St. Thomas Libraries Blog - News, Events and Musings from the UST Libraries

Redesigned Library Website Coming to You on January 27

Beginning January 27th, you will be welcomed to a redesigned website for the St.Thomas Libraries built from input by students and faculty. The site will be streamlined for easier navigation, will position the most popular services front and center, and will feature a contemporary feel aligned with other St. Thomas websites.

Here’s a look at the new home page and it’s main sections:

Image of Library Home Page

Quicklinks: View personalized, course-relevant resources in MyLibrary, reserve a study room or studio, and place an Interlibrary Loan request.
Navigation Categories: Explore the five main areas: Research & Explore, Services, Location & Hours, About, and Ask a Librarian.
Search & Find: Find academic resources via various tools.
Library Hours: Look up hours for all four libraries and various service areas within the OSF Library.

These sections can be broken down further:

Image of Library Home Page

More detail for the Navigation Categories section:

1a. Research & Explore: Connect with academic sources and Librarians.

1b. Services: Connect with library staff to collaborate on services like library instruction and course materials services.

1c. Locations & Hours: Look up our libraries’ physical locations and open hours.

1d. About: Find out what drives the libraries, connect with library staff, and learn about opportunities to support the Libraries.

1e. Ask a Librarian: Connect with helpful staff in-person, and via live chat, email, and phone.

More detail for the Search & Find section:

2a. Choose where to search: e.g., LibrarySearch catalog, Journals list, Databases list, Music & Media, Research Guides, Archives, or the Library website.

2b. Choose what to search by: e.g., keyword, title, ISBN, ISSN, subject.

2c. Enter your search terms.

As always, you can connect with us with questions via Ask a Librarian on our website.

January 16, 2023 by Greg Argo

New database trial in October – Trends & Policy: U.S. Healthcare

The St. Thomas libraries are excited to trial a new database that focuses on U.S. Healthcare policy. Trends & Policy: U.S. Healthcare provides a single location to connect U.S. Government policies with statistics and news showing the results of those policies.

Trends & Policy is a series of in-depth primary source collections such as public laws, Legislative branch reports, and Executive branch reports and data. Currently, researchers must use multiple disparate tools to find all of the essential executive and legislative content related to a policy. Statistical data can often be difficult to find, extract and use in research and in reports. The focus of these collections is not only on their respective topics, but also brings together primary source content relevant to U.S. policy with statistics and data.

If you type in keywords or phrases related to your topic, results are organized by Topic Pages that give context and pathways into research on a topic, Government materials such as public laws, commission reports, and hearings, Newspaper articles, and Statistical tables.

Trends & Policy: U.S. Healthcare cuts a wide swath into many disciplines aside from the obvious audiences of political science and nursing students. MBA students can learn about health maintenance organizations, (HMO’s) educators can read about the effects of school bullying on mental health, and students of history can compare pandemics from the past to the present.

You can access the Libraries’ trial of Trends & Policy: U.S. Healthcare here.

Please contact Andrea Koeppe with any questions or feedback you have about the database trial by October 31st.

October 6, 2022 by Andrea Koeppe

Database Highlights & Trials, Libraries

Putting Patients First: Evidence-Based Care Tools

During the month of October, the St. Thomas Libraries will be trialing two evidence-based resources to support health care decision making: UpToDate and Cochrane Library.

UpToDate is a physician-authored point-of-care medical resource. What does that mean in laypersons’ terms? A point-of-care tool aims to provide a clinician with the most recommended course of treatment based on a comprehensive overview of the best available evidence at the point-of-care with a patient.

UpToDate provides over 33,000 graphics, summary and recommendation information for treatment, patient education leaflets, calculators, drug information, and a drug interactions tool.

You can access the Libraries’ trial of UpToDate here.

The Cochrane Library is a powerful database of literature reviews, research protocols, and clinical controlled trials that can be used to inform healthcare decision-making. It consists of six collections:

Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews
Cochrane Central Register of Controlled Trials
Cochrane Methodology Register
Database of Abstracts of Reviews of Effects
Health Technology Assessment Database
NHS Economic Evaluation Database

Try a basic or advanced search in Cochrane Library using keywords related to your topic.

You can filter your results by date, language, type, and topic on the left side of the search results. Be sure to click the tabs at the top of the search results to find different types of sources, such as Cochrane reviews, protocols, trials, and clinical answers.

You can access the Libraries’ trial of Cochrane Library here.

Please contact Karen Brunner with any questions or feedback you have about these database trials.

October 4, 2022 by Karen Brunner

Latin America, Media/Music Collections, O'Shaughnessy-Frey Library

Hispanic Heritage Month (Music and Videos)

Let’s Celebrate Hispanic History Month! with some videos and music. Here are some top films and music to celebrate Hispanic history, art, and culture available to watch or listening online from the Music & Media Collections.

