Comments Off on GenRef – BIP List for interdisciplinary referernce titles

By sneal, September 26, 2007 2:37 pm

Again, as a reminder from our Reference Team meeting last week, the list in BIP to place interdisciplinary reference titles is:  GenRef. 

Comments Off on Philosophy, Religion, & Culture from Cambridge University Press

By Scott Pfitzinger, September 24, 2007 9:59 am

A new database is available through the Butler Libraries, called Cambridge Companions to Philosophy, Religion, and Culture.

Cambridge University Press publishes many books in their “Companions” series, each on a specific topic. The Cambridge Companions series offers specially-commissioned
collections of essays which are intended to serve as reference works for an inter-disciplinary
audience of students and non-specialists.

Addressing topics and figures ranging from Plato through
Kant to Habermas, and philosophical movements such as the Scottish Enlightenment and German Idealism,
this online collection ehealth pharmacy contains over 900 downloadable essays taken from the Cambridge
Companions to Philosophy, Religion and Culture (more than 90 volumes).

Each volume also includes a substantial bibliography and other elements such as glossaries and timelines. You can browse the collection by Volume, by Chapter Title, and by Author.

Comments Off on Access Restored!

By Scott Pfitzinger, September 19, 2007 3:08 pm

For the last few days, our SFX service has been down. This has affected the FindIt button and Journals A-Z.

As of Wednesday, Sept. 19, all these services have been restored. We regret any inconvenience this may have caused.

Comments Off on Reference Team Meeting Minutes

By sneal, September 19, 2007 1:56 pm

Reference Team Meeting
Sept. 19, 2007

Present:  Dan Roose, Sheri Stormes, Teresa Williams, Scott (the Pirate) Pfitzinger, Sally Neal, Renee Reed

Topics covered:

• Head count for reference area – do we need to keep doing?
  Rachel Applegate studyGroup agreed to continue counting at the every half-hour – this helps with determining service hours.
  Sally N. will contact Rachel Applegate to inquire about where Rachel is at with her study, clarify what we are counting.
  For the time being (waiting for clarification from Rachel), count everyone in the east end of the building, including:
       Reference area
       Index area
       Reference music area
       119 (when open as a lab)
  Where to count printer issues within statistics – be sure to count these using the ‘Computer’ category.
• Looking at statistics for 9:30 – 10:00 pm vs. 9:30 – 10:00 pm reference transactions
  Statistics confirm that we need to be here until 10:00.
• Reference collection development – who oversees or is it a team effort?
  Dan reminded the group that it was agreed upon this past summer that liaisons would be responsible for reference collection development within their liaison areas.
  To handle interdisciplinary reference titles, librarians can add titles to the General Reference List in BIP.
  Sally N. will convene the Reference Team group a couple times a year to review the titles within the BIP General Reference List for purchase.
  Concerning non-print reference titles:
       Requests can come from individual librarians
       Will want to request trial – share this with librarians
       Lewis has to sign-off on for purchase
• Using the blog to communicate helpful reference information that we want to keep
  If it would be helpful to have a record of it, write it up on the staff blog; if it is fleeting information like, the printer is broken tonight, an e-mail will do.
  Remember to categorize reference blog posts under “Reference” for easy browseability (it’s an ‘Advanced’ option within the blog editor).
• How often to meet
  We will meet at least once a month in the fall, perhaps more infrequently in the spring semester.
  Concerning attendance, again, please know that all who work the desk are welcome and encouraged to attend, to be a part of our conversations and decisions; however, if you work few hours and have other pressing commitments, you can use your judgment concerning attendance.

Comments Off on Finding Cases in Lexis-Nexis

By bmatthie, September 13, 2007 2:39 pm

The old Lexis-Nexis had a nice box where you could input relevant pieces of a case citation. The new and improved version does not.

I had a student come to the desk with note that said: Texas v Johnson 491 V.(unreadable) 397 (1989)

The Legal tab was of no help. Nor was the Help. After talking to Dan for about 10 minutes we found this case by doing the following:

Go to “easy search”.

Type in “Texas vs. Johnson” and use the “s” in vs.

Select the legal box.

Leave year range to “Previous 2”

The  actual case is: Texas vs. Johnson, 491 US 397 (1989).

Now to test the Dan method I found Johnson v. Quarterman in Lexis and tried to search for it.

Usign the “vs.” I could not bring it up. However, if I used just “v.” it will appear in the list.

So, when students start coming to the reference desk for legal cases you’ll have to try both methods.

-Brad