ProQuest Digital Microfilm Brings Page Images to Your Desktop

The Cheng Library is pleased to announce that from 2011 it has replaced microfilm archiving of Barron's, The New York Times, and The Wall Street Journal with "digital microfilm" accessible through an online database. ProQuest Digital Microfilm offers high-quality, cover-to-cover page images from all three publications, including all graphics, advertisements and other features from the print editions. Although the database does not support searching of any kind, it can be used in conjunction with other databases that index Barron's, The New York Times, and The Wall Street Journal so you can obtain the citation information needed to view a specific page image. Our subscription to ProQuest Digital Microfilm currently provides the backfiles of Barron's, The New York Times, and The Wall Street Journal to January 2008.

Please contact Richard Kearney (x 2165 / kearneyr@wpunj.edu ) if you have any questions about ProQuest Digital Microfilm.

Over 200 Education Journals from Routledge Available Through April 30

During the month of April, Routledge is offering free online access to all of its 228 journal titles in education. While the Cheng Library already offers access to severals of these journals through direct subscriptions and full-text databases, the additional titles will all be accessible through links in our databases during April. You can also browse all of the titles through Routledge's web portal.

Philosopher's Index Now Available through the CSA Illumina Search Platform

The Philosopher’s Index, published by the Philosopher’s Information Center, is now available through the Cheng Library on ProQuest's CSA Illumina search platform. The Philosopher’s Index is the most current and comprehensive bibliography of scholarly research in philosophy, containing more than 450,000 records drawn from over 680 journals, originating from more than 50 countries. The literature coverage dates back to 1940 and includes print and electronic journals, books, anthologies, contributions to anthologies, and book reviews.

Covering scholarly research in all major areas of philosophy, the Philosopher’s Index features informative, author-written abstracts. Through the CSA Illumina search interface, you can search on keywords, database subject terms, titles, authors, journal titles, and other criteria. Best of all, the previous single-user license has been replaced by an unlimited simultaneous user site license, which means no one will be denied access to the database because someone else is searching it at the same time.

Please contact Richard Kearney (x 2165) if you have any questions about online access to The Philosopher’s Index through the Cheng Library.

Good News for New York Times Readers: Today's Paper is Still Online for You at the Cheng Library

On March 28 the New York Times announced a new policy for readers who access the paper through its own web site. The new policy allows readers to access up to 20 news stories per month for free; beyond that number, readers will be required to pay for a digital subscription.

Did you know, however, that all of the news stories and editorials in each day's New York Times are available every morning through the Cheng Library's databases? Today's New York Times is available through both the ProQuest Central and Lexis-Nexis Academic databases, and we have created direct links to the Times on our database directory for your convenience.

There are differences in the way the paper's content is provided through each database. The ProQuest screen is better suited to browsing, while the Lexis-Nexis screen requires you to search for stories of interest, but both provide all of the news stories and editorials in each day's edition of the Times, plus a full-text backfile extending to June 1, 1980.

Here are some useful links you can bookmark to get to the Times each day:

Through ProQuest:

• Late Edition (East Coast) (Direct Link and RSS Feed)
• New York Times Book Review (Direct Link and RSS Feed)
• New York Times Magazine (Direct Link and RSS Feed)

Through Lexis-Nexis:

• Late Edition (East Coast) (Direct Link)

Please contact Richard Kearney (x 2165) if you have any questions about online access to the New York Times through the Cheng Library.

Please Take Our LibQUAL Survey March 23 - April 15

Which Library services are important to you?

How important are they?

And how does the Cheng Library measure up?

We really want to know, and starting March 23 we hope you'll tell us by completing a brief online survey called LibQUAL (What is LibQual?).

This survey - which takes only about six minutes to complete online - tells us a great deal about the services that are important to you and will help us make improvements to benefit you. This will be the third time we have conducted the survey since 2005. Previous input from students and faculty have led to such improvements as:

• easier access to electronic journals through links in all databases
• creation of the Very Quiet Area
• new space planning initiatives (designated group technology area, more electrical outlets for your laptops, a reservable study room, lights in stairwells, increased use of our instruction classroom as a computer lab)
• creation of a Library committee dedicated to expand customer service efforts

This year we are hoping some 1,500 students and 300 faculty will take the survey. As an incentive for participation, 25 randomly selected survey respondents will receive $25.00 Amazon gift cards.

The quality of service we provide at the Cheng Library is very important to us and to you. Please help us improve it further by completing the LibQUAL survey between March 23 and April 15. Thank you!

Now Available: Over 290 Journals from Cambridge University Press!

The Cheng Library is pleased to announce the acquisition of Cambridge Journals Online, a collection of over 290 high-quality journals published by Cambridge University Press. The collection is especially strong in the following subject areas:

• Mathematics
• History
• Law
• Politics and International Relations
• Language and Linguistics
• Area Studies
• Ecology and Conservation
• Music
• Psychology and Psychiatry
• Biology and Biomedical Sciences
• Classics
• Computer Science
• Earth and Atmospheric Science
• Economics
• Medicine
• Philosophy
• Religious Studies
• Social Studies

In addition to these subject areas, there are other subjects covered by a smaller number of journals.

For most titles, there is an online backfile extending to 1999, and links to articles in the collection are available through all of the Library's research databases that index Cambridge journals. Through the Cambridge Journals Online web site, accessible from the Library's databases directory, students and faculty can create free individual accounts to take advantage of personalized features, including table of contents alerts (through email or RSS feed), saved searches, and a list of your favorite journals. Please contact Richard Kearney (x 2165 or kearneyr@wpunj.edu) if you have any questions about Cambridge Journals Online.

Try the Oxford English Dictionary Online (Extended Trial Access through June 30, 2011)

The Oxford English Dictionary, published by the Oxford University Press, is a comprehensive dictionary of the English Language that stresses the historical origins of words. The online edition provides quick and easy access to approximately 600,000 words from 1150 C.E. to the present day, with details of their meaning, history, and pronunciation, both present and past. It traces the usage of words through three million quotations from a wide range of international English language sources, from classic literature to film scripts and cookery books. Hundreds of new entries are added every year, with the aim of producing a completely updated third edition. Draft material from the revision program is published online, alongside unrevised entries from the 2nd Edition (1989) and its Additions Series (1993,1997). Quarterly updates revise existing entries and add new words.

As the Oxford English Dictionary is a historical dictionary, its entry structure is very different from that of a dictionary of current English, in which only present-day senses are covered, and in which the most common meanings or senses are described first. For each word in the dictionary, the various groupings of senses are dealt with in chronological order according to the quotation evidence, i.e. the senses with the earliest quotations appear first, and the senses which have developed more recently appear further down the entry. In a complex entry with many strands, the development over time can be seen in a structure with several 'branches'.

A wonderful resource for English language studies, the Oxford English Dictionary is a living document that has been growing and changing for 140 years. It not only provides an important record of the evolution of the language, but also documents the continuing development of society. All students and faculty are invited to explore the treasures of the Dictionary during this extended trial period. Please contact Richard Kearney ( x2165 / kearneyr@wpunj.edu ) if you have any questions about the Oxford English Dictionary online.