E-Resources @ USF Libraries

Recent addition to the e-resource collections of the USF Libraries....

   

WDI Online:  World Development Indicators, developed and maintained by the World Bank, is a critical source of data on the global economy.  It contains statistical data for over 900 development indicators and time series data from 1960 to the present for 227 economies. Data includes social, economic, financial, natural resource, and environmental indicators.  Includes data on such areas as pollution, energy production, poverty, trade, labor, health, education, exports, government debt, and telecommunications.  The interface is supported in seven languages. Data can be exported to standard formats like Excel, helping to make WDI Online an essential tool for researching global economies.

For this database and other library resources visit http://www.lib.usf.edu.  Click on Databases by Title/Subject to begin.

Introducing the newest Communication database

The USF Libraries now subscribe to Communication Abstracts, from Cambridge Scientific, an essential discovery tool for communication-related disciplines. 

Communication Abstracts

Communication Abstracts is a comprehensive index and abstracting service for communication-related publications on a world-wide scale. Subject coverage includes Mass Communication, Advertising, Marketing, Broadcasting, Communication Theory, Interpersonal and Intrapersonal Communication, Small Group Communication, Organizational Communication, Journalism, Public Relations, Radio, Public Opinion, Speech and Television. Coverage includes not only communication literature but also literature in other disciplines that is relevant to communication researchers, covering international literature in film studies, the role of technology in human communications, risk communication, and crisis communication. Communication Abstracts indexes articles, reports, papers, and books from a variety of publishers with coverage from 1977 to present.

Presenting 2 drama collections...

The USF Libraries have acquired two new databases, American Film Scripts and Black Drama, from Alexander Street Press.  Both resources have potential  applications in the study of popular culture, theatre, diversity and gender issues, language and linguistics, writing, American history, sociology, psychology, anthropology and many other disciplines. 

American Film Scripts
American Film Scripts makes available online, for the first time, authorized versions of copyrighted screenplays from studios such as Warner Bros., Sony, MGM and other major film studios.  The collection currently contains 776 scripts but will grow to over 1000 scripts, extending back to the earliest silent films and progressing to the present. American Film Scripts contains, where it exists, the original screenplay in PDF. You can search the collection by character, scene, race, nationality, age, subject, year of writing, occupation and more. Includes a browsing feature where the screenplays are listed by year, beginning with the shooting script for The Great Train Robbery in 1903. A similar listing is provided for the scripts, characters, subjects of the films, and people---the writers, directors, actors, and producers. Includes the screenplays for such films as The Wizard of Oz,  From Here to Eternity, Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, Twelve Monkeys, Platoon, and The Shawshank Redemption.

Black Drama
Black Drama contains the full text of 1,200 plays written from the mid-1800s to the present by more than 150 playwrights from North America, English-speaking Africa, the Caribbean, and other African Diaspora countries. Many of the works are rare, hard to find, or out of print.  Nearly a quarter of the collection will consist of previously unpublished plays by writers such as Langston Hughes, Ed Bullins, David Edgecombe, Willis Richardson, Amiri Baraka, Randolph Edmonds, Zora Neale Hurston, and many others.  The works from early 20th-century America include key writings of the Harlem Renaissance, works performed for the Federal Theatre Project, and plays by critically acclaimed dramatists through the 1940s.  American works from the later twentieth century cover the Black Arts movement of the sixties and seventies, works performed by the Black Arts Repertory Theatre/School (BARTS), The Negro Ensemble Company, and other companies.  African and Caribbean drama is represented by a wide collection of plays from Ghana, Uganda, Sierra Leone, Nigeria, Kenya, South Africa, the West Indies, the United Kingdom, and other parts of the world.  Each play is extensively indexed, allowing both keyword and multiple field searching.  Using nine tables of contents, users can browse by plays, authors, characters, theaters, productions, companies, media resources (posters, playbills, articles, etc.), subjects, and years.  The plays are accompanied by reference materials and images.

Retrospective databases added

From the survey we conducted last Spring, we learned that you would like more full text from prior to 1995 or so. Much of this material has not been digitized, however USF Libraries is working hard to acquire any materials that have. For this reason, we have acquired two retrospective H.W. Wilson databases. They will each provide indexing for more than half a century.

EDUCATION INDEX RETRO

Education Index Retro provides cover-to cover indexing for an international range of English-language periodicals and yearbooks for the years, 1929-1983. It includes indexing of 500+  periodicals, as far back as 1929. It cites nearly one million articles, including book reviews. Combining the Education Index Retrospective database in a multiple database search with other Wilson databases such as Education Full Text or Social Sciences Full Text is a particularly valuable  way to uncover  years of research.

