TRIAL: British Online Archives

We have a trial of British Online Archives until 2nd November 2011.

To access this trial go to http://www.britishonlinearchives.co.uk/. For off-campus access use Apps Anywhere (IE8 or IE9 in the Web or Office folders). If we subscribe we will arrange access through EZproxy as normal.

Specialising in the Humanities and Social Sciences, British Online Archives offers a growing series of rich and diverse digitized archives for academic research and both undergraduate and postgraduate study.

You can browse an alphabetical list of collections, or browse by subject.

Some highlights include:

• Liverpool street and trade directories, 1766-1900
• Parliamentary Labour Party papers, 1968/69-1993/94
• Records relating to the slave trade at the Liverpool Record Office
• The British Union of Fascists : newspapers and secret files

The trial also includes the Communist Party of Great Britain archive.

After trying these archives please leave your comments below specifying which collection(s) you are referring to. You can choose the anonymous option to comment without needing to have a Blogger account, but it helps if you include your name in your feedback so that we can follow up on comments.

RefWorks 2.0 now available

RefWorks, the Web-based package for managing your references and producing bibliographies, has updated its interface to RefWorks 2.0. You will see the change when you login to http://www.refworks.com/refworks. (If you are accessing RefWorks from off campus, you will need our Group Code (https://www.liv.ac.uk/library/local_html/refworks-group-code.htm)

The change is just to the interface, so if you have used RefWorks before, all your data is still there. In fact if you don't want to change interface just yet, you can still use 'RefWorks Classic' by clicking the link on the login page. Switching back and forth between interfaces does not affect any data. Write-N-Cite (the RefWorks plug-in for Word) still has the Classic interface, but it works seamlessly with RefWorks 2.0 and will be updated later this year.

The Library has produced a new guide to RefWorks, http://www.liv.ac.uk/library/research/RefWorksConciseGuide.pdf, which we will use in our training sessions later this term.

There is plenty of online help from RefWorks at http://www.refworks-cos.com/training, including a video to help current RefWorks users navigate the new interface: http://www.refworks-cos.com/refworks/rwpreview/RefWorks_New_UI_demo.htm

For more help using RefWorks, contact your Liaison Librarian http://www.liv.ac.uk/library/help/subject-contacts.html

TRIAL: Accessible Archives - extended!

Our trial of Accessible Archives has been extended until 31st October 2011.

To access this trial go to http://www.accessible.com/. For off-campus access use Apps Anywhere (IE8 or IE9 in the Web or Office folders). If we subscribe we will arrange access through EZproxy as normal.

Developed by instructors and students of American history, Accessible Archives' databases contain the rich, comprehensive material found in leading historic periodicals and books. Eyewitness accounts of historical events, vivid descriptions of daily life, editorial observations, commerce as seen through advertisements, and genealogical records are available in a user-friendly online environment.

For full details of the Accessible Archives collections and their constituent parts, see http://www.accessible.com/accessible/archives.jsp.

After trying these databases please leave your comments below specifying which collection(s) and/or part(s) you are referring to. You can choose the anonymous option to comment without needing to have a Blogger account, but it helps if you include your name in your feedback so that we can follow up on comments.

TRIAL: Rock's Backpages

We have a trial of Rock's Backpages until 10th October 2011.

To access this trial go to http://www.rocksbackpages.com/. For off-campus access use Apps Anywhere (IE8 or IE9 in the Web or Office folders). If we subscribe we will arrange access through EZproxy as normal.

Rock's Backpages is the biggest online database of rock music writing in the world. Sourced from the pages of the music and mainstream press, it is a massive library of articles (reviews, interviews, features and more) from the early 1960s up to the present day.

There are nearly 20,000 articles on the site and around 300 audio interviews. They feature over 2,500 artists and range from 500-word album (or concert) reviews to 10,000-word interviews and features. The articles are full text and fully searchable (by artist, date, genre, keyword etc.).They are taken from the widest possible range of publications in the US and UK: from Creem and Trouser Press to Rolling Stone, and from New Musical Express and Melody Maker to MOJO.

