UW Libraries Providing New Databases

This summer the UW Libraries began providing a new set of databases for general periodical, newspaper and business research.  EBSCO Academic Search Complete, EBSCO Business Source Complete and NewsBank Access World News replaced our suite of ProQuest databases and provide expanded coverage of journals, business resources and U.S. and international news.

Some notable highlights of these new databases:

The EBSCO Academic Search Complete database will replace the ProQuest Research Library database as the primary, interdisciplinary “first stop” source for magazine and journal articles. Academic Search Complete provides access to over 5,500 full-text periodicals including over 4,600 peer-reviewed jounals. This will be an increase of 1,500 current full-text peer reviewed journals over ProQuest Research Library.

EBSCO Business Source Complete will replace the ProQuest ABI/Inform collection of business databases. Business Source Complete has the full-text of the Harvard Business Review and covers more than 1,200 other journals, some going as far back as 1886. The database also includes investment research reports, industry reports, market research reports and SWOT analyses.

Explore the contents of these databases by clicking on the links below:

EBSCO Academic Search Complete

EBSCO Business Source Complete

Read more about the switch from Proquest to EBSCO here: http://www.lib.washington.edu/cms/clp/.

The Qwidget

The UW Libraries home page redesign, which launched at the end of August, includes our new chat-with-a-librarian widget, called Qwidget (yes, it does sound like a 1980s video game character).

Thanks to our fantastic systems librarians here at UW, the Qwidget appears as a friendly little “Click Here to Talk with a UW Librarian” box in the upper right hand corner of the screen.

Clicking on this box opens the widget, from which anyone can chat with UW Librarians, who staff the service from 9-5pm Mondays-Fridays.  All other times of the day (our chat services is 24/7), users will be directed to another academic librarian ready to help them in real time with research questions or other information searches.

We’ve already seen an increase in the amount of traffic we’re getting since putting the Qwidget on our page.

Many libraries already offer a chat-with-a-librarian service via other widgets, such as the Meebo widget.

The advantage to offering this service in widget form is that this tool can be added to any webpage.   So, instructors who would like to add this widget to their course web page can do so – giving their students the opportunity to ask questions directly from their page.

To find out how you can add Qwidget to your UW course, contact me!

Welcome to the UWEO Librarian’s Blog!

I’ve started this blog as a way of keeping UWEO staff, instructors and students involved in UW Educational Outreach programs (including Extension, Certificate, Online Learning, Evening Degree and English Language) programs up to date on services and resources offered by the UW Libraries.

I’ll post here periodically on new online resources, tutorials, and programs offered by the UW Libraries.  Please feel free to contact me by clicking on About Me at the top of this page.  Thanks!