Subjects covered include adult education, arts, athletics, comparative education, continuing education, distance learning, educational law & litigation, elementary education, ethnic/multicultural education, higher education, language arts, library science, literacy, parent-teacher relations, preschool education,  school administration, school buildings,  teacher education and evaluation, teaching methods, and tests and measurements.

HUMANITIES FULL TEXT and/or SOCIAL SCIENCES RETROSPECTIVE

'This database offers the ability to search a wide range of important journals in the humanities and social sciences as far back as 1907. Coverage also includes content from H.W. Wilson’s International Index.  Combine this valuable resource with other Wilson databases such as Humanities Full Text and/or Social Sciences Full Text for a century of research in hundreds of journals.   

Subjects covered include anthropology, art, classical studies, communications, community health and medical care, criminal justice, dance, economics, environmental studies, film, gender studies, geography, gerontology, history, international studies, linguistics, music, theatre, philosophy, political studies, public administration, psychology, religion, social work, and sociology.

Literature Compass added to database collections

Literature Compass features peer-reviewed articles covering the most important research in literature.  It is unique in its range and explores all branches of literary scholarship, including Medieval literature, Victorian, Renaissance, and American literature. It serves as a useful starting point in the field and an online place to keep current on literary research. Literature Compass features rapid publication of the most important and interesting research in the field, a blog, current abstracts and tables of contents from the main primary journals in the field, hyperlinks within the references, and a personalized work space called "My Compass." With My Compass, you can save searches, bookmark favorite articles to share with colleagues and students, create reading lists of Literature Compass articles, or prepare a course syllabus that combines Literature Compass articles with other online resources and publications. For this database and other library resources visit http://www.lib.usf.edu.  Click on Databases by Title/Subject to begin.

Two more Wilson databases join collection

Play Index

Play Index will help you locate 30,000 of the most important plays ever written. The online edition of this renowned resource serves as a finding aid to plays published individually or in collections.  Collections contain many important classic and historical plays such as the plays of Aeschylus and Euripides, Moliere’s works, Shakespeare’s dramas, works of George Bernard Shaw or Ibsen. This unique resource covers the works of contemporary playwrights, including new editions or translations. 

Coverage of plays in collections or published individually begins in 1949. You can locate more than 500 monologues or search for results based on number of roles, male and/or female; size of total cast; age of audience; or by subject of play, type, style, genre, and more. A descriptive annotation summarizes the plot along with an indication of musical requirements, number of sets, and scenery requirements.

Bibliographic Index Plus

This resource is most often used as a source of last resort, indexing bibliographies from all disciplines. A reference classic for over 60 years, Bibliographic Index Plus provides full text bibliographies from some 1,700 journals that cover a broad range of disciplines. This cumulative bibliography of bibliographies gives convenient answers to a variety of research questions in most disciplines. Researchers will access more than 400,000 bibliographies that have appeared in periodicals, entire books, or parts of books. Indexing of bibliographies begins in 1982 with selected full text starting in 1995.

USF acquires Theatre in Video

Theatre in Video will contain more than 250 definitive performances of the world's leading plays, together with more than 100 film documentaries, online in streaming video. Theatre in Video covers a wide range of 20th century theatre productions, including live theatre and film adaptations. This resource will represent hundreds of leading playwrights, actors and directors. Currently included are landmark performances such as The Iceman Cometh, Hamlet, Othello, Awake and Sing, Long Day's Journey Into Night and more, while more than 170 productions will be added.  Notable actors include Gene Wilder, Laurence Olivier, Richard Dreyfuss, Walter Matthau, and Meryl Streep.  Users can search for a particular production, person, genre, company, documentary, or production date.   For the first time, you can bookmark specific scenes, monologues, and staging.  Documentaries examine subjects such as The Globe Theatre, Edward Albee, The Royal Shakespeare Company, and The Role of Theatre in Ancient Greece. 

Meryl Streep as Alice in Alice at the Palace, 1981

"While the texts of plays can serve as lasting documents, the productions are ephemeral; a live performance is gone when the curtain falls. And yet the collaborative elements of theatre in performance – the work of the actors, directors, and designers – have tremendous scholarly and educational value long after a production closes. Now, with Theatre in Video, students and researchers will be able to revisit great performances again and again, and these landmark events can become a permanent part of the curriculum."  --Alexander Street Press, vendor

Applied Physics Encyclopedia

The USF Libraries has added a new digital, subject-specific encyclopedia ...

