As participants in the JISC Observatory project – which makes a collection of electronic book titles, from two publishers, freely available to universities – we have been asked to publicise a survey on the use of E-books. There are links to the survey on the E-Books page (a sub-menu of Electronic Resources) and at the top of the catalogue’s front page, just above the search box. Please encourage all users, students and staff, to fill in the questionnaire (which only takes ten minutes, and is very simple, compared with many surveys).
Archive for January, 2008
The Oxford Dictionary of National Biography – under threat of cancellation because of lacklustre usage figures – has won a reprieve thanks to the support of librarians. We’ve now signed up for the new JISC agreement and access runs until June 2011. Here’s what the Oxford DNB has to offer…
The stories of over 50,000 people who shaped the history of the British Isles and beyond, from the earliest times to those who died in the year 2000. Over 10,000 portrait illustrations – everything from coins and death masks to photographs by Cecil Beaton and Man Ray. The online edition also offers access to the complete text of the first 33-volume Dictionary of National Biography. An expanding range of themed articles. Please let us know if you want promotional brochures or posters.
Formerly known as Xrefer, Credo Reference is an online reference library, which offers access to the full text of over 270 reference titles from 57 publishers. New content has recently been added to Credo Reference, with 75 new and updated titles released since June 2006. New features and functionality has also been added to Credo, including the “Did you mean?” suggestions, which offer improved fuzzy searching, unique cross-references, MARC records with new 13-digit ISBNs, dynamic statistics tables and COUNTER compliant usage statistics for cost-usage analysis. Animations and sound clips have recently been added as well as the ability to customise the resource. Subject coverage includes art, biography, business, economics, food, geography, history, language, literature, music, philosophy, religion, science, technology, medicine, law, psychology and social sciences. Further details can be found here.
Happy New Year from the Electronic Resources team, and why not start it by immortalising yourself in the world of Learning and Information Services…the competition is still open to name our incoming federated search system. Entries to electronicresources@wlv.ac.uk
