Polk Library News
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The Online Computer Library Center (OCLC), the world's largest library cooperative, recently distributed a list of the “Top 1,000” titles owned by 52,000 libraries in 95 countries and territories around the world. The titles listed generally reflect classics and canonical works of western culture, although Garfield at Large by Jim Davis is number eighteen on the list! It is just behind Mark Twain's The Adventures of Tom Sawyer and ahead of Shakespeare's Macbeth. The top ten most widely held titles from one to ten are: U.S. Census, the Bible, Mother Goose, The Divine Comedy, Odyssey, Iliad, Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Hamlet, Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, and Lord of the Rings. Just missing the top ten were Beowulf, Don Quixote, and the Koran. Number one thousand was Closing of the American Mind by Allan Bloom. OCLC breaks down this list of the “Top 1,000” by different categories. With Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn, Mark Twain has the distinction of writing two of the most popular banned books. In fact, many widely owned titles in libraries around the world have been banned at one time or the other. They include Arabian Nights, Gulliver's Travels, Canterbury Tales, Scarlet Letter, and Leaves of Grass. The most widely held musical titles are Messiah by Handel, Carmen by Bizet, Don Giovanni and Magic Flute by Mozart, and La Boheme by Puccini. Thoreau's Walden is the most widely held biography, autobiography or personal journal. Other widely held titles in this category include Plutarch's Lives, Anne Frank's Diary of a Young Girl, Benjamin Franklin's Autobiography, and Tabari's History of Prophets and Kings. The “Top 1,000” list also has categories for books into film, children's books, drama, fiction, government, magazines and journals, poetry, reference works, and travel. If you are interested in browsing this list, just go to http://www.oclc.org/research/top1000/.
In Fall 2004, Polk Library, along with all of the other UW System libraries, implemented a new service called “Find It”. This new service is designed to help users find out if Polk Library owns an article in print or online format. If you are searching in a search tool like America: History and Life, which is NOT a full text search tool, you will see the “Find It” button next to each item in your search results. When you click the “Find It” button, a new menu will open with links that say things like:
All of these options are designed to get you to either the full text of the article, the print version we own, or allow you to easily get the item from Interlibrary Loan. Often we will have the full text of the article from a few different sources, and multiple delivery options may appear in the menu. Just start with the first one on the list. If for some reason the article is NOT available from that service, continue to the next option. Between the different full text providers, there may be differences in the format of full text (html or pdf). If you click “Check for this item's Polk Library PRINT holdings in the Polk Library Catalog”, “Find It” will do a search in our catalog. Your item may or may not be found, depending on our print holdings. If we do not own it in print, and there is no full text available, use the ILL link that says: “Not available online or in print from the library? Place an Interlibrary Loan Request in ILLiad”. After you click this link and logon to the ILLiad service, the ILL form will automatically populate with the bibliographic info necessary, such as author, title, volume, issue, etc. Verify that the information is complete in the form and then click the Submit button once to send your request. Please note that "Find It" uses multiple browser windows that pop-up. If you have Pop-Up Blocker software activated, this will interfere with the way the "Find It" service will work for you. You can find more help info here: http://www.uwosh.edu/library/aboutfindit.html In Spring 2005 we will be launching a new service that will work in conjunction with “Find It”. This new search service will allow you to search many different library search tools at the same time. Then you can use “Find It” to get to any full text available. If you're just not sure how to use "Find It" and have questions about how to navigate the menu, or questions about the different search tools, contact the reference desk (phone: 424-4333 or email: infodesk@uwosh.edu).