Digital Encyclopedia of Applied Physics

This resource provides the basic principles and in-depth coverage of all technically pertinent areas of modern-day physics, coupled with technological applications from real life. Key subject areas covered include the basics, methods, and applications—as well as all the neighboring fields of physics and engineering. The encyclopedia comprehensively covers such specific topics as optics, laser physics, solid state and semiconductor physics, atom and nuclear physics, and biophysics. A glossary covers over 6,000 terms related to the field, with search fields by subject, article, and keyword. The encyclopedia originally appeared in print in 23 volumes plus 2 update volumes, covering some 15,500 pages and over 650 articles with a total of 7,800 figures and 980 tables. The Digital Encyclopedia of Applied Physics appears in a thoroughly updated form, containing 14 new contributions on optics and 30 completely revised articles.

Gale Virtual Reference Library

The USF Libraries have acquired a large number of online reference titles in many disciplines. These titles can be accessed individually by title or can be searched collectively in the database, Gale Virtual Reference Library. History, Medicine, International Studies, Education, and Business are some of the areas that will benefit from these new online reference resources. The complete title list can be found at the following link: Download GaleVRL.doc . Examples of these reference titles include the following:

Encyclopedia of Science, Technology, and Ethics
This four volume encyclopedia considers both the professional ethics of science and technology, and the ethical and political issues raised by science and technology in a complex and global society. Focusing on contemporary issues while providing ample historical and philosophical background, this critically examines issues directly relevant to the 21st century world, including terrorism, freedom, democracy, authoritarianism, military ethics, and more.

Gale Encyclopedia of Multicultural America
This resource contains original essays on specific minority and ethnic groups in the U.S., with an emphasis on culture (religions, holidays, customs, language) in addition to information on historical background and settlement patterns. It also covers ethno religious groups. Each essay has a listing of organizations and research centers; names, addresses, and contact information for periodicals, radio and television stations; and a list of suggestions for further reading. Also featured is a general annotated bibliography with over 100 items regarding multiculturalism.

Feminism in Literature: A Gale Critical Companion
This six-volume set explores the history of women and feminism throughout literature, from classical antiquity to modern times. Feminism in Literature provides historical, social, and literary context for many well- and little-known authors and their works and also includes both primary and secondary documents. Entries found in this six-volume set allow students to evaluate how authors portray culture, social concerns, politics and ethnic/racial issues.

International Dictionary of Films and Filmmakers
This four volume set features thorough coverage of legendary films, actors, actresses, directors, writers, and other production artists through detailed essays and commentary by experts. Entries include biographies, filmographies, comprehensive credits, production information, major awards, and bibliographies.

Geo-Data: The World Geographical Encyclopedia

This comprehensive resource provides entries on the physical geography of every country in the world plus other selected locations. Each entry features a relief map depicting the geography of the location plus detailed text that describes its features, climate and vegetation. Entries are formatted with standardized rubrics to facilitate comparison. Geo-Data features a special rankings section, outlining statistics such as the ten longest rivers on each continent, largest deserts in the world, and more.

Greenwood Digital Collection

A recent acquisition by the USF Libraries, the Greenwood Digital Collection, was made possible by the generous donation of the USF Women's Club.

Greenwood Digital Collection

The Greenwood Digital Collection comprises more than two hundred reference, academic, and general interest ebooks. It features ebooks from Praeger, Greenwood Press, and Libraries Unlimited. Accessible from any computer, this is not just a collection of PDF downloads, but complete texts, all searchable by keyword, subject, author, title, or any Boolean search method. Subject strengths include:  Business, Education, Literature, Multi-Cultural Studies, and Popular Culture. There are no limits to the number of users that can access a title at any time in this collection. Titles within the Greenwood Digital Collection include the following:

• Managing the Big Picture in Colleges and Universities: From Tactics to Strategy, by Richard L. Alfred
• The Accountable Corporation (4 volumes) by Marc J. Epstein and Kirk O. Hanson



• Boundaries of Self and Other in Ghanaian Popular Culture, by Joseph K. Adjaye
• Famous American Crimes and Trials: (5 volumes) by Frankie Y Bailey and Steven M Chermak
• The Alexander Pope Encyclopedia, by Pat Rogers, USF Faculty.