There’s a Map for That

Delve into Arkansas History with our latest database collection, “Digital Sanborn Maps, 1867-1970: Arkansas”.  This rich collection of early maps of cities and towns reveal the original footprints of buildings throughout Arkansas.  Sanborn maps were large-scale plans of a city or town, drawn to a scale of 50 feet to an inch.  These were created from 1867 to 2007 to assist fire insurance companies in assessing the risk of fire to various structures and buildings.  Today, they are used for a wide-variety of purposes, particularly for historic research, urban planning, or restoration of older homes and buildings.

A Sanborn map can show you street names, block numbers, sidewalks, railroad tracks, the location of water mains, churches, businesses, windows, doors, and even porches.  These maps–now digitized and available in an easy-to-search, online database—can carry you back in time to show you how a particular place looked over 100 years ago.

The Library owns the Arkansas collection  of digital maps, which include maps on just about every town in the state.  Smaller towns may contain only a few maps, but larger cities, such as Russellville, will contain maps from multiple years, spanning from the mid-1800’s to the mid-1900’s.

sanborn1

Once you have selected a city and a map, download the map for easier navigation and zooming.  There is even an option to print selected areas.

Sanborn map 1886, Russellville

July 1886, Sheet 1. One block on Main Street. The train depot is further left, with what is now Denver Ave. bordering on the bottom. The Central Hotel is now Sportscene.

Googlemaps image of Russellville block, modern day

Same block, circa 2016 Google Maps

Travel back in time today by exploring the Digital Sanborn maps.  For other questions about this resource, the library, or other databases available to you as an Arkansas Tech student, consult your Timelord librarians at askalibrarian@atu.edu.

Find It Today

The Library is hosting a small celebration of our new discovery tool today from 11:00-2:00, with special instruction sessions occurring each half hour in RPL 300 North.  Join us for cookies, punch, and a little introduction to our new search tool, Find It, now featured on our homepage: http://library.atu.edu/

find it

Use Find It to search scholarly articles, books, ebooks, and DVDs in one place.  Narrow search results with left-hand filters by type, location, full-text, and more.  This interface replaces our library catalog, and indexes all of our Proquest database content, most of our Ebsco content, Web of Science, Jstor, and more.  Our native database interfaces are still available on our A-Z Databases page, but to get quick results in one search, give Find It a try.  We believe this will be a much simpler tool for beginners to find academic resources, but it will also be a more convenient tool for the research pros to quickly find and filter the results they need.

star wars

The Find It tool also includes access to your library account, so you can check on what materials you have currently checked-out, items on hold, or if you have any messages from the Library.  Sign-in with your Tech Username and Password to save searches or add items to an ‘eshelf’ for later browsing and viewing.  If you are off-campus, you will need to sign-in to view search results from Ebsco or Web of Science, since these databases require authentication, even for searching.  If you are on-campus, however, you will automatically see these results.

Drop by today at 11, 11:30, or every thirty minutes until the last session at 1:30 to learn a little more about the interface (or to simply grab some cookies in the library lobby).   There will also be PRIZES at the demos!  Come for the cookies, punch, and prizes–stay for the knowledge bombs.

 

On Trial

If you love and need primary sources in your academic life, the Ross Pendergraft Library is currently sampling two new databases on 18th and 19th century digital works for a limited time.

18th Century Collection Online

Search over 180,000 books published during the century in which the United States and France waged wars for independence while wearing leggings.  Find full-text, primary sources on science, literature, religion, law, fine arts, history, and more.  Because the database contains digital reproductions, you will find more than mere full-text.  Browse illustrated works on anatomy, botany, agriculture, and physics.  Read Gulliver’s Travels, Wealth of Nations, the Federalist Papers, and more classics in their original typeface and funky fonts.

*That* Isaac Newton

Newton, Isaac, Sir. Opticks: or, a treatise of the reflexions, refractions, inflexions and colours of light. Also two treatises of the species and magnitude of curvilinear figures. London, MDCCIV. [1704] p.158.

19th Century U.S. Newspapers

For resources more focused on the events of the nineteenth century, including the Civil War, explore the 19th Century U.S. Newspaper database.  Like the resource above, this collection features full-text, digital reproductions of content, including advertisements, illustrations, and classified ads.  However, the database consists entirely of United States newspapers from the 1800’s–a rich resource for primary sources on significant events which shaped our country such as the Trail of Tears, the abolition movement, the Civil War, the Industrial Revolution, European immigration, the gold rush, and the settlement of the American West.