Late this summer, Duke University Press announced that it was pulling 18 of its most popular journals out of the Project Muse collection of current electronic journals. Steve Cohn, Director of Duke University Press, issued an open letter to the library community explaining their rationale. “We believe this is the only way to keep our program viable for the long-term future, which we envision as one where print subscriptions will continue to fade away, with the main route of access to our journals being electronic.” This fall, the University of Wisconsin Library System's Collection Development Committee decided to subscribe to Duke University Press' new Electronic Journals Package*, as well as continue Project Muse. The University of Wisconsin Library System is committed to continued and increased access to information. Our decisions on electronic products are based on archival access and ownership among other things. The Duke journal volumes that we had paid for through Project Muse will continue to be available through Project Muse, 2000-2004. This decision by Duke University Press is in response to the crisis in scholarly publishing and its impact on non-commercial academic presses. This is a good example of the difficulties libraries face in regard to maintaining continued access to scholarly information amid fluctuating cost increases and an increasingly commercialized information environment. Polk Library will continue to improve access to all of our electronic journals, wherever they live, through the “Find It!” full text linking tool, the journal title search on our web page, and next spring through a new meta search tool. Project Muse was created by the Johns Hopkins University Press in 1995 in collaboration with others to offer the full text of their scholarly journals electronically. In 1999 Project Muse expanded to include other academic and non-profit scholarly journals, primarily in the humanities and social sciences. Today, Muse offers around 250 electronic journals from 40 publishers. *Duke's Electronic Journals Package includes: American Literature, American Speech, Boundary 2, Camera Obscura, Differences : a journal of feminist cultural studies, Ethnohistory, French Historical Studies, Hispanic American Historical Review, History of Political Economy, Journal of Health Politics, Policy and Law, Journal of Medieval and Early Modern Studies, MLQ: modern language quarterly, Poetics Today, Public Culture, Radical History Review, Social Text, South Atlantic Quarterly, and Theater.
The Educational Media Collection (EMC) has recently added PRAXIS study guides to its collection. According to the Educational Testing Service, PRAXIS tests "measure the academic achievement and proficiency of individuals entering or completing teacher preparation programs." The study guides cover elementary education, English, mathematics, middle school, music, physical education, social studies, and pre-professional skills. You can find these guides in the EMC reference area, 1st floor North, under the call number LB 1762.
Perhaps you are familiar with the ISI citation indexes to which Polk Library provides access: Science Citation Index, Social Sciences Citation Index, and Arts & Humanities Citation Index. The unique feature of these databases is that for each article listed, they provide a list of other more current articles which have cited it. This is an interesting and quick way to find more current research on a similar topic, or to discover how a particular article has affected others' research. ISI has recently unveiled a new service called Citation Alerts, which aims to make keeping track of new citations even easier. With Citation Alerts, you can set up an account that will alert you, via email, when a new article is published that includes an article of your choosing in its list of references. This is a terrific way to find out about the most current research in a particular field, or even to keep track of who's citing your own research articles. To set up a Citation Alert, enter any of the citation indexes (Science, Social Sciences, or Arts & Humanities Citation Indexes) from the Polk Library homepage – they're all listed in the alphabetical “List of Library Search Tools”. Then do a “General Search” for the article, author, or topic you're interested in. When you locate an article for which you'd like to have a Citation Alert sent to you, click on the title of the article to see the “Full Record”. On the right side of this page, click on the button labeled “Create Citation Alert”, then click on “Register” to create an account. All you'll need to enter to create your account is your email address and a password of your choice. Once you've created your account, your Citation Alert will be activated, and you will be notified via email every time a new article cites your chosen article in its list of references. Questions? Would you like assistance in setting up an alert? Contact Renée Sengele (x7331 or sengele@uwosh.edu ) – I'd be happy to answer any questions or make an appointment to visit your office and walk you through the process.
The Library now owns the “Criterion Collection”. This film collection is a continuing series of important classic and contemporary films gathered from around the world. Criterion began with a mission to pull the treasures of world cinema together into one collection. The foundation of this collection is the works of such masters of cinema as Renior, Godard, Kurosawa, Cocteua, Fellini, Bergman, Hitchcock, Lean, Kubrick, Dreyer, Eisenstein, and Bunuel. Each film in the collection is presented as the maker intended it to be seen. To date there are over 240 films and 35 filmmakers included in this collection. For more on the Criterion Collection, check out their webpage at http://www.criterionco.com/. To see the full list of Criterion Collection films that are now a part of Polk Library's collection, go to the library home page (http://www.uwosh.edu/library/), and in the "Find Videos" search box (lower left side of the screen) do a keyword search for "criterion collection" (including the quotation marks).
