bride and the initiation of a nervous would-be warrior. Can Fatuma, daughter of the clan chief, steel herself to marry her first cousin Ali, or will she seek escape--perhaps through suicide? And will Mohammed be able to retain his stoic poise during his ritual circumcision? The Afar belief system, a blend of Islam and ancient traditions that underpins these crucial events, is explored. (2000, 54 minutes)

8.) Do You Speak American? Down South (Do You Speak American? series)
This program follows Robert MacNeil down the Ohio and Mississippi Rivers to Appalachia, Louisiana Cajun country, and the Tex-Mex border to examine Southern dialects and accents and the influences of French and Spanish on American English. Linguist Walt Wolfram, columnist Molly Ivins, pop country singer Cody James, and others talk about regional differences in vernacular, the steady displacement of Southern coastal dialect by inland dialect, the accents of JFK and LBJ, and the Texas border town of El Cenizo, where Spanish is the official language. Recordings of Eudora Welty and Appalachian storyteller Ray Hicks are included, as well as WPA recordings from around 1940. (2005, 60 minutes)

9.) Spinal Nerve Surgery (Surgical Procedures, Part 3 series)
In this program, a two-year-old with cerebral palsy receives spinal nerve surgery that will improve her ability to sit, stand, and crawl. The operation consists of opening the spine, then locating and testing the nerves for response. The procedure, performed on palsy victims and people with traumatic brain injuries, is generally done on children for maximum results. The surgeon performing the operation, Karen Muraszko of the University of Michigan Medical Center, suffers from spina bifida, and is one of fewer than 100 female neurosurgeons in the United States. (1996, 47 minutes)

10.) Bronislaw Malinowski: Off the Veranda (Strangers Abroad series)
Bronislaw Malinowski changed the way that field studies were carried out. He worked on a remote group of Pacific islands--the Trobriands--and lived for long periods among the people he was studying. A brilliant linguist, he quickly learned their language and later published books which brought the islanders to life. The idea that native peoples were primitive savages was altered for good with Malinowski's insight into their mastery of their world. (2000, 52 minutes)

Intermittent Catalog Keyword Search Problems Fixed

We believe we've fixed the cause of the intermittent problems with the keyword search function of the OhioLINK Library Catalog. Keyword and all other searches are again responding normally. If you experience any problems searching the catalog, please let us know at info@ohiolink.edu. Thank you.

Improved, Flash-Based Computer Skills Tutorials Now Available from LearningExpress

Looking for some tips and help in using Microsoft Word, Excel, Outlook, or other popular software programs? Get free, online help with new flash-based computer skills tutorials from LearningExpress Library.

The updated computer skills tutorials:

• Run on any platform supporting Adobe Flash 8 or higher
• Do not require any installation of additional proprietary plug-ins
• Are easier to use with increased functionality
• Contain training videos and animation with both audio and full text captioning
• Discussions, demos, quizzes, and assessments to track and monitor progress
• Interactive Practice Labs allow users to apply what they have learned
• Now include Microsoft Office applications tutorials for Macintosh computers

It’s easy to try the new computer skills tutorials. Just visit LearningExpress, log in or create an account if this is your first visit, and click on the Computer Skills Learning Center in the left-hand navigation menu to see the list of available tutorials.

Updated LearningExpress Library computer skills tutorials available on May 4, 2009:

• Word 2007-Basic, Intermediate & Advanced
• Word 2003-Basic & Advanced
• Word 2008-Basic & Advanced
• Excel 2007-Basic, Intermediate & Advanced
• Excel 2003-Basic & Advanced
• Excel 2008-Basic & Advanced
• PowerPoint 2007-Basic & Advanced
• PowerPoint 2003
• PowerPoint 2008-Basic & Advanced
• Access 2007-Basic, Intermediate & Advanced
• Access 2003-Basic & Advanced
• Outlook 2007-Basic, Intermediate & Advanced
• Outlook 2003-Basic & Advanced
• COREL WordPerfect X3-Basic & Advanced
• Windows XP-Basic & Advanced
• Vista Business-Basic & Advanced
• Mac OSX Leopard Desktop

LearningExpress Library is available to all OhioLINK users and all Ohioans as part of the Ohio Web Library.

Related posts:

• Getting Ready for a Big Test? Job Hunting? Get Prepared and Practice Online with LearningExpress
• Can't Find the Manual? Try Our Tech E-Books!