Browsing Tag

Summon

Where is CLICnet?

Summon has replaced CLICnet as our default search tool for books, video, and music recordings. You can use the Summon search box on the library’s main page to search on a topic across multiple formats, or, you can conduct a scoped (format-specific) search by going into Summon via one of the tabs located in the center of the library’s main page.

Here is how to search for a book in Summon using the scoped search:

Locate and click on the tab labeled “Books”

summonbooks

Once the new page opens you can run the scoped search by entering keyword, title, or author

bookspage

Note, there is a link to CLICnet below the Summon search box so you can still search for resources here too. CLICnet must be retired at the end of next May, so we are hoping to get everyone up to speed with Summon now. If you have any questions regarding CLICnet or Summon please contact Scott Odman at odma3011@stthomas.edu

September 21, 2016 by

Database Highlights & Trials, Libraries, News & Events, Services

Do you Summon?

Hi Students! As your research is gearing up this semester, we have a question for you:

Do you Summon?

Summon is a Google-like search tool here at UST Libraries, and you can use it just like you’d use Google…Go ahead and search our databases, book catalog, video collection, and more – all at once!

We know your professors ask you to find specific types of resources for assignments. With Summon, you can easily filter for peer-reviewed articles, items published in a particular time range, and more. Even better, it automatically refers you to a relevant UST librarian if you need more help!

Watch the short video below for more great tips and hints about using Summon, and (as always), Happy Searching!

March 2, 2015 by

Database Highlights & Trials

Time Travel

From time to time I look to see what is being searched in Summon. And I’m always delighted and surprised at the breadth of topics being researched here at UST. So yesterday someone (or several people) were looking for time travel in philosophy. Hmm, interesting. I’m going to use this example to show you a shortcut in Summon for searching within a topic. Summon retrieved a number of interesting and useful results when time travel in philosophy was searched. Most were totally relevant, some were misses (i.e. a review for the film Primer with the title “Time travel, philosophy and geek chic” which describes the film).

Here’s are a few tips to move you along in Summon a little faster. When searching a topic within a discipline (in this case the topic is time travel and the discipline is philosophy), just search the topic and then limit by the discipline:

Limiting by discipline helps narrow your results. This also works well with another search I saw, transformational learning in social work. Search transformational learning and then limit to discipline social work.

And always, if you’re looking for academic articles, limit to Scholarly Research or Peer-Review. My favorite limiter has to be Reference. Using Reference as a limiter for content type finds your topic in encyclopedias and dictionaries. We have thousands of online reference materials and sometimes they end up writing your whole paper for you. Now when I say encyclopedias, I don’t mean a 2 paragraph article reminiscent of the World Book. I’m talking about a 4 page article on the Causal Approaches to the Direction of Time in the Encyclopedia of Philosophy, complete with an extensive bibliography. Or the Companion to the Philosophy of Time, which starts out, “The philosophy of time has been a central area of concern for philosophers for thousands of years. It remains one of the most active areas of academic philosophy, but the study of time has never been more dynamic and interdisciplinary than now.” I imagine this book could get you pretty far in your paper.

October 28, 2014 by

Database Highlights & Trials

Looking for paintings by Pieter Claesz?

Whenever you are looking for art, it’s easiest and fastest to search Summon for the artist’s name. Then you simply limit to painting or image (or art or drawing or photograph… you get my point). Here’s how it works. From the library homepage, use the Summon tab to search your artist:

I chose Picasso cuz he’s one of my favorites. Once you get the results, click MORE under CONTENT TYPE to limit to images.

Depending on the artist, you’ll have a lot of image types to choose from. Click as many as you like.

You might have to play with your pop-ups. If asked, permanently allow pop-ups from this provider.

You can even search by the title of a painting or photograph (or any type of work of art) if you’d like to get more specific. These images are coming mostly from ArtSTOR, which you can search separately. If you search ArtSTOR directly you can create albums (after you sign in) and save images to albums. You can also take ArtSTOR on the road with its mobile app. You have to first create an account in ArtSTOR in order to use the mobile app.

We have a lot of really cool art resources. For your one-stop shop on background information, you cannot go wrong with Oxford Art. It’s very thorough and includes the once-famous Grove Dictionary of Art & Artists. But Oxford Art is bigger than even Grove. If it’s articles you have a hankerin’ for, a quick search in Art Full Text will get you what you need. I already told you about ArtSTOR.

If you’re not keen on using multiple tools, just stay in Summon for all of your information needs. For example, if you want background info on an artist, choose REFERENCE as a content type. Reference is the same as dictionaries and encyclopedias. In the case of art, you’ll find articles from Oxford Art by searching Summon and limiting CONTENT TYPE to REFERENCE. If it’s articles, stay in Summon and limit to SCHOLARLY JOURNALS INCLUDING PEER REVIEWED. And if you want images, well… I already covered that.

This all actually came about because a student was recently looking for works by Pieter Claesz. There were 31 found in Summon. All paintings. Here’s one of ’em. When I limited to REFERENCE information, I found him mentioned in the “Encyclopedia of Death and the Human Experience” in an article called “Symbols of Death and Memento Mori.”

May 1, 2013 by

Libraries, News & Events

Welcome to the New Website!

As you may have noticed, the UST Libraries website got a facelift over J-term! Before you start to panic when you need to do an assignment or complete some research, here is a brief tour of the new layout:

We hope that this new design will make it easier for you to access our resources.