You will also find full-text articles and newspaper issues of the Arkansas Gazette, the Little Rock Republican, and other Arkansas newspapers, featuring a wealth of information about the people, culture, life, and history of early Arkansas.

arkansas

These databases can both be found on the library’s website–>Research–>Tech Databases page (check the # section).  To search these databases simultaneously, select the Artemis Primary Sources Database.

Like what you see?  Let us know at askalibrarian@atu.edu.  Your input helps us build our collection based on your academic needs and interests.  But hurry–the trial for these two resources ends on October 23.

Shift & Change

The first floor of the Ross Pendergraft Library is undergoing some substantial changes this summer.  In order to modernize our collection, add more study space, and create a more attractive environment, we’re weeding, shifting, moving, and condensing many of our book collections.  Here are just a few of the changes already happening or soon to begin on the first floor:

Law Books Are Going…Going…Gone

The first floor of the library used to be the home of many legal materials from the Pope County Law Library.  However, most of those books are now out of date, difficult to search, and available online through our LexisNexis database.  Therefore, we have removed those items from our library.  We still have the Arkansas Code, Acts of the General Assembly of the state of Arkansas, West’s Arkansas cases, and other locally important legal volumes in our Reference Collection.  For help locating legal resources, please see the helpful staff at our Reference Desk.  Be aware, however, that we do not provide legal advice.

law books

Oversized Books Have Moved Upstairs

The library’s super-sized books, which used to be behind the Reference Collection on the first floor, have moved upstairs to the second floor in the Compact Shelving Area, next to Periodicals.  Our regular book shelves just can’t handle these monster-sized behemoths, and so they have to be moved to a separate area.   Compact Shelving offers deeper shelves to accommodate the sizes and closer proximity to the rest of the book collection.  You’ll find many of our larger art books or graphic novels in this area, but almost any book over 30 centimeters will be found here.   In the catalog, these books will appear as the location “OVERSIZED” in the online catalog.  Here’s a handy map, pointing the way to their new home:  http://library.atu.edu/help/AZ/2-compact_shelving.php

goodov

Library employee Darren Dunn grapples with his bibliophobia through exposure therapy

 

Reference Inches Backwards

We are currently shifting the Reference Collection back where the Pope County Law Library Collection used to reside.  These are on the first floor, just around the corner from the Reference Desk.  Our Reference Collection contains almanacs, thesauri, specialized encyclopedias, guidebooks, and other items designed to serve as a quick reference and general overviews of most subjects.  These books can be used in the library, but they cannot be checked out.  This shift is still in progress, so if you can’t find what you are looking for, just ask the friendly (and mostly stationary) staff at the Reference Desk.

reference

Periodicals Consolidated

Since many of our paper periodicals have transitioned to online only formats, searchable in our e-resources page, we have started to consolidate titles closer together.  This will allow us to remove the excess stacks in order to expand casual seating.   Look for these changes later in the summer.  Stay tuned!

WP_20150608_14_11_36_Pro

For questions about these changes, or about anything else in the library, email your friendly neighborhood librarians.  We’ll be here all summer, during our usual summer hours.   Keep checking back for more updates as we continue to make changes to the library.

 

We’re Open!

Since the inauguration has moved to Tucker Coliseum on Friday, April 17th, the library will remain open during our regular hours, from 7:00 a.m. until 6:00 p.m. After you finish attending the inauguration, come by the library and check out our new arrivals…literally!

kar88

Here’s a brief snapshot of the titles most recently inaugurated into our collection:

FICTION BOOKS

 NON-FICTION BOOKS

FILMS

Want to stay on top of new items?  Follow us on Facebook or Twitter.  You can also check out our growing list of new items by clicking the “Open Your Mind” logo in the top right corner of the library homepage.  We also have a breakdown of new titles by department & month on our Libguide for new books (including e-books).  If you happen to be in the library, proceed immediately to the first floor, south entrance where you’ll find the latest & greatest new books:

wp_20150417_08_14_58_pro

Keep checking back for more new stuff, new “news”, as well as old, awful puns.

