Rod Library currently is conducting 60-day trials of four video streaming services, which are described below. We hope that by providing access to services such as those below we can better meet student needs, enhance integration of media content into course environments such as Blackboard, and make better use of the Library's financial resources and physical storage space.

These services may be used by faculty, staff, and students, with access from any computer on campus. The urls for direct access to each service appear below. These services will only be accessible from on campus during the trials. For more information about each service, please see https://www.library.uni.edu/collection-management/library-video-streaming-service-trials

CollegeAnywhere
http://media.collegeanywhere.org/view/episode/5000

Docuseek2
http://docuseek2.com/view/access/4844bfd184119721d84e7cb0f6968961

iCollection (Paley Center for Media)
http://www.paleyicollection.org/Library.aspx#/Register/10FCF2C0-C4C1-4224-A4DC-2A4BBF74DA69.

Rod Library is expanding access to electronic journals with its recent purchase of the JSTOR Arts & Sciences Collections V-VIII.  These collections complement the previously purchased Arts & Sciences Collections I-IV.  Hundreds of scholarly journals in numerous disciplines, including Business and Economics, Education, History, Language and Literature, Mathematics and Statistics, and Music, are now available.  Go to the Library home page and click on the  ”Databases A –Z” menu for which there is a link on the “Articles” tab.  On the next screen, select "JSTOR" from the menu. You may search for a specific title or browse by title, discipline, or publisher.  While access is available beginning with volume 1 of a title, the more recent volumes may not be available through JSTOR depending on publisher restrictions and Library subscriptions.  Entries for individual titles included in these collections currrently are being added to UNISTAR, the online catalog. 

Recently, the Library was asked to provide access to Arabic-language newspapers.  The good news is that it already does!  More than 30 Arabic-language newspapers are available in electronic format through the Library’s subscription to the PressDisplay database, which provides access to recent issues of newspapers across the world.  To access the database go to the Library homepage and select the “Databases A-Z “ link that appears in the box with the “Articles” tab.  The PressDisplay homepage may be customized for an Arabic user interface.  Available newspapers may be identified by clicking on the arrow to the right of the “Select Title” button at the top right of the main screen and then choosing the “By Language” option.

To identify other resources about Arabic language and culture available through the Library do a subject search in UNISTAR, the online catalog, on subject headings such as “Arabic language,.” “Arabic fiction,” and “Arabic history.” 

And did you know that the Library offers a You Tube tour in Arabic?  Check it out at http://www.library.uni.edu/blog/rod-library-tour-arabic-%D8%A7%D9%84%D8%B9%D8%B1%D8%A8%D9%8A%D8%A9

Rod Library is making available collections of ebooks distributed by the company ebrary. These collections include over 55,000 titles issued by U.S. academic and trade publishers. Most of the titles were published in the last decade. New titles are being added on an ongoing basis.

There are individual entries for each title in the collection in UNISTAR , the online catalog. Some books also are available in print format in the local collection. To access an ebrary title, simply click on the link that reads “An electronic book accessible through the World Wide Web; click to view” that appears in the box below the title.

It is possible to search within a title for the appearance of a name or keyword using the “Search Document” function and to jump to relevant chapters and pages. It also is possible to search the entire ebrary collection available to Rod Library to identify titles that cover a particular topic or event, or works by a specific author or from a particular publisher. Library patrons may copy and paste or print selected text with automatic citations, or save to a flash drive. 

ebrary books can be read using QuickView on most devices that run a browser, including smart phones, iPhones, and iPads. ebrary does not offer a special app or operating system for these devices; it uses a standard browser. ebrary books must be read online; they cannot be downloaded as pdfs for offline reading.
 

On Wednesday, April 20^th, Rod Library will be hosting two presentations on the bepress Digital Commons, an institutional repository software currently being reviewed by UNI, at 11:00 a.m. and 3:00 p.m. in Rod Library Room 324. These sessions will be conducted by bepress representatives. They are being held as a follow-up to the survey on institutional repositories conducted in December 2010. 

An institutional repository would provide UNI with a means to build a centralized, web-based collection of digital versions of research and scholarly products for which authors have retained selected rights. A repository can enhance accessibility, serve as a preservation tool, and highlight the research and scholarship occurring at the university. Additional information about institutional repositories and links to readings on the topic is available at http://www.library.uni.edu/scholarly-communication/institutional-repository

Literature Criticism Online, a compendium of 10 award-winning series of reference works published by Gale Cengage, is now available to the UNI community. The database provides access to diverse views on historical and modern authors and their works from a variety of regions, eras, and genres. The content includes author biographies and excerpts of literary criticism published in books and journals. The literary series covered by the database, which can be searched individually or as a group, include:

• Contemporary Literary Criticism^®
• Twentieth-Century Literary Criticism^®
• Nineteenth-Century Literature Criticism^®
• Shakespearean Criticism
• Literature Criticism from 1400–1800
• Classical and Medieval Literature Criticism
• Poetry Criticism
• Short Story Criticism
• Drama Criticism
• Children's Literature Review

The Lovely Bones, Of Mice and Men, The Chocolate War, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, The Perks of Being a Wallflower, Forever, The Color Purple, And Tango Makes Three, The Handmaid’s Tale, To Kill a Mockingbird, The Kite Runner, Snow Falling on Cedars, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn – what do all of these books have in common? All of them were among the most commonly challenged or banned books – the targets of efforts to remove them from library collections or school reading lists - in the decade from 2000 – 2009.

Each September, the American Library Association highlights the importance of the freedom to read and of open access to information by drawing attention to the challenging and banning of books across the country during Banned Books Week.

For more information about Banned Books Week, and to view lists of challenged and banned titles, visit the American Library Association Banned Books Week web page at http://www.ala.org/ala/issuesadvocacy/banned/bannedbooksweek/index.cfm.

With the support of an allocation of $20,000 in ARRA (American Recovery and Investment Act) funds received in spring 2010, the Library has acquired almost 600 recently published books in areas of high use and on current topics of interest.  Most of these titles have been added to the circulating  Stacks collection.  The selections include recent award winners in fiction, poetry, and non-fiction.  These titles focus on such subjects as digital technologies, diversity, global warming, Islam, multiculturalism, sustainability, and women's and gender studies.  A number of books also have been acquired for the Youth Collection.  To identify titles of potential interest, you may want to conduct keyword or subject searches against the online catalog, or browse the New Titles list on the Library web site at http://www.library.uni.edu/gateway/newtitle/

• 23,000 journals (with cover-to-cover indexing)
• 23 million patents
• 110,000 conference proceedings 
• 2 million chemical structures
• 700 million cited references