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October 2, 2007
Issue No. 75

Table of Contents

• Library Resources
  • Use GBS for Research
    
  • Major New E-Book Service
    
  • Try Online Chat Reference
    
  • New Online Images and Text
    
  • Engineering Village Here
    
  • New Scitopia Search Portal
    
  • SSDS Resources and Services
    
  • SSRC Resources and Services
    
  • SULAIR in Second Life
    
  • HighWire Press New Journals
    

Since it was first announced in 2004 that five major libraries were allowing their collections to be digitized and indexed by Google, the Google Book Search project has attracted much attention and controversy. One question that is sometimes lost in all the media attention is this: Is Google Book Search a helpful research tool?

As more major academic libraries join the Google Book Search project, Google Book Search certainly has the potential of becoming an increasingly valuable research tool. The Google Book Search collection currently includes over 1 million items, with thousands of titles are added daily.

Below are some examples of how scholars might use Google Book Search, along with the many resources of Stanford University Libraries and Academic Information Resources, as a research and discovery tool.

Using Google Book Search to Locate Full Text Books and Documents

For books that are out of copyright, Google Book Search makes the full text of the book available to the public. The Information Center staff in Green Library recently helped a patron locate information about the influence of the Bible in John Brown's anti-slavery views. In addition to the wealth of information available through various Stanford resources, a search on Google Book Search for "john brown bible slavery" yields 744 items, 633 of them available in Full View.

A sample of relevant titles, not available at Stanford, include:

The Life and Letters of John Brown: Liberator of Kansas and Martyr of Virginia, published in 1891.

Slavery: Its origins, nature and history: Considered in the light of Bible Teachings, Moral Justice, and Political Wisdom, published in 1861.

Google Book Search makes it easy for a scholar to discover and use these primary source documents for their research.

Using Google Book Search to Locate References to Topics within Books

Freshman in the Program in Writing and Rhetoric class on The History of the Bicycle wrote papers on a range of topics related to bicycles and biking. One student was struggling to find resources on her topic of "the changing nature of bicycling clothes and fashion". A search on Google Book Search for "bicycling clothing" reveals several promising resources, including these two:

Beauty and Business: Commerce, Gender, and Culture in Modern America by Philip Scranton contains several pages describing the evolution of women's bicycling clothes, complete with illustrations from Ladies' Home Journal advertisements of the 1890s. This book is available at Stanford.

In the book Of Bicycles, Bakelites, and Bulbs: Toward a Theory of Sociotechnical Change, author Wiebe E. Bijker devotes several paragraphs to the relationship between changing notions of "appropriate" clothing and the rise in female bicycling in the 1890s. Bijker's book is also available at Stanford.

By searching within the full text of books on Google Book Search, the student was able to discover references to her topic in several scholarly books available at Stanford.

Give Google Book Search a Try

Try out Google Book Search for your own research, and tell us about your experiences by leaving a comment at the Information Center Web site. You can also contact the Information Center for help in using Google Book Search for your research.

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Stanford University Libraries and Academic Information Resources (SULAIR) has added a major new e-book service, MyiLibrary. Note that you have to disable pop-up blockers in your browser before accessing MyiLibrary.

E-books available through MyiLibrary cover many different disciplines.

SULAIR's initial agreements for MyiLibrary e-book purchases focus on selected titles from Oxford University Press (some 7000 titles published between 1960 and 2007); Cambridge University Press (some 3000 titles published between 1995 and 2006); and Springer (all e-books from 2005-2007, and some earlier years).

Titles available will increase in coming months as additional titles from various publishers are purchased. Records will become available in Socrates to link to the titles, but a direct check in MyiLibrary is best for showing the most complete available content.

Note that the MyiLibrary Web environment also serves to highlight titles that are not necessarily purchased by Stanford. "My Content" links are key for focusing on content owned by Stanford. MyiLibrary has announced a major interface revision for this fall.

