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News from ProQuest: ProQuest is unlocking the primary source material it acquired with University Publications of America (UPA) through a new digital archive called ProQuest History Vault. Its first three modules are being released this year and will provide researchers with a unique, unfiltered view into the Black Freedom Struggle and U.S. foreign policy during the [...]

If libraries go down, so do the vendors who have libraries as their customers. In the spirit of “we’re all in this together,” Credo Reference just announced the launch of  Libraries Thriving, “a space dedicated to communicating the value of libraries and their ability to impact the learning moment.” Here’s the information they sent out: [...]

If you’re going to ACRL, here’s news about a preview of CQ’s new First Street. Representatives from the Washington, D.C.-based publisher CQ Press will be on-site at the Association of College and Research Libraries (ACRL) 2011 conference to showcase First Street™, a groundbreaking online service launching in April, which consolidates congressional, government and lobbying data [...]

Just received this announcement: Significant news regarding the Summon service today. HathiTrust and ProQuest’s Serials Solutions have signed an agreement that will allow full-text searching of the Hathi collection through Summon. This means: Academic libraries’ book collections — print and digital — can be electronically searched all the way down to words and phrases, not [...]

This is the site of the National Home Gardening Club which publishes Gardening How-To magazine.  The web site limits some items to subscribers only but there is a lot of free information.  A prominent feature,  ”All about Gardening” is divided by topic.  The first article on bulbs suggests ways to protect bulbs that sprout in [...]

Here’s news about the latest updates to the Oxford English Dictionary: a story in today’s Chicago Tribune, plus this press release from Oxford. A new sense has been added to the verb heart in this update, and it may be the first English usage to develop via the medium of T-shirts and bumper-stickers. It originated as [...]

As I contemplate building an ark here in the Bay Area where we have had non-stop rain mixed with thunder, lightning, and hail for the past 20 days, thoughts of water-damaged books appeared. One of our delivery drivers brought in a bunch of ruined books because he had loaded them into an open pickup truck [...]

I just heard the news on NPR’s “All Things Considered” about a New York district federal court rejecting Google’s settlement with authors and publishers. Click here for more.

A year after acquiring NetLibrary, EBSCO has released the preview of eBooks on EBSCOhost. EBSCOhost libraries will be able to access the preview site through the Try New Features link on EBSCOhost while NetLibrary users will see a banner with the link on the NetLibrary interface.  Feedback will be collected using a survey that will [...]

This is the eighth App of the Month and the first that I am recommending that is not free.  Starwalk is priced at $2.99 but well worth the money if you ever look up in a clear, star filled sky and say, “what is that bright star?”  Starwalk is a five star app (rating not [...]

The first few years of the current century saw a publishing flurry of reference works on women. Last week, in honor of Women’s History Month,  I wrote a post about some key women’s history resources. Here are a few more. The four-volume Oxford Encyclopedia of Women in World History was published in 2008. Unlike Gale’s 17-volume Women [...]

IGI Global’s Advances in Library Information (ALIS) Science Book Series, edited by Mirela Roncevic, has just launched the monthly ALIS Newsletter.  The first issue features the new book, E-Reference Context and Discoverability in Libraries: Issues and Concepts, edited by Points of Reference blogger Sue Polanka.

Sue Polanka, Points of Reference blogger; author of No Shelf Required: E-Books in Libraries, the No Shelf Required blog, and Booklist‘s “Off the Shelf” column; and Reference Books Bulletin Editorial Board member (and former Board chair), has just been named one of Library Journal‘s Movers and Shakers. Congratulations, Sue!

Events in Japan will likely prompt people to donate to disaster relief efforts, but the range of options can be confusing and there are plenty of scams. It’s a good time to reinforce the importance of making informed choices. Two useful tools are Charity Navigator and the web site of the American Institute of Philanthropy. Both have sections on [...]

With the disaster in Japan and the resulting nuclear power plant issues, a reliable source of information about radiation is important. The Health Physics Society, www.hps.org, is an association of health professionals involved in radiation safety. Their site provides information for the public, the media, health professionals, homeland security, government agencies, students and teachers. They [...]

The little (and admittedly the worse for wear) South Branch of the Evanston (IL) Public Library recently closed, despite heroic efforts on the part of the Friends to keep it open. This branch was right down the street from the condo building where I live, so for me it means I no longer have a [...]

With the large earthquake in Japan yesterday and the tsunami that followed, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration web site (NOAA.gov) is a good place to learn about the disaster, the cause and if it could have been prepared for and or prevented.  The NOAA home page provides a fantastic multi-colored illustration of the tsunami [...]

For Women’s History Month I’m taking a look at a few important women’s history reference sources. Back in 1971, Harvard University Press published the landmark Notable American Women, 1607-1950. The project had been proposed as early as 1955 as a companion but also a  corrective to Dictionary of American Biography, which included only 706 women among its nearly 15,000 [...]

The New York Times reports that the Library of Congress has acquired an archive of more than 6,000 radio and television broadcast recordings of sports events. The archive belonged to John Miley, a retired businessman who started making recordings in high school as a hobby. His collection grew over the years through trades and purchases and spans [...]

Just received this announcement from EBSCO: EBSCO Publishing (EBSCO) and Credo Reference, the online reference service, have extended their partnership allowing the reference content from Credo Reference to be discoverable within EBSCO Discovery Service (EDS). Metadata from Credo General Reference, Credo Topic Pages and Publisher Collections will be added to the EDS Base Index. The [...]