The library includes previously unpublished pieces about The Beatles (by Michael Lydon in 1966), The Doors (by Lester Bangs in 1975), and seminal interviews with major artists from Bob Dylan to Radiohead.
The library is currently increasing in size by approximately 50 new articles a week.

All the material in the database is presented with the full agreement and permission of the copyright holders – freelance writers and journalists – or of their estates, and the vast majority of this material is exclusive to Rock’s Backpages for online distribution.

After trying Rock's Backpages please leave your comments below. You can choose the anonymous option to comment without needing to have a Blogger account, but it helps if you include your name in your feedback so that we can follow up on comments.

TRIAL: American Antiquarian Society (AAS) Historical Periodicals Collections

We have a trial of the four currently-available American Antiquarian Society (AAS) Historical Periodicals Collections on the EBSCOhost platform until 26th October 2011 .

To access these databases use the links below (which will prompt you for EZproxy login off-campus):

Series 1 (1691-1820)

Series 2 (1821-1837)

Series 3 (1838-1852)

Series 4 (1853-1865).

or search all 4 series combined.

To browse the titles included in these collections, click on the Publications link at the top of the EBSCO screens.

These collections are also temporarily included in DISCOVER: Humanities (but not in DISCOVER: all subjects).

After trying these databases please leave your comments below specifying which collection(s) you are referring to. You can choose the anonymous option to comment without needing to have a Blogger account, but it helps if you include your name in your feedback so that we can follow up on comments.

Oxford Scholarship Online - announcing important new changes

Oxford Scholarship Online (OSO), the eBooks platform from Oxford University Press, has been relaunched with new content, features, and functionality.

The most noticeable change is that each chapter is now provided as a single web page, and there is the option to print the whole chapter as a PDF file. Note however, that the PDF file does not render the book exactly as it appears in print, but rather provides you with the content of the chapter as it appears on screen.

The previous version of the platform rendered books 5 pages at a time, so printing a chapter was cumbersome.

The new platform also offers:

• a new look and feel that allows you to navigate directly to the most relevant content and features
• new personalization features: create links to favourite books, chapters, and searches to cut down on research time
• new options to create bookmarks in social networking sites

Note that we only have access to some titles on OSO. If you use the Browse by Subject feature on OSO, each subject is broken down into titles with 'Full Text' access and those with 'Abstract Only' access. And of course all our purchased titles are listed in the library catalogue and Discover.

TRIAL: eHRAF Archaeology and World Cultures databases

We have a trial of the eHRAF Archaeology and World Cultures databases until 31st December 2011. The eHRAF databases are produced by the Human Relations Area Files, Inc. (HRAF) at Yale University. The mission of HRAF, a non-profit consortium of universities and colleges, is to encourage and facilitate worldwide and other comparative studies of human behavior, society, and culture.

eHRAF Archaeology is a cross-cultural database containing information on prehistory. This unique, annually-growing eHRAF database is organized by archaeological traditions and the full-text documents are subject-indexed to the paragraph level. Access eHRAF Archaeology (requires EZproxy login off-campus).

eHRAF World Cultures is a cross-cultural database that contains information on all aspects of cultural and social life. The annually-growing eHRAF database is unique in that the information is organized by cultures and ethnic groups and the full-text documents are subject-indexed at the paragraph level. Access eHRAF World Cultures (requires EZproxy login off-campus).

To get the most out of eHRAF see the Quick User's Guide.

After trying these databases please leave your comments below specifying which product(s) you are referring to. You can choose the anonymous option to comment without needing to have a Blogger account, but it helps if you include your name in your feedback so that we can follow up on comments.

Farewell OCLC databases

We have decided not to renew our subscription to a bundle of databases on the OCLC FirstSearch platform (these were the former RLG Eureka databases):

Anthropology Plus
Chicano Database
FRANCIS
History of Science, Technology and Medicine
Index to 19th Century American Art Periodicals
Russian Academy of Sciences Bibliographies
SCIPIO: Art and Rare Book Sales Catalogs

Usage of these databases had always been low, but since we launched DISCOVER usage of these databases has dwindled almost to zero.

These databases have been removed from the catalogue and LibGuides.