The services and content provided by MyiLibrary are a major expansion of SULAIR's initiatives with e-books; other e-book services are listed on SULAIR's E-Books and E-Texts page.

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The Stanford Libraries' Information Center is now providing reference help via Instant Messaging (IM). Just go to the IC Web site, select IM Us, and send us your questions. You can also add "sulreference" to your "buddy list". See also Check Out the New Information Center Web Site in the Spring 2007 issue of this newsletter.

IM allows us to conduct a real-time, online reference interview, and provide immediate answers, suggestions, and resources.

As one happy freshman exclaimed: "Chat reference? Holy %$#@! That's cool!"

Be sure to give it a try!

See also Online Reference Help Pays Off for Stanford Freshman.

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The Humanities Digital Information Service (HDIS) creates and provides access to searchable online collections of image and full-text resources for the Stanford humanities community.

New Images: Stanford Historical Photograph Collection

We are proud to present the latest installment in our ongoing project to make available historical photos from the Stanford University Archives. There are now nearly 5,000 images available, which represent approximately 30 percent of the entire physical collection. The online collection is richly searchable by personal name, subject area, photograph date, and many other descriptive terms. Photographs are presented as high-resolution, dynamically resizable images.

In this new set you can see photographs from both the 1906 and 1989 earthquakes as they hit Stanford; various faculty groups from the founding of the University; the Engineering Department through the years; and many others. (As the astute reader may have guessed, we're putting these images up in roughly alphabetical order by broad topic: thus Athletics and the Band dominated in the first releases; the Cactus Garden and various other Campus lands appeared a bit later; and now we've begun the F's.) When complete, the Stanford Historical Photograph Collection will have over 16,000 photos.

Photo of Stanford's 1903 Fencing Team

This collection is available to the general public as one of Stanford's Luna Insight databases. The Insight viewing software is already installed on all public Stanford University Libraries and Academic Information Resources' computers: just launch the program from the Start menu or desktop. But anyone can download and install a free and fully functional version. (There is also a basic, no-download-needed version of the collection available.) See the Stanford Historical Photograph Collection Web site for details of this exciting collection, download links, and instructions.

New Texts from Adam Matthew Digital and Alexander Street Press

Thanks to major recent purchases by Stanford University Libraries and Academic Information Resources (SULAIR), members of the Stanford community now have access to a greatly increased set of full-text humanities resources from Adam Matthew Digital and from Alexander Street Press.

Eighteenth-Century Journals: From Adam Matthew Digital, we have purchased the complete Eighteenth-Century Journals collection, consisting of rare journals printed between about 1685 and 1815, illuminating many aspects of eighteenth-century social, political and literary life. Many are ephemeral, lasting only for a handful of issues, others run for several years. Topics covered are extremely wide-ranging and include: the writings of Sir Isaac Newton; the French Revolution; reviews of literature and fashion throughout Europe; political debates; and coffee house gossip and discussion. Members of the Stanford community can access Eighteenth-Century Journals. See also Eighteenth Century Journals II: New Full-Text Searchable Database in the Spring 2007 issue of this newsletter.

Latino Literature: From Alexander Street Press we have recently acquired Latino Literature, representing in digital form more than 100,000 pages of poetry, fiction, and drama written in English and Spanish by hundreds of Chicano, Cuban, Puerto Rican, Dominican, and other Latin authors working in the United States. Members of the Stanford community can access Latino Literature here.

Women and Social Movements in the United States: We've also bought Alexander Street Press's Women and Social Movements in the United States, 1600-2000, an archive of the publications and documents of local, state, and federal Commissions on the Status of Women from 1963 to the present. When complete this collection will contain 75,000 pages of publications from commissions in all fifty states, the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, Guam, and the Virgin Islands. The publications include reports, pamphlets, posters, and ephemeral materials. See this greatly expanded edition of Women and Social Movements here.

Where to Find All Databases

All of these texts can be found in Socrates, the Stanford library catalog, and on the SULAIR databases list.

