By Linda Hauck

One of the favorite parts of my job is to support students in their search for data and statistics. Some students needs are met by a quick search in Statista, a database that aggregates data and statistics on a wide range of topics or a smart google search employing filetype:xls or site:.gov. These quick solutions are satisfying, for sure, but the real fun happens when students need multiple datasets for data analysis, or a research methods project.

To help these students, I start the conversation by asking about their topic and how they envision using data. We talk about their ideal dataset keeping in mind how it might be generated, who is likely to collect the data, what frequency, granularity, time period, populations, and geographies are needed. If there is an agency or organization that is obviously most likely to compile the idea dataset, it makes sense to start there. If not, doing a scholarly literature review and focusing on the data or methods section of papers will point to potential sources.

This data exploration process can be time consuming but fun!

Grace Liu, Business Librarian at West Chester University, with the advice of Bobray Bordelon, Economics & Finance Librarian/Data Services Librarian at Princeton University distilled the process in this neat infographic.

Linda Hauck, MLS, MBA is Business Librarian at Falvey Library.

By Jutta Seibert

Falvey Memorial Library now subscribes to the Online Egyptological Bibliography, the premier research tool for Egyptologists. It indexes a wide range of publications in the field, including journal articles, books, book chapters, and conference proceedings. The content reflects the multilingual nature of the Egyptological community and abstracts may be in English, French, or German. Newer records include digital object identifiers (DOI) and links to online publications. The coverage of the bibliography extends back to 1822.

Published by Oxford University’s Griffith Institute, in cooperation with the International Association of Egyptologists, the Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München, and the Universität Heidelberg, the Bibliography is the successor to the Annual Egyptological Bibliography, founded in 1947. It also includes Christine Beinlich-Seeber’s Bibliographie Altägypten and records from the Aigyptos database.

The Bibliography uses the Trlit CG Times font for the display of Egyptian transliteration characters, and it is recommended users connect to the Bibliography via the Mozilla Firefox web browser to ensure the correct display of the phonetic Unicode characters. It can be accessed through the Library’s Databases A-Z list.

Jutta Seibert is Director of Research Services & Scholarly Engagement at Falvey Memorial Library.

By Darren G. Poley

Are you looking for primary source materials of a religious or theological nature from the era of the Protestant Reformation and Catholic Revival? Printed texts on many subjects burst onto the scene in sixteenth and seventeenth-century Western Europe. A wide variety of controversial, exegetical, pastoral, social and political works from that time have been gathered into two online collections: The Digital Library of Classic Protestant Texts and The Digital Library of the Catholic Reformation.

They present full-text historical documents, and both include an array of document types, such as pamphlets, sermons, compendia, catechisms, biblical commentaries, and doctrinal treatises.  Between them there is a broad representation of various denominational traditions and religious orders.

Period editions are presented in their original languages of Latin, English, French, Italian, Spanish, and German. You can search by topic, author, biblical citation, or the original title of a work.

Darren G. Poley is Associate Director of Research Services and Scholarly Engagement, and Theology, Humanities, and Classical Studies Librarian at Falvey Memorial Library. You can access these collections from the Databases A-Z page on the Library Website.

By Sarah Hughes

The National Library of Medicine (NLM) is replacing the long-standing version of PubMed with a newly redesigned and more intuitive version of the database. The new PubMed is now live and can be found on Falvey’s Databases A to Z page or by using this direct link. Click the blue banner at the top of the page to begin using the new PubMed.

The old version is now referred to as legacy PubMed and is still available for use. However, legacy PubMed will be officially phased out and replaced with the new PubMed at some point in spring 2020.

Some of the more significant changes include:

• A modernized and cleaner looking search interface.
• Enhanced mobile device connectivity. Viewing PubMed on small screens like a mobile device or tablet is greatly improved.
• A more predictive search algorithm designed to be like searching in Google.
• An on-screen cite feature which creates instant citations in several popular style formats, including AMA and APA.

To help frequent PubMed users adjust to these changes and new functionalities, the Nursing and Life Sciences librarian created documentation on using the New PubMed. PubMed”Cheat Sheets” can be found on the Nursing Subject Guide in tutorials under PubMed Basics and Advanced. More in-depth information can be found on the official PubMed User Guide.

Librarians are here to support you as you transition to the new PubMed. Please contact your subject librarian with any questions on adjusting to the enhanced interface.

Sarah Hughes is Nursing & Life Sciences Librarian at Falvey Memorial Library.

Photo by Michael on Unsplash.

BY MERRILL STEIN 

Did you know? HeinOnline, a robust legal database, now offers a new collection: U.S. Presidential Impeachment Library.

The collection, organized based on the four affected Presidents, brings together a variety of documents, both contemporaneous and asynchronous to each President’s impeachment. It presents a snapshot of the political climate as each impeachment played out as well as the long view history has taken of each proceeding.

Accessible from the Falvey Library homepage. 

Subscription is courtesy of the Villanova University Charles Widger School of Law.

Merrill Stein is Political Science Librarian at Falvey Memorial Library.