Online Encylopedias for Specific Subjects January 29, 2008
Posted by Phoebe in : Cool tools, Database Tip, Tips for students , add a commentWe recently wrote about some all-encompassing online encyclopedias. But there are also some very useful encyclopedias on specific scholarly topics. Increasingly the standard print reference works in any given field are becoming available in keyword-searchable full text online. Here are some great ones:
Oxford Reference Online has excellent encyclopedias and dictionaries for fields from Art and Architecture to Science, and also includes foreign language and quotation dictionaries. Titles include The Oxford Classical Dictionary, A Dictionary of Food and Nutrition, and The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Politics. They even have a browser toolbar you can download and install allowing you to search their products.
AccessScience @ McGraw-Hill gives you keyword searchability of the McGraw-Hill Encyclopedia of Science and Technology as well as science biographies, yearbooks, and some news articles.
Blackwell Reference Online has especially strong collections in Business, History, Linguistics, Literature, and Philosophy.
Next in our tour of online reference works we’ll look at some specific titles. If you want an overview of the things we subscribe to, look in the Resource Finder under the subject heading Reference, and look for Encyclopedias and Dictionaries.
Online Encyclopedias: Wikipedia Alternatives January 7, 2008
Posted by Phoebe in : Database Tip, Research Help, Tips for students , 1 comment so farWhy an encyclopedia?
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Fast overview of a topic
Historical timeline & basic facts
Find out the right keywords for article searches
Find out the main issues in the field
Check for a list of suggested readings to start your real research
Which Encyclopedia?
Wikipedia has quickly become a go-to internet source when you need an encyclopedia. But there have been some concerns about its authority and objectivity, so it should be used cautiously. Use your critical thinking skills - if the article has footnotes, a list of further readings, and feels balanced, it is more likely to be comparable to what you would find in a more traditional encyclopedia. And Wikipedia can be a wonderful source of arcane information: when you really need a list of original air dates for episodes of The Brady Bunch, Wikipedia is the right source!
When your needs are less Florence Henderson-centric, there are other excellent encyclopedias available online. This post will cover the big general ones:
Encyclopedia Britannica online (available by Duke subscription) replicates the authoritative print version but adds web-only tools, including historical timelines and country comparisons.
Enciclopedia Universal en Espanol is also produced by Britannica, but in Spanish and with a focus on Spain and Latin America.
The Columbia Encyclopedia (6th Edition) is available via InfoPlease.com and Bartelby.com; this is a shorter, one-volume encyclopedia in its print version. Both sites also have various other dictionaries, thesauruses, and almanacs - as well as ads (InfoPlease’s interface is far more busy and annoying, IMO).
Browse the list of Reference resources here for more useful starting places for research - and watch this space for highlights of some excellent subject-specific encyclopedias online.
Holocaust Survivors Tell Their Stories November 9, 2007
Posted by Jennifer in : Cool tools, Database Tip , add a commentThe Shoah Foundation Visual History Archive is a remarkable database that contains full-length digital videos of Holocaust survivors and witnesses. This resource that Duke Libraries just recently purchased contains over 50,000 video testimonies.
To get to this database, just click on the database tab on the Duke Library homepage and type “Shoah” in the search box. Once at the site, you will be asked to create a free username and password in order to log-in.
Once you are logged in, you can search for interviews by keyword, a specific person, or by an experience group.
What will you find inside, you may ask?
- Extraordinary primary source material to use in your research.
- Full-length video interviews taken in 56 countries, in 32 languages!
- At the end of many interviews, personal photographs, documents, and artifacts from the interviewee’s family are displayed.
Have questions? Save time, Ask a Librarian!
Web Browser Search Plug-Ins October 22, 2007
Posted by Phoebe in : Cool tools, Database Tip , 3commentsOne of the comments on the LibX toolbar post asked about ways we could customize that toolbar to allow searches of specific databases, like JStor.
There is a way to search a database right from your web browser toolbar, using a customized search plugin. Most browsers come with options for searching Google, Yahoo or Amazon, but you can add options like WorldCat, the Oxford English Dictionary, and ProQuest.
We’ve set up a page collecting the plug-ins we’ve found or created here. If you don’t see a search plug-in for the database you want, contact Phoebe Acheson and ask for it. Not every database works with the plug-in generator we’re using, but many do.
New Resource Finder Tip: Bookmarking October 17, 2007
Posted by Phoebe in : Database Tip , add a commentThe new articles and databases Resource Finder has one functional change from the old: now, you can bookmark your favorite databases or searches as a way to save them. Look for “Save this Search”:
Click on “Save this Search” to see the full explanation:
What’s this Connotea we’re talking about? See this page about ideas for using Connotea at Duke.
