eBooks migrate to EBSCOhost platform

Many of our subscription electronic books or eBooks have now migrated from the netLibrary platform to the EBSCOhost platform. What does this mean for you as a researcher or faculty member? It means a platform that has many familiar features, that is easier to search, and that makes it easier to download, email, or print portions of our books.

Many of our popular databases, such as Academic Search Complete and Business Source Complete, use the EBSCOhost platform, so many of the icons and user features should look familiar. If you have set up a MyEBSCOhost account in one of these other databases, you can also use in with the eBook Collection. Just follow this MyEBSCOhost account link if you would like to learn how to set up an account.

Additional features include:

• Navigate to eBook chapters or sections directly from Result List and Detail Record


• Search within an eBook for specific terms, yielding a list of hyperlinked pages


• Create notes that are associated to eBook pages


• Optional download capabilities and user-selected checkout duration

Our eBooks will continue to be searchable in our library online catalog. Enjoy searching and using the eBook Collection via the EBSCOhost platform!

Find items in libraries near you

WorldCat is the world's largest network of library content and services. WorldCat libraries are dedicated to providing access to their resources on the Web, where most people start their search for information. You can quickly determine whether the Blume Library or another local library has a particular book, DVD, or other item that you are seeking.

• Search many libraries at once for an item and then locate it in a library nearby
• Find books, music, and videos to check out
• Post your review of an item, or contribute factual information about it

Also, if you have a mobile device (smartphone or tablet) and the Red Laser app, using the WorldCat Search API, you can scan a bar code of a book and quickly find out if your local library has that book in their collection. Watch the video on the WorldCat site to learn more about this nifty feature!

Reduce anxiety with the Encyclopedia of Measurement and Statistics

Don't let terms and phrases like measures of central tendency, MANOVA, or kurtosis send you into panic mode! Reduce your anxiety about statistical analysis with the Encyclopedida of Measurement and Statistics, edited by Niel J. Salkind (Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Reference, 2007). This 3-volume, 1136-page publication presents state-of-the-art information and ready-to-use facts and explanations in a non-intimidating and accessible style. The encyclopedia is specifically written to appeal to beginning and intermediate-level students, practitioners, researchers, and consumers of information.

As with other Gale Virtual Reference Library titles, this resource includes downloadable mp3 audio files for each entry, allows users to easily email items to oneself and others, and includes a citation tool that will generate an MLA or APA format citation for each entry.

Whether conducting research, writing proposals, and analyzing data, or understanding what the median is in a news story, this subject encyclopedia can help alleviate confusion.

Psychological meaning of religious experience

The Encyclopedia of Psychology and Religion, edited by David A. Leeming, Kathryn Madden, and Stanton Marlan (New York: Springer, 2010), offers a definitive and intellectually rigorous collection of psychological interpretations of the stories, rituals, motifs, symbols, doctrines, dogmas, and experiences of the world's religious and mythological traditions. In 997 pages, the Encyclopedia applies a range of psychological approaches to understanding the form and content of religious experience, at the same time offering insight into the meanings of various symbols and themes of numerous world religions.

As with other Gale Virtual Reference Library titles, this resource includes downloadable mp3 audio files for each entry and a citation tool that will generate an MLA or APA format citation for each entry. Other features:

• A comprehensive reference work that includes that broad spectrum of psychological approaches to understanding the form and content of religious experience


• Entries draw on forty different religious traditions, including modern world religions (e.g. Christianity, Judaism, Islam, Buddhism, and Hinduism), as well as older religious movements (e.g. African Animism, Egyptian, Greek, Gnostic, and Native North American religions)


• Provides the technical and phenomenological vocabulary that will enable researchers in the fields of psychology and religion to pursue collaboration and dialogue

This is a crucial resource for the collaboration and mutual illumination of the fields of psychology and religion and their intersection.

CQ Press Political Reference Suite: Making National Government More Understandable

Through the Blume Library's and the Law Library's subscription to CQ Press Political Reference Suite (PRS) or CQ Electronic Library (CQEL), we have access to the following searchable publications:

• CQ Almanac - offers year-by-year analysis on politics and policy in the US Congress.
• Congress and the Nation - the definitive source for actions of the US Congress including legislative history, policy analysis, and key votes.
• Historic Documents Series - provides key primary sources, context, and global coverage updated yearly.
• Political Handbook of the World - the most authoritative resource for political information, including government histories, party profiles and election results on more than 200 countries.
• Supreme Court Yearbook - offers essential coverage of the US Supreme Court.
• Washington Information Directory - the essential guide to key contacts at government agencies and national organizations, including federal agencies and non-governmental organizations (NGOs).

While our library has older editions of these titles in print, some of the advantages of the online publications include:

• Advanced search options so that users can search by keyword across all CQ Press online editions or limit their search to certain topic areas or titles


• Multiple, customized browse options to help locate and explore all available content


• Easy-to-use interfaces with clean, inviting screen designs


• Handy personalization options that save user profiles and search results for use in future research


• Links to available external resources


• CiteNow!™—An exclusive CQ Press feature that helps users easily download full citations in MLA, APA, Chicago, or Bluebook style

Try searching the CQ Press Political Reference Suite (PRS) today!

The Encyclopedia of Consciousness Awaits Exploration

The Encyclopedia of Consciousness, edited by William P. Banks (London: Academic Press, 2009) is a 2-volume background source, providing a summary of major research and scientific thought regarding the nature of consciousness, the neural circuitry involved, how the brain, body, and world interact, and our understanding of subjective states, in 79 in-depth entries. Entries range from Aesthetics and the Experience of Beauty to Artificial Intelligence and Consciousness to Religious Experience: Psychology and Neurology to William James on the Mind and Its Fringes. Many of these in-depth entries are divided into sections, and many include a glossary, bibliography, and brief biographical sketch of the entry's author. 407 images are included with this publication.

This resource is available 24/7 to current students, faculty, and staff through the Credo Reference database.

LibGuides can help your students

As faculty and staff are busily preparing for both summer and fall semester courses and activities, we thought you might like to know a little bit about new resources we have been developing to assist your students in conducting research for their classes and programs. We began using new software called LibGuides last summer. The web-based program helps us build guides to library and online resources in virtually any subject and present this information in a student-friendly, well-organized manner. We have developed LibGuides for business, government information, some core curriculum courses, English, oral communications, counseling, psychology and more than 60 other topics, frequently in consultation with other faculty members.

You may want to add the URL for a specific LibGuide to your syllabus or in your Blackboard course. If you would like us to develop a LibGuide for your class, please contact your department’s library liaison or Diane Duesterhoeft.

based on information provided by Dr. H. Palmer Hall, Director, Louis J. Blume Library, St. Mary’s University