Fall 2008, Rutgers
University Libraries Economics Newsletter
Ryan Womack, Data and Economics
Librarian, rwomack@rci.rutgers.edu
This newsletter describes news relevant to economics from the Rutgers University Libraries. It is typically issued once a semester, with occasional ‘special editions’ for important breaking news. For more regular updates on data developments, consult or subscribe to the RutgersData blog at rutgersdata.wordpress.com.
Last updated 4 September 2008
Introduction
As part of my continued migration to my role as Data and Economics Librarian, this newsletter will only be distributed to the Departments of Economics and Agricultural, Food, and Resource Economics.
Data announcements of newly available datasets and updates on data services will be made more frequently via my RutgersData blog at rutgersdata.wordpress.com. Please drop by and/or subscribe if you are interested.
The blog also contains a chat box where you can chat with me live. During the Fall, I will hold online office hours every Tuesday from 2-4 pm. Of course you can continue to contact me for assistance by e-mail, phone (2-7129 x131), or in person (at Alexander Library or I can drop by your office).
Collections
Newly acquired by the libraries:
· Elsevier’s Handbooks in Economics are available, as reported earlier. This collection presents long authoritative and advanced review articles of the state-of-the-art in major economic sub-disciplines. A must-see if you haven’t tried it out already!
· International Encyclopedia of Social and Behavioral Sciences – massive encyclopedia with systematic coverage of all the social sciences. Sample, for example, this article on Development Economics by Jere Behrman.
· JSTOR Arts and Sciences Collection Part III has been purchased, adding mostly humanities journal titles.
· Cambridge, Oxford, and Sage journals expanded access:
Thanks to the hard work of our collection services staff in
consolidating subscriptions and renegotiating with publishers, we have struck
deals that expand our journal subscriptions from these publishers from 356 to 855 titles. New titles include Environment and Development
Economics, Journal of Entrepreneurship, Journal of Financial
Econometrics, Macroeconomic Dynamics, World Trade Review, and many more.
There are also many new journals in political science,
geography, health, human resources, and other related disciplines.
You can click here to download a list of 90 selected titles, or e-mail me if you want to
look at the complete list.
· If you are looking for some classy, high-quality imagery to enhance a report or presentation, or would just like to browse, try the new art database ARTStor.
· The interface to EconLit has changed. This change was in the works for some time, but the timing was a bit of a surprise. The Libraries switched providers of the index from OVID to EBSCO. This saves us money, and the new interface will allow you to do some new things like search EconLit and Business Source Premier at the same time, for maximum coverage of the literature.
The basic search is
"Google" like, but you can easily narrow your search results by
article type, subject, and date using the options in the sidebars on the
results screen. The advanced search allows you to access all of the searchable
fields (like JEL Classification,
Country, Author Affiliation, etc.), and to be more precise in specifying a
specific combination of terms. You can create a personal profile to generate
search alerts and save customizations. There's also a visual search feature
which you may or may not find useful.
This graphically displays results according to the their topics. As in
the old version of EconLit, clicking on the "Search for Article"
button will launch another window with links to Rutgers-subscribed electronic
access, if available.
Thanks to a generous dollop of additional funding allocated by Phil
Furmanski, we are not at this time contemplating any of the drastic cuts in
collections that seemed likely in the Spring semester. However, there is
no funding for new purchases at this time.
A question regarding collections: The New Palgrave Dictionary of Economics has been released in a new revised edition. It is regrettable
that in the age of Wikipedia, the scholarly community could not find a way to
release a basic reference source of this type in a less expensive, more easily
available format. The print version costs many times more than what we
currently would spend on any print reference source. And the online
version requires a very hefty annual subscription, which seems peculiar for a
work that will not expand over time (although the publishers promise
revision). If you really consider the New Palgrave essential for our
faculty and students, please let me know so that I can begin to lobby for
funding for it.
Services
· Data Center – we are in the process of moving the Data Center computers from the 4th
floor of Alexander Library to the first floor reference area. These
computers provide access to SPSS, SAS, GIS software, and CD-ROM sources such as
Global Development Finance and specialized Census material from
Geolytics. There’ll be another announcement when the process is
completed.
· Datastream
Advance – thanks to the generosity of the Rutgers Business School,
the Libraries now have access to the Datastream service from Thomson.
Datastream provides daily pricing and volume information on over 37,000
equities from 57 countries, 12,000 market stock and bond indices, 87,000
macroeconomic series from the International Financial Statistics of the World
Bank, OECD and other central statistical offices, over 2,000 daily foreign
exchange rates, 1,000 daily and weekly interest rate series, 68,000 fixed
income instruments from 23 countries and more than 260 financial and commodity
futures and options contracts. There is one PC at Kilmer Library
designated for Datastream use. Only one Rutgers user may use Datastream
at a time. Please contact me if you’re interested in more information
about this service.
· LibX toolbar
– as previously announced, the LibX toolbar is an add-on to your browser that allows you to
o search Library
holdings for e-journals and books without changing websites
o provides
one-click access to Google Scholar searches and instant access to cited
articles with the Google Scholar icon.
o automatically
search books in Amazon and other bookstore sites against Rutgers
holdings. Just click on the red “R”.
Click here to
learn more and download:
http://www.libraries.rutgers.edu/rul/tools/toolbar/toolbar.shtml
Other news
· If you would like to schedule instructional sessions for your classes relating to library databases and resources, or would like individual consultation about any information resources related to economics, please contact me. Also, feel free to list me as a resource for your students on your syllabi, web pages, and courseware.
· More comprehensive guides to available resources in Economics and Numeric and GIS Data can be found under "Subject Research Guides" on the library home page.
· Please e-mail me if you have any other suggestions and comments about the Libraries’ information resources or services.
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