Educational Administration Abstracts Now Available Online

Educational Administration Abstracts, the major index for scholarship in the field of educational leadership, is now available online on the EBSCOhost search platform. The most comprehensive source for published research in educational administration, the database currently contains over 7,800 citations and abstracts for articles from over 150 journals and other periodicals, with approximately 1,200 new records added each year. Topics covered in the database include administrative responsibilities, community development, counseling and guidance programs, curriculum development, educational facilities, equipment, and materials, financial management, in service training, parent-school communications, performance and program evaluation, personnel management and labor relations, school choice, staff development, target programs for high-risk and special-needs students, and vocational education. Links to full-text articles from the Cheng Library's online journal collection are provided where available, along with pointers to journals in our print and microform collection.

The online version of Educational Administration Abstracts has been launched with coverage extending to 1993, but EBSCO plans to add retrospective content back to 1966 while also adding records for books, government reports, and conference papers. More information about Educational Administration Abstracts, including searching tips, a list of searchable fields and field definitions, and keys to browsing the index, is available from EBSCO.

ComDisDome Database Now Provided on the Illumina Search Platform

We are pleased to announce that the ComDisDome (Communication Sciences and Disorders Dome) database, previously provided by ContentScan, is now available on the ProQuest Illumina search platform. ComDisDome is the principal index to scholarly literature in communication disorders, with a focus on speech-language pathology and audiology. The database offers citations to journal articles and books, along with access to profiles of researchers working in this area. ComDisDome currently provides over 273,000 records, with coverage extending from 1950 to the present, and updates that add approximately 400 new records each month.

The Illumina search platform includes several powerful tools not available through the previous service, including the ability to:

• search on 14 different index fields
• access your search history during a session
• print records
• save search strategies and create automated search alerts
• generate bibliographies from marked records or transfer your results to a RefWorks account with a few clicks

The former ComDisDome "Topic Guide" has also been converted to a subject thesaurus with subject terms applied to all records. A comparison chart (in RTF format) provides additional details about the differences between the old and new search platforms.

Try Scopus This Fall for Access to Science and Social Science

Scopus, launched by Elsevier Science in 2004, has grown into one of the largest online indexes to scientific literature available. Covering the fields of science, technology, medicine and the social sciences, Scopus offers

• 33 million citation records for articles from 15,000 peer-reviewed journals (representing over 4,000 publishers)
• Citations/Abstracts from:
• 500+ conference proceedings
• 600+ trade publications
• 125+ book series

Scopus also integrates useful information from other sources, including:

• Over 386 million scientific web pages indexed in Elsevier's own specialized science web search engine Scirus
• 21 million patent records from five major patent offices

Scopus is designed to support both forward and backward citation tracking. Almost half the citation records in the database, covering items published from 1996 to the present, include references to enable citation tracking. Using features available through the creation of a personal account in Scopus, faculty members can monitor the citation history of their own publications and run automated searches.

A User Guide (in PDF format) is available to assist you in exploring Scopus' many useful features.

Scopus is offering trial access to the University through November 30. We urge all faculty to try the database and evaluate it in terms of its coverage of your own subject area and its ease of use, along with its general quality as a tool for accessing the research literature of your field and related information. Please contact Richard Kearney (x2165) at the Cheng Library if you have any questions during the trial period. We're interested in knowing what you think of Scopus!

New Sage Premier E-Journal Collection Features Over 450 Journals

The Cheng Library is pleased to announce the addition of approximately 400 new online journals to its existing collection from Sage Publications, one of the leading academic publishers. The Sage Premier E-Journal Collection features the full-text contents of hundreds of major journals in the fields of business, education, health, the humanities, and the social sciences. Over 140,000 articles are currently available through the collection, with backfiles extending to 1999 for all titles. The articles will be accessible through citation links in all of our research databases. Sage's online portal supports searching and browsing of the entire collection, and through the registration of a free personal account you can also create customized search alerts, citation tracking alerts, and table of contents alerts for your favorite journals. Each journal also provides table of contents feeds through RSS [what is RSS?].

A complete list of titles (PDF format - 60 KB) in the Sage Premier E-Journal Collection is available.

Biography Reference Bank Gives You More Coverage, More Full Text

We've upgraded our major biographical database from H. W. Wilson to add more coverage and more full-text content. The Biography Reference Bank, which replaces Biographies Plus Illustrated, contains the complete contents of Wilson's Biography Index from 1984 to the present and covers over 500,000 people from all periods of history to the present time. Thousands of full-text narrative profiles are drawn from major publishers including Greenwood Press, Harvard University Press, Houghton Mifflin, Oryx, Oxford University Press, and others, and the citation records include links to over 380,000 related full-text articles from Wilson databases and other sources. Among the publications accessible through Biography Reference Bank are biographical profiles, feature articles, interviews, essays, book reviews, performance reviews, speeches, and obituaries. The database also features over 36,000 images of profiled subjects and excerpts from book reivews. The easy-to-use search screen supports searching by name, profession, place of origin, gender, ethnicity, birth/death dates, titles of works, and keyword.

Conference Board Research Online Collection Brings High-Quality Business Intelligence to You

"Are They Really Ready to Work? Employer’s Perspectives on the Basic Knowledge and Applied Skills of New Entrants for the 21st Century U.S. Workforce" is one example of the types of reports available in the Conference Board Research Online Collection. Economic research reports, press releases, PowerPoints, webcasts and the Straight Talk newsletter are some of the features included in this database. Download a copy of the Corporate Governance Handbook 2007: Legal Standards and Board Practices issued in July 2007 or the 2006 Top Executive Compensation Report from the Business Management Research section or listen to a panel discuss "Ethics and Compliance Program Certification" or "Social Network Analysis: A New Route to Improving Performance and Innovation." Articles published in the Conference Board’s magazine Conference Board Review (formerly Across the Board) are accessible from 2000 to the present. Selected articles from each issue are also available on the Conference Board’s web site. Full-text articles published in the Conference Board Review are also available in the Business Source Premier database.

A two-page guide (in PDF format) to the Conference Board reSearch Online Collection provides a brief overview of the database's contents, including sample listings of recent research.

BizStats - A First-Rate Starting Point for Business Data Research

BizStats.com provides easy access to a variety of business statistics including profitability and operating ratios. Their objective is to provide "instant access to business statistical information that is useful and meaningful." BizStats compiles the data from a number of different sources including trade associations and U.S government sources. Anyone familiar with the underlying data sources will recognize when the primary source is the Department of Labor or Department of Commerce. BizStats reformats the data in a manner they consider meaningful and therefore doesn’t provide links to the original sources. Some of the information is current, while other data - especially that coming from trade associations or economic censuses - might be a few years old. Nevertheless, students and small business owners will find BizStats to be a good place to start. Other sources of financial and operating ratios available in print in the Cheng Library are Dun & Bradstreet’s Industry Norms and Key Business Ratios; Leo Troy’s Almanac of Business and Industrial Financial Ratios; Robert Morris Associates’ RMA Annual Statement Studies and Financial Research Associates Financial Studies of the Small Business.