For More Information

For more information about the Humanities Digital Information Service (HDIS), see our Web site.

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Stanford University Libraries and Academic Information Resources (SULAIR) now licenses Engineering Index through both SearchPlus and the recently-acquired Ei Engineering Village platform.

Engineering Index, also known as Compendex, is a comprehensive index of engineering research containing references and abstracts from over 5,000 engineering journals and conferences. The broad subject areas of engineering and applied science are represented including chemical and process engineering, computers and data processing, applied physics, electronics and communications, civil, mechanical and materials engineering. SULAIR license includes coverage from 1884 to the present. 600,000 new records are added to the database annually.

The Ei Engineering Village platform includes the Find It @ Stanford link embedded with the citations. Clicking on this button will give you a list of full-text online sources that are available at Stanford. If no full-text online sources are available, you can easily search Socrates (Stanford's online catalog) or the UC catalog from the SFX menu.

The search results page on the Ei Engineering Village platform has several features:

• Save search strategies.
• Create email alerts.
• Create RSS feeds.
• Assign tags to articles, make them private or share tags with work groups.
• Limit result sets using faceted terms-author, author affiliation, controlled vocabulary, classification code, country, document type, language, year, serial title, publisher.

You can find Engineering Index on SULAIR's databases and articles Web page. Select Browse by Title and then click "Go" for an alphabetized list of all titles. You can also access Ei Engineering Village here.

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Scitopia.org is a free federated vertical search portal including the publications of 15 scientific societies, patents from the European, Japanese and US patent offices, and full-text documents from the U.S. Department of Energy. Access to articles, proceedings, reports is linked directly to the society's Web page and full-text access is authenticated based on SULAIR license agreements with the publisher.

The 15 founding societies are:

• Acoustical Society of America
• American Geophysical Union
• American Institute of Physics
• American Physical Society
• American Society of Civil Engineers
• American Society of Mechanical Engineers
• American Vacuum Society
• ECS
• IEEE
• Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics
• Institute of Physics Publishing
• Optical Society of America
• Society of Automotive Engineers
• Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics
• SPIE

Scitopia.org was launched in June 2007 and includes basic and advanced search, relevancy ranking and the ability to use Boolean search strategies. Search tools and functions will evolve and additional scientific societies will be added. You are encouraged to use the feedback function to suggest improvements and other partners.

You can find Scitopia.org on SULAIR's databases and articles Web page. Select Browse by Title and then click *Go* for an alphabetized list of all titles. You can also access Scitopia.org directly.

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"I'm trying to find statistics on the adoption of new agricultural technologies in Latin American countries. ...with similar climates, agricultural economies and similar developmental tracks... (and) statistics on the rural population density of these countries."

"I have been trying to get some information on (United Nations) roll call votes. I have located some information but I could not download (it)...(could) someone help me with this."

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"I would like to know how I can...import...Excel data into SPSS to obtain chi square results..."

"...you were recommended to me for help using statistical software. I need to perform some regression analyses but I would appreciate some advice with getting started..."

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SSDS data specialists and software consultants help Stanford faculty, staff and students with questions like those above that involve finding and getting data, and selecting and using software for research and instruction. SSDS staff provide a variety of services and support that include consulting, workshops and help documentation. SSDS is part of the Social Sciences Resource Center (SSRC), located on the first floor of the Green Library Bing Wing. (See also Social Sciences Resource Center (SSRC): Key Resources and Services s in this issue.) SSDS supports the following services and resources:

Consulting

In-person consulting takes place in The Velma Denning Room, located in the Social Sciences Resource Center (SSRC). Users can drop by the room during scheduled walk-in hours, or contact us via email with questions or arrange an appointment. View our quarterly consulting schedule and contact us via our Web site at:

http://ssds.stanford.edu/

Software consultants provide support in the selection and use of the most popular quantitative software, SPSS, SAS, and Stata and qualitative software, NVivo, ATLAS.ti and SPSS Text Analysis for Surveys. In addition, they provide assistance and information for researchers who are at various stages in their projects.

