All Posts By

Andrea Koeppe

TRIAL – New international newspaper database

How often have you read a story about an important news event taking place in another part of the world and wanted to know more about it? Or what about wanting to know how world events are perceived in other parts of the world as opposed to the North American perspective? The Access World News Research Collection from Newsbank provides full text access to over 6,000 international news sources including newspapers, newswires and magazines.

You may enter keywords or phrases just as you would any other article database –

The real power of this database is the ability to take the topic you want to learn about and then pick the news sources you want to use. You can start out broad and look for newspaper sources from all over the world, you may choose to search specific regions such as all of Asia, or you may decide to drill down to specific countries. You may choose the countries you would like to search with menus or you can click on colorful maps that put the countries you are interested in into context with the rest of the region.

Finally, if you decided that you wanted to get a very local perspective instead of a larger, global view of an event, you can use The Access World News Research Collection to search North American and state sources. Just as you can click on individual countries to find their newspapers, so you can click on states for regional stories and opinions. This way you can read views on the Arab Spring from as far away as Kazakhstan, or as close to home as Delano, MN.

In full disclosure, the University of St. Thomas does already have two databases that contain the same level of international and local news coverage, however after trialing this database I have to say that this beats them both in terms of ease of use. If you have used either Factiva or Lexis-Nexis before I believe you will find The Access World News Research Collection a breathe of fresh air. And if you have not searched either of those news databases then I think you are in for a treat.

Either way I would love to hear your opinion! This trial will continue for three months so you have plenty of time to explore and compare it to what we currently own. Regardless if you agree with me or not, I would love to hear your opinion! Please send any and all comments or questions you have to me.

October 2, 2012 by Andrea Koeppe

News & Events

Celebrate Banned Books Week at the UST libraries

Banned Books Week 2012 marks the 30th anniversary of the national book community’s annual celebration of the freedom to read. The event is sponsored by the American Booksellers Association, the American Booksellers Foundation for Free Expression, and the American Library Association. According to the American Library Association, there were 326 challenges reported to the Office of Intellectual Freedom in 2011. The 10 most challenged titles of 2011 were:

1. ttyl, ttfn, i8r, g8r (series), by Lauren Myracle
2. The Color of Earth (series), by Kim Dong Hwa
3. The Hunger Games trilogy, by Suzanne Collings
4. My Mom’s Having A Baby! A Kid’s Month-by-Month Guide to Pregnancy, by Dori Hellestad Butler
5. The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian, by Sherman Alexie
6. Alice (series), by Phyllis Reynolds Naylor
7. Brave New World, by Aldous Huxley
8. What My Mother Doesn’t Know, by Sonya Sones
9. Gossip Girl (series), by Cecily Von Ziegesar
10. To Kill a Mockingbird, by Harper Lee

Throughout the week the St. Thomas’ libraries will observe Banned Books Week with displays in the O’Shaughnessy-Frey Library and the Charles J. Keffer Library on the Minneapols campus, free bookmarks and an informative Banned Books website that includes a survey to vote for readers’ favorite banned or challenged book and a daily online banned book trivia contest.

September 30, 2012 by Andrea Koeppe

TRIAL – Three Additional Collections in Emerald Management 175

The UST libraries have subscribed to Emerald Management 175 for over five years because of the access it provides to scholarly full text management and international management journal articles. Now for a limited time UST is putting on trial other collections in Emerald previously unavailable in our current subscription.

To search the additional collections, go to the main Emerald search page and conduct a keyword search. From the results you may choose to look at all of the results or limit the hits within an individual collections.

emerald2

Emerald’s Business, Management and Economics eBook Series Collection
This collection contains over 400 volumes across multiple business and economic topics such as Management Science, Business Strategy and Organization Studies with new titles added regularly. The interface allows users to search through entire books or books on the chapter level. Many books and chapters are written from authors world-wide to ensure a global perspective.

Emerald Social Sciences eBook Series Collection
The Emerald Social Sciences eBook Series Collection extends the current Emerald business portfolio with high-profile international authorship and high quality cross-disciplinary research with over 240 volumes from over 35 book series titles in the fields of politics, psychology, sociology, health care and education.

Emerging Markets Case Studies Collection
Emerald Emerging Markets Case Studies is a new online collection of peer-reviewed case studies focusing on business decision making and management development throughout key global emerging markets written by case writers working in developing economies that offer local perspectives.

The trials end 11/5/11. Please get any comments or questions to Andrea Koeppe at arhudson@stthomas.edu.

October 6, 2011 by Andrea Koeppe

Business & Economics

Now I know why those birds are always so angry

Not only do they have to deal with smug and noisy pigs all day, but now they are being blamed for costing businesses over a billion dollars in lost wages because so many people fling them about while at work. I was immune to this craze for a very long time and therefore had a fleeting sense of superiority until I finally tried my hand at the game and because as addicted as everyone else. However I know that I can curtail my new habit at least while I am at work. And so now if you will excuse me I have a Facebook status to update.

