Research Online

The library’s Web Steering committee is looking for faculty members from all disciplines to help us improve our website. Over the next month or so we would ask you to come to the library, or we could come to your office, and have you perform a series of tasks via our website, so we can see how easy or difficult they are to perform. This is a test of the site’s ease-of-use, and in no way a test of your abilities!

If you’ve always wished you could show us how you interact with our site, this is a great opportunity. We would need 20-30 minutes of your time, and we are offering a $20 gift card to your choice of the NU Bookstore (Barnes and Noble) or Starbucks as compensation.

We appreciate those of you who have helped us with similar testing in the past! We are currently seeking new volunteers who have not done this before with the library.

If the month of April is not a good time for you, we anticipate that there will be more opportunities for testing later in the year.

Please contact Karen Merguerian at g.merguerian@neu.edu or x2747 if you are interested in participating in this project now or in the future. And please forward this appeal to others you think may want to help.

Thank you so much for your consideration!

Image courtesy the Wellcome Library

Codebreakers:  Makers of Modern Genetics is a newly-launched treasure trove for fans of science, history, and of course, the history of science!

The Wellcome Library has digitized the papers of key players in genetics from the last century and made them freely available online. Works of Crick, Watson, Franklin, Wilkins, and Haldane are all represented, to name a few. The papers include lab notebooks, sketches, articles, drafts and general correspondence. The site also contains items from the archive of the Eugenics Society, including the heredity chart shown above. In addition to these digitized artifacts, the site features digitized books and a great interactive timeline on the history of genetics.

It’s 6am on a cold November morning, and I know I’m not the only one awake.  As I am writing this, a few Northeastern researchers are online with me, and are currently reading:

*A book chapter about the semantic web
*An article about arterial fibrillation
*An article about human trafficking

How do I know this?  Because Springer, the venerable German publisher of chiefly scientific research, has recently updated its SpringerLink web site.

The content on the new site is the same solid high-quality research they’ve always had, searchable and easily linkable, with full text PDFs available DRM-free, even for ebook chapters, to NU affiliates.

But the new site has this “Recent Activity” feature.  It’s anonymous, but anyone, including you, can see a little window into what’s being read on SpringerLink at Northeastern right now.  More importantly, the new SpringerLink site has a cleaned-up layout and style that displays better in a variety of browsers.  The search results page now shows results at the individual book chapter level, with a “look inside” feature for content not licensed by our library that you may want to purchase.  The “advanced search” has been revamped and is easier to use.

We do have a warning about the new site: If you’ve been a “power user” of Springer Link in the past, you may have set up a “My Account” feature to save your searches, tag your results, and keep a history of any personal orders. Please be aware that your “My Account” on the old SpringerLink will NOT be migrated to the new site. (Unfortunately Springer claims that privacy rules prohibit them from notifying account-holders individually.) You’ll have to set up a new account on the new site and start all over.  The new “My Account” also allows you to log in from anywhere, not just through the NU Libraries.

Currently both the old and the new Springer Link sites are available, so “My Account” users should log in over the Thanksgiving break and save what’s in your old account. Beginning sometime Monday morning, 11/26, you’ll be redirected to the new site and the old site and old account information will no longer be available.

So give the new Springer Link a test drive. Have fun seeing the “Recent Activity” of researchers at NU. I just checked, and it’s now a book about genetically modified plants and an article about Harry Potter from an education journal. I’m sure when you log in it will be something completely different!

Just can’t get enough politics? The Library can help!  Sample our polling resources and online political encyclopedias or ask about other options at the Research Assistance Desk in the new Digital Media Commons.

Visit the Roper Center Public Opinion Archives to immerse yourself in Presidential approval ratings, state and national exit polls, or facts and figures on Presidential elections from 1976 through 2008. For the more adventurous researcher, Roper’s iPoll database provides access to poll questions and survey data collected from the 1930’s to present.  Track public opinion on the trustworthiness of the President, Congress, and individual candidates from the late 1980’s onward.  Check a recent Bloomberg poll to learn which Presidential candidate is considered best qualified to handle relations with Middle Eastern countries in the aftermath of the Benghazi consulate incident.

Polling the Nations includes polls conducted abroad and in the U.S.  You’ll learn how respondents in selected countries feel about President Obama’s foreign policy decisions.  Check a Pew Research Center poll to see how world leaders, including President Obama, are rated by citizens from a variety of nations.

For background information on the office of President, try CQ’s Guide to the Presidency and the Executive Branch. This resource provides an excellent overview of all aspects of the presidency from executive powers through the perks available on Air Force One (personalized boxes of M&M’s!).  A companion publication, CQ’s Guide to Congress is also available. Learn about the powers reserved to the Congress or check on the perks available to your Representatives and Senators.

Vital Statistics on American Politics offers statistics on campaign finance, media outlets and politics, voter turnout, and mid-term elections among other topics. Online editions are available from 2005 to present and offer several options for downloading data. Print volumes for the years 1990 through 2008 are available in the Snell Stacks JK274 S74.

For background on elections and political parties worldwide, check the newly acquired International Encyclopedia of Political Science.  Articles on political parties, electoral geography, and electoral campaigns provide background on these topics in both the U.S. and other countries.

To see photos from Presidential debates, past and present, visit our AP Images database. Classic photos from the 1960 Nixon/Kennedy debates make an interesting contrast with the current Obama/Romney debate images.  For starters, only one of the Nixon/Kennedy images is in color!   Debate moderators from the sixties are identified in photo captions only; today, they’re celebrities in their own rights with photos included with those of the candidates.

Please visit our Political Science Subject Guide to learn about other political/policy research tools provided by the University Libraries.

Watch the entire BBC Shakespeare Collection in the comfort of your own home, dorm, or subway seat! We’re very excited to now own the entire BBC Shakespeare collection available online, through streaming video.

These productions include some of Britain’s most distinguished performers, and productions range from quite traditional to more adventurous:

• Helen Mirren as Titania (A Midsummer Night’s Dream)
• Ben Kingsley as Ford (Merry Wives of Windsor)
• Roger Daltrey as Dromio (The Comedy of Errors)
• Patrick Stewart as Claudius (Hamlet)
• John Cleese as Petruchio (Taming of the Shrew)

View the plays in their entirety, or link to specific Acts for teaching and presentation.  You can also turn Closed Captioning on or off with a single click — an excellent way to see the specifics of Shakespeare’s language unfold before your eyes. We also have the entire collection on DVD, so tell us what you think.