Data specialists assist users in finding, getting and downloading data. Data consultations include recommendations for data appropriate for research projects or help navigating the array of data resources--electronic and print--available at Stanford.

Workshops

SSDS staff members offer standard workshops during fall, winter and spring quarters, that introduce SSDS resources and services in general, cover ways to locate datasets, and demonstrate the most popular quantitative and qualitative software.

We discuss how students can plan during the early stages of their research and use quantitative software in their projects--from statistical analysis of large datasets to the graphical display of summary information. In addition, workshop participants learn how qualitative software options available at Stanford can help organize and analyze interviews, field notes, photographs and other types of unstructured data.

Workshop details are available via the SSDS Web site at:

http://library.stanford.edu/services/social_sci_data_soft/consulting_workshops.html

Key Online Resources

ICPSR (Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research): ICPSR is an archive of over 500,000 data and documentation files that includes over 6,300 studies from a variety of disciplines that include sociology, political science, demography, history, economics, gerontology, public health, criminal justice, education and international relations.

Stanford users can download ICPSR data sets directly via the ICPSR Web site from any computer in the Stanford University network or connect off-campus via Stanford's proxy server. More information about and access to, ICPSR is at:

http://library.stanford.edu/services/social_sci_data_soft/data_icpsr.html

Roper Center for Public Opinion Research: The Roper Center is one of the leading archives of survey data from the U.S. and from over 50 foreign countries and includes the popular question-level databases, iPOLL (U.S. nationwide) and JPOLL (Japanese Data Archive). The RoperExpress service allows Stanford users to download datasets in the Roper collection that are in ASCII or SPSS portable formats. Request other Roper data via the SSDS Web site at:

http://library.stanford.edu/services/social_sci_data_soft/data_roper.html

Data Extraction Web Interface (DEWI): DEWI is a Web-based tool that provides easy and fast discovery, extraction, and downloading of data. Researchers use DEWI to quickly find and investigate the relevance of new data for their projects and instructors and students use DEWI to incorporate real data into the curriculum, which makes learning more interesting and useful. For example, the Sociology methods courses have used DEWI to obtain extracts of the General Social Survey and Education classes have assigned research projects using the National Education Longitudinal Study (NELS) data. Find out more about DEWI and take a test drive at:

http://dewi.stanford.edu/

Print and Electronic Resources

Software: Users visiting The Velma Denning Room can evaluate a variety of quantitative and qualitative software, specialized software for advanced statistical methods and spatial analysis, and software for converting and formatting data between statistical packages.

Data on CD-ROM and Diskette: A rich collection of datasets cover a broad range of social science topics and time-periods from U. S. federal agencies and offices, international organizations, foreign governments and independent producers. Many CD-ROM programs allow users to search and extract datasets and then save them in popular statistical formats for further analysis. Users can access data on CD-ROM from computers in The Velma Denning Room.

SSDS Reference Library: A growing reference collection of software manuals and textbooks on statistics, econometrics and advanced methods is available for in-house use. In addition, users can browse a reference collection of printed codebooks and user manuals for datasets in the SSDS collection.

Getting Started Guides and Help Documents: A variety of help guides and documents assist clients who are just getting started with core quantitative and qualitative software programs (and their use across different operating systems), conversion software, and specialty software. General help documents cover topics such as best practices for data entry and tips and resources for reporting results from data analysis. Guides and documents are included in SSDS workshop information packets. Guides are available in The Velma Denning Room or from the SSDS Web site at:

http://library.stanford.edu/services/social_sci_data_soft/software_docs.html

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Located on the first floor of the Green Library Bing Wing, the Social Sciences Resource Center supports the research and instructional needs of the Stanford University community through a variety of resources and services.

http://ssrc.stanford.edu/

SSRC Subject Specialists

Stanford users engaged in advanced social science research can contact the Center's subject specialists with their questions or arrange an appointment via email. Subject specialists, in conjunction with the faculty, plan and conduct instructional sessions for classes and special groups.