If you have troubles finding what you need, please let us know. In the meantime, thank you for visiting and we hope your spring semester is off to a great start!

February 5, 2013 by

Business & Economics, Libraries, News & Events, Uncategorized

It’s baaaack: The PNC Christmas Price Index!

CPI

Did you know? Each holiday season, your favorite UST business librarians anxiously await the release of one of our favorite traditions:the PNC “Christmas Price Index!”

The PNC CPI tracks how much it would cost to buy each of the 78 gifts in “The Twelve Days of Christmas.” PNC has been doing this every year since 1984, so they really know their stuff. For those of you who aren’t some of my amazing Finance students, this CPI is a play on the “Consumer Price Index,” which tracks the changes in price of goods and services like housing, clothing, food, and transportation that reflect American consumers’ spending habits.

PNC makes a fun website every year depicting their CPI and allowing us to discover the costs of each individual gift; this year we get to hop aboard the “Index Express” railway. As we travel through “Fluctuation Farm,” “Inflation Station,” “Index Falls,” and “Percentage Peak” to hear how the golden rings, partridges in pear trees, ladies dancing, and more are faring in the markets.

CPI Express

And the results? The 2011 CPI increased by 3.5% over last year – to (drummers drumming please):

$24,263.18

The largest increases were for the poultry this year: the Two Turtle Doves (25%) the Partridge in the Pear Tree (14.2%), the Swans-a-Swimming (12.5%), and Geese-a-Laying (8%). The Four Calling Birds were left out of this trend, with a 13.3% decrease. Four French Hens remained constant at $150, as did the price of Ladies Dancing ($6,294.03) and Lords-a-Leaping ($4766.70), although the dancers did get a large salary increase last year. And, as some of you who follow the markets might predict, the cost of everyone’s perennial favorite, Five Golden Rings, is at $645 – a decrease of 0.8% from last year.

cpigraphic

If you do a Summon search on the Twelve Days of Christmas, there are nearly 73,000 items – which is an increase of over 325% from last year! Included are thousands of books, videos, music, and more to help get you in a holiday spirit (and perhaps help you out of finals doldrums?) from some our favorite authors and artists. Check them out!

Happy Holidays!

December 8, 2011 by

Database Highlights & Trials, News & Events

Welcome students

I’d like to welcome all new and returning students to the library. We’re really happy to have you back on campus. It’s always a much livelier place when you’re around. I just want to welcome you to campus in general and to the library specifically. Here are a few things to help speed and ease your library experience this year:

Research Guides Let’s say you’re looking for library resources on a topic and you don’t know where to start. Has that ever happened to you? Well now you know where to start cuz I’m telling you a good place to start… Research Guides. We’ve got guides for subject areas, guides for specific classes and database guides.
Summon Summon is like Google for scholarly articles. Wait, you say, isn’t Google Scholar basically Google for scholarly articles? Yes it is and I encourage you to use Google Scholar (using this link will get you to the full-text of journals the library owns if the full-text isn’t freely available in GS). But I also encourage you to use Summon if you’re looking for a few articles from scholarly or peer-reviewed journals, magazines, newspapers or if you’re looking for books or ebooks on a topic.
Ask a Librarian. I implore you (cuz when’s the last time you were implored? Or impaled, for that matter? I know that vampires are all the rage these days, so I thought I’d ask about the impaling. Also, imploring made me think of impaling, so there you go. And now, my new little kittens, you’re getting a glimpse into how I think and what to expect from this blog for the next year). Where was I? Oh yes, I implore you to not waste time. If there’s one thing there’s just too little of -other than love, according to Jackie DeShannonhttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tMS2uMUQNnQ it’s time. [Did you check out that choreography? Yikes! How in the world did all those back-up singers learn it? So complicated! ] So if you spend more than 5 minutes looking for something in the library and you don’t see it, please, please, please ask us. You can ask in person, via email, via texting through IM or SMS or just call us. I implore you!

September 8, 2011 by

Business & Economics, News & Events, O'Shaughnessy-Frey Library

Holiday CPI

Yes, you’ve all been waiting for it – the annual CPI. Consumer Price Index? Oh, no. It’s the Christmas Price Index®!

Compiled every year by the PNC Financial Services Group, this CPI tracks how much it would cost to buy each of the gifts in “The Twelve Days of Christmas” (did you know, there are 78 of them?)

Despite the down economy, the 2010 CPI increased a surprising 9.2% over last year. Big increases were seen in the Five Gold Rings (30%), as well as higher costs for wages and benefits for some of the entertainers. The Twelve Drummers and Eleven Pipers both went up 3.1%, Lords-a-Leaping increased 8%, and the dancing Ladies saw a 15% rise (note that none of these performers had a raise last year.) The Maids-a-Milking did not receive an increase, as the federal minimum wage stayed flat at $7.25 an hour.

What about the wildlife, you ask? Bird prices increased due to rising costs of feed and demand for certain fowl. The biggest increase was for the Three French Hens (up 233%) and the Turtle Doves (up 78.6%.)

Interestingly enough, if you do a Summon search on the Twelve Days of Christmas, there are over 22,000 items, including classic New England activities for the holidays, a newspaper article on cruise lines, an article from Mathematics Teacher, and an article from Australian Doctor. And there are 45 books, from such authors and illustrators as Anne Geddes, John O’Brien, Jack Kent, and one of my favorites, Jan Brett.

Happy Holidays!

December 7, 2010 by mdhageman