September 15, 2011 by Andrea Koeppe

Database Highlights & Trials, News & Events, Uncategorized

UST Libraries to cancel subscription to Kompass

The libraries first subscribed to Kompass in 2004 and at the time it was the only resource that provided international company and industry information. Since that time the libraries have acquired other databases that provide the same type of information, most notably Euromonitor Global Market Information Database and OneSource Global Business Browserwhich contains data from Kompass and other international company sources. While Kompass is not an expensive product, especially compared to other business databases, the business librarians felt the information in Kompass is readily available in other sources and the money needed to pay for Kompass would be better used on other products.

Therefore, we will be cancelling the title and it will disappear on March 31st. Please send your comments and concerns to Andrea Koeppe 2-4674 or arhudson@stthomas.edu

March 11, 2011 by Andrea Koeppe

News & Events

Celebrate Banned Books Week at the UST Libraries

The UST Libraries will join thousands of libraries and bookstores across the nation to observe Banned Books Week from September 27th – October 1st. Since its inception in 1982, Banned Books Week promotes the idea that while not every book is intended for every reader, each person has the right to decide what to read, listen to, or view. According to Barbara Jones, director of the ALA’s Office for Intellectual Freedom “Protecting one of our most fundamental rights – the freedom to read – means respecting each other’s differences and the right of all people to choose for themselves what they and their families read.”

Throughout the week the UST libraries will observe Banned Books Week with displays in the O’Shaughnessy-Frey Library Center and the Charles J. Keffer Library, updates on the UST Libraries Facebook page and an informative UST Banned Books Week website which will link to other libraries, articles and videos that focus on issues of intellectual freedom.

Also returning is the popular Banned Books Week trivia contest posted on the UST Banned Book page. Test your knowledge each day of the week with a new question about a famous or infamous work of literature. Each day’s lucky winner will be selected randomly from amongst the correct answer and will receive a $5 gift certificate to the UST bookstore.

September 26, 2010 by Andrea Koeppe

News & Events

GOOOOAAL!!! Your guide to the World Cup

If you are anything like me you have the vague sensation that there is this incredibly important, emotional event going on right now all across the globe, but you can’t quite put your finger on what it is. The global event in question of course is the World Cup, and once every four years almost everyone on the planet comes together for this amazing shared experience. This year I decided that I wanted to join this global party but I have to admit that I am intimidated because I know so little about soccer/football.

So in order to help myself, and perhaps others, I put together a guide of links to football sites, podcasts, feeds and some funny videos to get me up to speed about things that the rest of the world already knows.

If you would like to contribute a link or anecdote I would love to add it to the guide and by 2014 I will really *really* ready.

June 11, 2010 by Andrea Koeppe

Business & Economics

The battle being fought for your computers and your security

The 2008 Conficker computer worm upped the ante in the battle of cyber-security experts against the creators of malicious viruses and worms. While The Cuckoo’s Egg remains a classic book about the onset of tracking hackers, this article from The Atlantic shows that the war is far from over. As the author Mark Bowden points out the stakes in the battle against newer, more sophisticated and insidious computer viruses have never been higher.

The security experts profiled in the article employ old fashion Sam Spade-type detective work along with their state of the art technologies and unprecedented collaboration with experts across national borders. I am hesitant to say that I enjoyed this article because of the serious issues involved, but if you are going to read an article about global cyber attacks what is the harm if it also reads as well as an espionage thriller?

The Enemy Within by Mark Bowden from The Atlantic

June 10, 2010 by Andrea Koeppe

News & Events

Play daily Library Week Trivia!

Do you know lots of interesting and obscure facts that most people would call ‘useless’? Well prove them wrong by playing the UST Libraries daily trivia contest. One lucky winner will be chosen from the correct answers to win a ‘valuable’ prize.

Here is the question for Thursday, April 15th.

The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame is scheduled to open a new 22,500 square-foot Library and Archives in downtown Cleveland this year. Who is the current Director of Library and Archives for the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame?

Do you think you know the answer? If you do follow this link to the UST Libraries Library Week page to read further rules and answer the question via e-mail in order to be eligible for the prize. And while you are on the Library Week page be sure to check out our other events such as book sales, a golf tournament and scavenger hunts that will continue throughout the week.

Thank you and I hope you all have a wonderful week!

April 14, 2010 by Andrea Koeppe

Kudos

Kudos to Karen Brunner!

I was talking to one of the full time MBA students yesterday and she told me that she is a fan of our new chat reference feature. She then told me how amazed she was that not only was she able to chat with a librarian around midnight about her ABR project, but that she was very happy with the help she received. And I should note too that the Applied Business Research project she was working on involves a relatively high level business research so she assumed that she was talking to one of us (!)

Because of the late night timing of her questions (and I did verify that she was working/chatting past 10 PM) I knew it had to be Karen she was ‘talking’ to. I was very pleased when she told me all of these things that I had to share.

Thank you Karen for making her very happy and making the rest of us look good!

February 25, 2010 by Andrea Koeppe

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