Jonsson Library of Government Documents

Collections include depository and other publications from the United Nations, international governmental agencies, U.S. Federal government, State of California, and foreign countries. Publications cover most subjects, including demography and population, education, international relations, public administration and international trade. Online databases provided by the Stanford Libraries allow users to access U.S. government, international, and foreign information. In addition, users have access to large collections of commercially produced publications on microform located within the Center. For details about Jonsson Library resources, services, and facilities go to their Web site. The Jonsson Library is open to the public during Green Library hours.

Jonsson Library Publications on CD-ROM

Stanford users and visitors can browse a unique collection of U. S. and California state agency bibliographic and full-text publications on CD-ROM from computers located in the SSRC reception area. A customized, user-friendly computer interface facilitates easy access to these and other Jonsson Library of Government Documents resources and popular Web sites. Users with questions about access to the Jonsson Library CD-ROM collection can inquire during open hours at the SSRC Reception Desk.

J. Erik Jonsson Social Sciences Reading Room

The Jonsson Reading Room provides a comfortable environment for users engaged in social science research. A reference collection of over 10,000 volumes includes scholarly encyclopedias, handbooks, dictionaries, and directories, finding aids and guides to United States and British government agency archives. Other collections consist of classic texts, monographs published by Stanford's Center for the Study of Language and Information (CSLI), and a selection of newspapers and current issues of journals and magazines in the social sciences. In addition to print collections, Stanford faculty, staff and students have access to twelve networked computers installed with popular quantitative (statistical) software (SPSS, SAS, Stata, Amos), qualitative software (NVivo), GIS software, and data conversion software. Users with questions about these software packages can contact the software consultants via the SSDS Web site. The Jonsson Reading Room is located in the SSRC and is open during Green Library building hours.

New and Notable Books

Visit our new books "corner" located just outside of the Jonsson Reading Room, next to the reception desk. New books circulate for twenty-eight days and generally remain on the shelf for two months before heading to their permanent stack location. Current titles include: Behavioral Economics and its Applications [HB74 .P8 B44 2007], Involuntary Memory [BF378.I68 I58 2007], IQ: A Smart History of a Failed Idea [BF431 .M825 2007], Envy, Competition and Gender [BF692.2 .E58 2007], and Multiculturalism without Culture [HQ1161 .P452 2007]. Find full descriptions of these titles via Socrates.

Public Events

The Center is host to special activities and events throughout the year that bring experts from Stanford and from other universities, government, and industry for presentations with cross-disciplinary appeal. Our spring 2007 symposium, Censuses and Surveys: Still Useful for the Common Good?, featured Kenneth Prewitt, Carnegie Professor of Public Affairs, Columbia University and former director, United States Census Bureau (1998-2001); Henry Brady, Professor of Political Science and Public Policy and Director, UC DATA; and Douglas Rivers, Professor of Political Science and Senior Fellow, Hoover Institution, Stanford, University. The Institute for Research in the Social Sciences at Stanford University (IRiSS) co-sponsored this event. Catch up on videos and posters from this and other past events here.

Social Science Data and Software (SSDS)

SSDS staff members provide services and support to Stanford faculty, staff and students in finding and getting social science data and selecting and using quantitative (statistical) and qualitative software. Details about SSDS are available in Social Science Data and Software (SSDS): An Array of Resources and Services in this issue.

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Stanford University Libraries and Academic Information Resources (SULAIR) has developed a small site in Second Life, which includes a virtual library. Second Life (SL) is a virtual world run by Linden Lab, based in San Francisco. Populated by avatars, SL is more than simply a game or a virtual representation of real life (RL). There are currently over 8.3 million avatars in SL, of which approximately 1.8 million are active users. Among those users are people who are making money in SL, creating items that are purchased by other avatars, such as clothes or jewelry. The richest entrepreneurs in SL, however, seem to be those who buy and sell land. There have even been entrepreneurs who have been able to quit their RL jobs!