Each day, information is being removed from government agency web sites. This is done when web sites are redesigned, updated or simply for housekeeping purposes when there is a change in web site administrators. Sometimes information is removed when a new government administration takes over that does not share the political philosophy of the previous administration. The information that is lost through this process is lost forever - literally “lost in Cyberspace.” There are some internet archives available such as the Wayback Machine at http://www.archive.org/web/web.php, but little is known about the completeness of this archive. The information at such sites is not organized, so it cannot be accessed by subject or keyword. To address this issue, the State of Wisconsin is working on preliminary steps in establishing an archive of state agency web site information. In 2002, the State Superintendent of Schools, Elizabeth Burmeister, established the Wisconsin Depository Study Committee. One of the charges of the committee was to come up with recommendations for the creation of an archive for electronic government information. As a preliminary step, one of the committee's recommendations was that the Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction “should seek legal assistance to determine the extent of legislative intent in defining electronic publications, including web pages as state publications that should be preserved as part of the document depository program. “ This issue is currently being worked on by the legal counsel serving the Department of Public Instruction. Ultimately this process will define what an electronic publication is. Is it a web site; a webpage in html, xhtml, or xml format; a pdf document; or an interactive feature on the web site such as a database? The process of working toward an archive to preserve Wisconsin government electronic information is being carefully addressed in a deliberate manner. The legal definition of what constitutes an electronic publication is the first step in ensuring that digital information has been preserved in the spirit and tradition that the Wisconsin Documents Depository Program has preserved print publications in the past.
The "Behind the Stacks" workshop series for faculty and staff is coming again this January! A variety of 1-hour workshops will be offered, including:
Watch your campus mailbox for more details about each workshop and information on how to sign up. Or contact Marisa Finkey (x3436, finkey@uwosh.edu) for a copy of the workshop descriptions and details.
What are the current “hot” titles in suspense, mystery, political, and romance novels? Listed below are just a few “hot” titles that are currently bestsellers. These titles are available for check-out in the Browsing Room, 2nd Floor North.
Happy Reading!
In response to the recent LibQUAL survey, the library has organized a group study room. The room offers ample table space, seating for up to 15, two computers with network access, chalkboard and a dry erase board. The group study room can be reserved in person up to one week in advance any time the library is open. The room can be reserved for two consecutive hours. Reservations will only be held for 15 minutes if there is a waiting line for the room. Students must check out a key at the circulation desk using a valid Titancard to gain access to the room. The group study room was created to support class-assigned group activity (some circles call it homework). Reservations can be made by students for student projects. Student organizations, entire classes and staff are not able to utilize this space for regularly scheduled meetings. Contact the Circulation Desk (424-7316) if you have any questions. If you are incorporating group work into your lesson plan, please pass the word to your students.
On October 16th, Polk Library staff braved the cold autumn weather to participate in the UW Oshkosh Homecoming parade for the third year in a row. As this year's Homecoming theme was "How Sweet It Is", the theme for the library's parade entry was "Polk Library: A Student's LifeSaver". Staff members carried oversized "LifeSaver" props, and of course, threw LifeSavers candy to those along the parade route.
Daily Life in Elizabethan England This volume is a terrific resource for those interested in the everyday life of ordinary British people in the late 1500s. What was the social hierarchy in Elizabethan England? What did people do for a living, and how much did items like bread or soap cost? What kind of education did children receive? What did a typical house look like? For those interested in Elizabethan reenactment, there are also sections with patterns for typical clothing, recipes for common foods, and music and steps for popular dances. Elizabethan England not your particular interest? This title is just one in a series of "Daily Life" reference books. Polk Library also has copies of:
Staff Highlights
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Read current issue of Polk Library News
Read past issues of Polk Library News
December 2004 issue, printer-friendly version (pdf)
Articles in this issue:
~From the Director: The "Top 1,000"
~Duke University Press Leaves Project Muse
~PRAXIS Study Guides Now in EMC
~Stay Current with Citation Alerts
~New Additions to Polk's Films: The Criterion Collection
~Sign Up for the Behind the Stacks Workshops!
~What's Hot in the Browsing Room?
~Group Study Room Now Available