Libflix

Netflix not enough?  Try grabbing a movie or a television series from the Ross Pendergraft Library Music Lab.  We have new releases, award-winning documentaries, hit TV shows,  as well as foreign and independent films you cannot find on most streaming movie sites.  Start your search with our revised Music Lab website.

music lab

 

We now have a new way to browse movies using our DVD Collection page.  Browse the latest DVDs by language or category.  Our collection includes animated, action & adventure films, musicals, romantic comedies, horror, science fiction, and more.

You can also browse ALL our newly acquired DVDs at the New DVD Titles page.  Binge watch the latest seasons of Game of Thrones, Sons of Anarchy, Homeland, Modern Family, True Blood, & the Walking Dead.  Skip the Red Box and check-out new releases like the Fault in Our Stars, Captain America: Winter Soldier, Cosmos, the Lego Movie, Maleficent, & Warm Bodies for free from the Library. Search our Online Library Catalog for specific titles, directors, actors, keyword, or subject.

Can’t make it out to the library?  Check out our new Video Streaming Collections page.  Each link contains collections of streaming video, short films, television shows, interviews, and clips.   Enjoy award-winning documentaries from PBS Video Collection, travel back in time through the Archive of American Television, or attempt to stomach the surgical videos available from the Society of American Gastrointestinal and Endoscopic Surgeons.

spock

Have a video or video collection you want to suggest for the library?  Send us your flick picks at askalibrarian@atu.edu.

Have it all with CINAHL

nurse buttonNursing students: are you tired of zero results?  Tired of submitting ILL requests for articles you needed yesterday?  Tired of wandering endless result pages, looking for full-text?  Look no further than our new and improved CINAHL Plus database with full text.

cinahl4

Recently acquired by the Library to help bolster a growing Nursing Department at Arkansas Tech, this update to our older version of CINAHL includes more full text to nursing and allied health journals and deeper indexing to include allied health literature and bio-medical resources dating back to 1937.

What does this mean to you?  With an expanded index, you have a greater chance of finding articles relating to your topic, no matter how obscure.   In addition, available full-text coverage expanded from 70 journals to 700.  While not every article you find will include full-text, a greater number will, including articles from the National League for Nursing and the American Nurses’ Association publications.

In addition, this database offers access to health care books, nursing dissertations, selected conference proceedings, standards of practice, audiovisuals, book chapters and more.

For example, the expanded database also includes 134 Evidence-Based Care Sheets which provide concise overviews of diseases and conditions and outlines the most effective treatment options.

cinahl2

Want to find Evidence-Based Practice articles?  Scroll down from the advanced search screen to limit your results.  You can also limit by Clinical Query type, Peer-Reviewed, Nurse authored, age group, randomized controlled trials, region, and other variables.

If you find yourself still lacking in relevant results, use CINAHL Headings to select appropriate heading terms for your topic.

cinahl3

There’s so much you can do with CINAHL, you might need a tutorial to explore all of the features.  But a dedicated team of friendly neighborhood librarians are standing by to help if you have any questions.  Give it a try today—we promise, it won’t hurt a bit.

Be More With PBS Video

pbs1

The Ross Pendergraft Library is thrilled to announce the recent acquisition of the PBS Video Collection.

Stream quality documentary films and programs produced by the leading educational video producer in the country.  The collection includes over 400 documentary films and programs, and each one can be streamed over any device with an internet connection.  Save yourself the trip to the library (or the store), and watch any of these videos on demand.

Included in the collection are some of the rich documentaries produced by Ken Burns, long-established programs like Nova and Frontline, and other educational films from a variety of disciplines.  Most of the available programs were produced in the last ten years, giving you more up-to-date content to use in classroom instruction.

Every film comes with a full transcript which is searchable across the database.  You can also send videos to a tablet or phone, share them via email, or embed them in a web platform like Blackboard.  If you want to create clips of videos or a playlist of clips, there are easy-to-use tools within each video for just that purpose.

pbs2

 

Do you have questions about this collection?  Want to know how to clip videos, create playlists, or embed videos into Blackboard?  Email us at askalibrarian@atu.edu.  For videos not in the PBS collection, try searching among the thousands of videos located in the Music Lab collection on the Library’s second floor.