SULAIR in SL

SULAIR, however, was interested in the trend of educational institutions moving into Second Life. Rachel Gollub, of SULAIR's Digital Library Systems and Services group first introduced the idea of building a library in Fall 2006. We were subsequently asked to look into Second Life as a platform for further discussion. This we did by purchasing a small plot of land on EduIsland, one of several islands at the time that specialized in educational institutions. There we built a rudimentary library with access to the Stanford's online catalog, Socrates, and other SULAIR Web sites, as well as images for the user to peruse.

SL in Academia

There has been an explosion of Second Life use in academia. It has become a focal point for research and study in a number of academic disciplines, including, but not limited to, design, computer science, sociology, psychology and education. One can visit any of the Education and Information Islands and enter into discussions covering such topics as educational tools for research, emotion enhancement in virtual worlds, credibility in virtual education, or any topic that another avatar finds interesting to discuss. This includes where to get the coolest hair or where the best place to dance is!

What SL Offers

What Second Life offers is a platform for people from around the globe to meet, socialize, debate, and collaborate with others. It gives institutions like Stanford an opportunity to offer virtual classes and resources. As importantly, it gives us a perspective on the University and its function as a venue for intellectual outreach and growth, which has resulted in a newfound sense of academic community that extends around the world.

How to Visit SL

To visit the virtual world of Second Life, just go to http://secondlife.com and click on JOIN NOW. You will need to pick a first name, and then choose from a list of last names, and finally decide on a "look" for your avatar. There are 8 or 10 from which to pick - 4 or 5 female and 4 or 5 male. Once in SL, you can make alterations to the look of your avatar to give it your unique stamp.

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HighWire Press, the online publishing division of Stanford University Libraries and Academic Information Resources (SULAIR), produces indexed, full-text versions of scientific, technical and medical journals. A list of currently available journals can be found at HighWire's Web site:

http://highwire.stanford.edu/

The following list* includes journals that were recently added, or will soon be added:

Adaptation - 15 Jan 2008

American Orthoptic Journal - 15 Nov 2007

Arctic Anthropology - 15 Nov 2007

Bioscience Horizons - 15 Jan 2008

British Journal of Infection Control - 5 Sep 2007

Cambridge Journal of Regions, Economy and Society - 15 Dec 2007

Christian Bioethics - 15 Jan 2008

Contemporary Literature - 15 Nov 2007

Contemporary Woman's Writing - 4 Sep 2007

DTB - Drug and Therapeutics Bulletin - 12 Sep 2007

Ecological Restoration - 15 Nov 2007

Ecquid Novi: African Journalism Studies - 15 Nov 2007

Elements - 13 Dec 2007

Emotion Review - 1 Jan 2009

German History - 15 Jan 2008

Haematologica - 10 Oct 2007

JACC Imaging - 1 Jan 2008

Journal of Education for Sustainable Development - 5 Sep 2007

Journal of Human Resources - 15 Nov 2007

The Journal of Medicine and Philosophy - 15 Jan 2008

Journal of Plant Registrations - 24 Oct 2007

Journal of Topology - 15 Jan 2008

Journal of World Energy Law & Business - 1 Nov 2007

Land Economics - 15 Nov 2007

Landscape Journal - 15 Nov 2007

Luso-Brazilian Review - 15 Nov 2007

Monatshefte - 15 Nov 2007

NDT Plus - 30 Aug 2007

Seismological Research Letters - 8 Dec 2007

SubStance - 15 Nov 2007

Telos - 18 Mar 2008

Therapeutic Advances in Cardiovascular Disease - 30 Aug 2007

Therapeutic Advances in Respiratory Disease - 5 Sep 2007

*Dates are subject to change.

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