Finding Gaston

Watch Online. Can a cook change his country through his food? FINDING GASTON follows acclaimed chef Gaston Acurio, founder of the world-reknowned restaurant group La Mar Cebicheria and the man largely credited with popularizing Peruvian cuisine across the globe, to find out the stories, inspirations, and dreams behind a man on a mission to change his country with his food. Join the culinary journey into the world of Peruvian cuisine to discover the power of food in Peru, and around the world.

The Latino List

The Latino List: Volume 1 “A unique glimpse into the vibrant and burgeoning culture of Hispanic America through a series of highly personal video portraits of Latinos who have richly contributed to the fabric of contemporary society.
The Latino List: Volume 2

Soul of the Tango: The Music of Astor Piazzolla

Enjoy famed cellist Yo-Yo Ma playing the music of Astor Piazzolla in this Grammy Award-winning audio recording of traditional tango, infused with elements of jazz and classical music to create tango nuevo.

Archivo de Guatemala

Spanish colonies in Central and South America emerged as wellsprings of cultural activity throughout the 17th and 18th centuries. The meeting of indigenous populations with Latin American cathedrals and courtly life.

By Cindy Badilla-Melendez

September 16, 2022 by

Media/Music Collections, O'Shaughnessy-Frey Library

Watch Inspiring Documentary Inocente

INOCENTE is an intensely personal and vibrant coming of age documentary about a young artist’s fierce determination to never surrender to the bleakness of her surroundings. Told through her own words, Inocente describes the freedom she feels when she paints and her dreams for the future.

At only 15 years of age, Inocente refuses to let her dream of becoming a successful artist be ruined by being an undocumented immigrant that has been homeless for nine years in San Diego.

Although Inocente has such a dark past, filled with an abusive father who was deported, a mother of four who took her hand and was ready to jump off a bridge into the ocean, living in different shelters, and struggling to get by, her art is anything but dark and meaningless. It is full of color and life, just like her.

Inocente has the opportunity to put on an art show, showcasing her different paintings. While she is successful in this regard, her family life appears to be faltering as she makes the decision to move away from her mother and into a shelter for teens.

INOCENTE is both a timeless story about the transformative power of art and a timely snapshot of the new face of homelessness in America, children. Neither sentimental nor sensational, INOCENTE will immerse you in the very real, day-to-day existence of a young girl who is battling a war that we rarely see. The challenges are staggering, but the hope in Inocente’s story proves that the hand she has been dealt does not define her, her dreams do.
Learn more about Inocente, and other children like her at Inocentedoc.com

By Nicole Wanttie

August 12, 2022 by

Media/Music Collections, Music, O'Shaughnessy-Frey Library

Summer Streaming with the Music & Media Collections

Hi Tommies!! We hope you’re having a restful summer break! We sure miss seeing you on campus and can’t wait for the fall. In the meantime, there are still ways for you to enjoy the Music & Media Collections if you’re off campus or back home for the summer.

If you’re missing hitting the movie theatre with your friends, check out Swank and Feature Films for Education. Both streaming databases offer a wide variety of popular feature films for your viewing pleasure, and more are getting uploaded almost every day.

If you’re more into documentaries, look no further than Music & Media. We offer many streaming databases that are full of documentaries showcasing different topics.

Psych, Soc, Social Work Majors or grad students? Look into our Counseling and Therapy in Video or Psychotherapy.net databases for extra resources on therapy practices and applicable skills.

Music Majors or just a fan of the arts? Look at the 1,500 films we have access to through Medici.tv. Films on here include classical music concerts, operas, ballets, and master classes.

Looking to brush up on another language? Digitalia offers an assortment of documentaries from Spain, France, other European countries, North America, and Latin America (Mexico, Cuba, Argentina, and Brazil).

Don’t have anything specific in mind that you’re interested in and just want to browse? Academic Video Online, Docuseek, Films on Demand, Projectr EDU and Under-Told Stories. All these databases offer a wide variety of documentary films and there is sure to be something you’ll enjoy.

By Nicole Wanttie

July 7, 2022 by

Database Highlights & Trials, Libraries, Media/Music Collections, New Materials

New Video Database: Projectr EDU

Our new streaming database, Projectr EDU, presents a curated and ever-expanding collection of independent, international and documentary films that proudly amplify diverse, daring, and underrepresented voices from around the world, from distributors such as Grasshopper Film, MTV Documentary Films, and Canyon Cinema.

Search by Director name, subject area, or by browsing thematic collections like: America Right Now, How We Live, or Extraordinary Stories. Need some help picking a documentary to watch? We’ve got you covered:
BULLETPROOF explores the complexities of violence in schools by looking at the strategies employed to prevent it. The film observes the longstanding rituals that take place in and around American schools: homecoming parades, basketball practice, morning announcements, and math class. Unfolding alongside these scenes are a collection of newer traditions: lockdown drills, teacher firearms training, metal detector screenings, and school safety trade shows. BULLETPROOF asks what these rituals reflect back at us, looking beyond immediate causes and responses to mass shootings in a cinematic meditation on the array of forces that shape the culture of violence in the United States.