 

Wireless printing

Just need to print off a paper but the computers in the library are full?  Never fear—wireless printing is here!  Bring your laptop to the Ross Pendergraft Library & Technology Center and send a print job over the wireless network.  No more waiting around for someone to get off the computer before you can print.

erqmt

Follow these instructions for stress-free printing even on the busiest days:

  1. Using your laptop, open Internet Explorer
  2. Type \\unip-psrv1 and hit “ENTER”.
  3. You should be prompted for your username and password. Enter your username in the format of username@atu.edu and then your password.
  4. Once connected, you should see a list of printers. Find the printer that says “RPL Universal Print Queue” and double-click the icon. This will connect and install the black and white printer on your computer. rpl2
  5. Click the “RPL3CL HP Color Queue $0.30” for color prints.rpl1

You should now be able to select one of these printers from your laptop.   You will still need to go to one of the release stations in the library to “release” your print job from the queue.  To do this, log in to one of the release stations located on each floor of the library, and your document (s) should be there.  Keep in mind, also, that the color printer is located only on the third floor.

If you have any questions or need additional help, come visit any of the librarians at the Reference desk for immediate assistance.  You can also visit the Office of Information Systems help desk, right in the North lobby of the library.

 

8 Library Facts

If you are new to campus, it’s quite possible you haven’t had the chance to visit the Ross Pendergraft Library and Technology Center.  Here are 8 library facts you should know to help you make the most of the collections and services we offer at the Library.

1. We have all the things

Looking for books?  Sure, we’ve got books.  But did you also know we check out graphing calculators?  DVDs?  Audiobooks?  Headphones?  CDs?  Scanners?  Yes, we have all of those, too.  Search our catalog to find all of this and more.  If you just need a quiet place to study, print your paper, or book a study room, we offer that, too.All the things

2. Get started with Libguides

There are so many resource at the Library, it can be overwhelming to find the right resource for your topic.  Where do you start?  LibGuides can give you direction for finding books, articles, and search strategies for whatever assignment is thrown at you.  Compiled by librarians, each guide is tailored for a specific subject, and in some cases, a specific course.

libguides

 3. Learn anything with online tutorials

Whether you want to brush up on your Spanish or learn Microsoft Excel, the Library can help you further your education from the comfort of your own dorm room.

  • Mango Languages feature online tutorials for learning 63 languages, including Japanese, English as a second language, and Pirate.
  • If you are more interested in learning software, create an account with the Virtual Training Center (VTC).  As a student (or faculty/staff), you have free access to over 98,000 video tutorials on programming, databases, web design, or basic computer courses through the VTC.
  • For help using library resources, check out our own Library Tutorials page, featuring videos on using Dewey Decimal, online library resources, interlibrary loan, and other services.
Keanu Reeve's face

(Kung Fu tutorials not yet available)

4. Credo Reference is your new best friend

Think of Wikipedia.  Now imagine if it was a reputable, scholarly resource which could connect you to articles, books, and other academic resources about your specific topic.  That’s Credo Reference.  Comprised of hundreds of encyclopedias and dictionaries, it can mean one-stop shopping for many research assignments.  We love it so much, we put it on our homepage.

credo

5. We give away fabulous prizes on social media

Last year, we gave away books, buttons, and even a Doctor Who Sonic Screwdriver on our Facebook and Twitter accounts.   We also gave away free information about our hours, events, and new additions to the library.  Like us & follow us.  We might even be giving away something right now…

6. We’re constantly acquiring new stuff

The Library continues to add new books, DVDs, and other materials as the semester progresses.  You can keep up new items by clicking the Open Your Mind logo on the top right corner of our homepage.  That will take you to a list of recently purchased books, movies, and music.

If you are in the library and would like to browse just the new books, we also have a new books section in the lobby, near the south entrance.

openyourmind

7. Can’t find it?  Library A-Z it

We have a new way to navigate every library resource we offer—the Library A-Z page.    The Library A-Z list provides direct links to library maps, electronic tools, policies, collections, contact information, and anything else that we can provide through our website.

LibraryAZ

8. Home of the ultimate know-it-alls

Despite their godlike powers, the librarians at RPL are highly approachable, friendly, and helpful.  No question is too mundane or too complex for them to lend their expertise and attention.  Give them a call (toll-free) at 855-761-0006 or email them at askalibrarian@atu.edu.  Drop by the Reference Desk for on the spot questions.  Remember, you cannot yet contact them through intense mental concentration, but keep checking our website for additional services we may provide in the future.

Librarians