76 Days On January 23rd, 2020, China locked down Wuhan, a city of 11 million, to combat the emerging COVID-19 outbreak. Set deep inside the frontlines of the crisis in four hospitals, 76 DAYS tells indelible human stories at the center of this pandemic from a woman begging in vain to bid a final farewell to her father, a grandpa with dementia searching for his way home, a couple anxious to meet their newborn, to a nurse determined to return personal items to families of the deceased. These raw and intimate stories bear witness to the death and rebirth of a city under a 76-day lockdown, and to the human resilience that persists in times of profound tragedy.

17 Block In 1999, filmmaker Davy Rothbart met Emmanuel Sanford-Durant and his older brother, Smurf, during a pickup basketball game in Southeast Washington, D.C. Davy began filming their lives, and soon the two brothers and other family members began to use the camera themselves. Spanning 20 years, this story illuminates a national, ongoing crisis through one family’s raw, stirring and deeply personal saga. Made from more than 1,000 hours of footage, it all starts on the street where they lived in 1999, 17 blocks behind the U.S. Capitol.

Visit the Music & Media Collection‘s page to find Projectr EDU.

By Nicole Wanttie

April 26, 2022 by

Database Highlights & Trials, Libraries, Media/Music Collections, New Materials, News & Events

Under-told Stories Streaming Videos

Under-told Stories is a journalism project focused on consequences of poverty and the work of change agents addressing them. They produce content for news organizations and, in collaboration with educators, engage students on pressing issues of our time. Under-told stories partners with the University of St. Thomas and PBS Newshour for their collaboration.

Under-told Stories features interviews, podcasts, and videos covering a wide range of topics including Education, Environmental and climate concerns, Global Health, Human rights, and Race and equity, among others.

There are also a variety of 360° videos that transport the viewer across the world while learning about social problems. Some of these locations include a 360 video of George Floyd Square in Minneapolis, a sugar cane field in El Salvador, and on top of a mountain of trash in India.

Some advisers to the collaboration include members of the St. Thomas community such as: Theresa Ricke-Kiely, the executive director for the Center for the Common Good; Michael O’Donnell, a professor and chair member of the communications and Journalism Department; Camille George, the associate dean of engineering; and Dave Durenberger, who founded the National Institute of Health Policy.

Check it out here or on our Music and Media Page listed under our streaming databases.

By Nicole Wanttie

April 13, 2022 by

Archbishop Ireland Library, Libraries, Library Week, News & Events

Ireland Library Silent Auction and Book Sale for National Library Week, April 4-8, 2022

Ireland Library has returned to our Theological Books Silent Auction for Library Week. We are also having a “sale” of theological books but they are free, with a suggested good will donation.

The sale is on a table and a cart in the Reference Room. The silent auction books are on the center aisle bookcase in the Reference Room.

These books are accessible during building hours: Mon-Thurs. 8:00 a.m. – 8:30 p.m. and Fri from 8:00 a.m. – 5:00 p.m.

The Silent Auction ends at noon on Friday, April 8.

April 4, 2022 by

News & Events

Celebrate National Library Week with UST Libraries April 3 – 9, 2022

The theme of this year’s National Library Week campaign is ‘Connect with your Library,’ whether it be to things like broadband, classes, communities, books, videos, or to each other. And it doesn’t matter if it’s an academic library, public library, or school library, this is what happens on a daily basis. Usually this week is a pure celebration, but it feels different this year since it takes place during a time of increasing challenges to books in libraries and bookstores across the country.

Books have been challenged in schools and libraries for a very long time, but along with the mounting number of challenges, a bill proposed in Oklahoma would allow parents to collect $10,000 for each day a challenged book remains on library shelves. A proposed bill in Iowa would make it illegal school and public librarians to spread “material the person knows or reasonably should know, is obscene or harmful to minors.”

This year has proven that it is wrong to consider book bans as a relic of the past. It is easy to believe that getting a book is as simple as a one-click at an online retailer, but book bans harm vulnerable communities who don’t have access to finances, time, or transportation to acquire a book no longer available to them in the places where they are: classrooms or libraries.

Libraries are powerful and they unequivocally protect the First Amendment and intellectual freedom outlined in the Constitution and Bill of Rights. Judith Krug, librarian and freedom of speech advocate said it best, ‘librarians are trained as librarians; we have absolutely no training or expertise in being censors. Our job – and yours – is not to limit the horizons of a child, be he six or twelve, ten or twenty.”

The good news is that there are plenty of organizations and resources that fight for libraries and the freedom to read. And even better news is that there is an eye-catching display of challenged books in the rotunda of the O’Shaughnessy-Frey Library, along with a white board where you can chime in with your favorite banned book. There is also a UST Library Week website with fun pictures, online library-centric jigsaw puzzles, a link to fantastic media and music sources within the library, and most importantly, a daily trivia contest with real prizes every day.

April 1, 2022 by Andrea Koeppe

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