What’s New at the GSU Zach S. Henderson Library

The IBISWorld: U.S. Industry Reports contains in-depth surveys of 723 industries. Reports are usually 30-50 pages long. Reports cover industry segments, market characteristics, industry conditions, profiles of key companies, and industry outlook. There are numerous statistical tables, which can be exported to Excel. Reports are updated every four months.  We are holding a free trial and evaluation of this database through July 31; you’ll also find it listed in GALILEO.  Please let us know what you think!  Contact Dr. Bob Fernekes, Business Librarian, at fernekes@georgiasouthern.edu or Jonathan Harwell, Collection Development & Assessment Librarian, at jharwell@georgiasouthern.edu or make a comment here on Zach’s News!

We invite you to explore two databases from IGI, as part of our ongoing development of our library wish list, pending availability of funding.

IGI InfoSci-Books and IGI InfoSci-Journals are both listed in GALILEO, and this free trial and evaluation will run through June 25.  Please tell us what you think, by contacting one of our Subject Specialist Librarians, or Jonathan Harwell, Collection Development & Assessment Librarian, at jharwell@georgiasouthern.edu

As the Zach S. Henderson Library continues with our library budget review,  with assistance from faculty campuswide, we need to know about resources that we should add to our wish list, pending availability of funding.  We invite you to try out the online resources offered by CQ Press, to which we have access through June 20.  This trial is also listed in GALILEO under “CQ Researcher & CQ Weekly” during the trial.  Please tell us what you think, by contacting one of our Subject Specialist Librarians, or Jonathan Harwell, Collection Development & Assessment Librarian, at jharwell@georgiasouthern.edu

Please see below for a description of GALILEO’s newest database.

————- ANNOUNCEMENT ————-
The Middle Georgia Archives and Digital Library of Georgia are pleased to announce the availability of a new online resource: The Georgia State Fair, Macon, 1886-1960.

http://dlg.galileo.usg.edu/gastatefair

The Georgia State Fair, Macon, 1886-1960 online collection consists of 151 black-and-white photographs, and four advertising fliers, from the
Georgia State Fair records held by the Middle Georgia Archives at the Macon-Bibb County Public Libraries. These photographs document the
evolution of the state fair in Macon from 1886 until 1960. A group portrait of the executive committee of the Georgia State Agricultural
Society is the earliest piece in the collection. The majority of the photographs depict county agricultural exhibits whose function was to
promote a variety of farm produce and homemade items. These displays include cotton, seeds, vegetables, preserved food, clothes, quilts,
furniture, and more. Exhibits from the early 1940s are of interest due to the appearance of slogans supporting the World War II home front
effort. One notable picture during this era shows a demonstration of a community canning project. Displays for agricultural associations and
state government agencies, such as the Highway Department and the Fish and Game Commission, can also be seen in this collection. Other
photographs capture fair culture beyond the exhibitions: 4-H clubs, farm machinery, livestock judging, amusement rides, the midway, side shows,
food booths, and parades. Macon mayor B. F. Merritt appears in several photographs along with other notable Macon citizens. Former Georgia
governor Marvin Griffin is also pictured.

The Georgia State Fair, Macon, 1886-1960 is a project of the Digital Library of Georgia in association with the Middle Georgia Archives as
part of Georgia HomePLACE. The project is supported with federal LSTA funds administered by the Institute of Museum and Library Services
through the Georgia Public Library Service, a unit of the Board of Regents of the University System of Georgia.

——– END ———

Some of our database suppliers are providing the public with free access to information on the H1N1 virus, also known as swine flu.

Check out the “Swine Flu (H1N1) Facts” icon in the middle of this page from Gale, to find free full-text articles from the Gale Virtual Reference Library (including e-reference books that we’ve purchased, which are available via GALILEO here; just click “Show All” to see the books in our GVRL collection).  Use the drop-down menu for “I want to know…” to access the Swine Flu Portal.

EBSCO and Dynamed are also offering clinical information about the virus for health care professionals here.

**Update:  Here’s the H1N1 Flu (Swine Flu) page from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.  (Thanks, JoEllen!)

The Microfiche Digitization Project has been adding ERIC Documents from the microfiche collection to the open-access (free) ERIC database.  (If you’re not familiar with ERIC, an education database, here’s a description of what you’ll find there.)  They’ve now completed 55% of the project, with almost 192,000 documents now available.  More details are here.  A tip on how you might be able to help with the remaining 45% is here, and you can contribute your own research here.

ERIC is available free to the public at this site.  We also have two additional interfaces to choose from, available to the GSU community and campus visitors via GALILEO:  EBSCOhost and FirstSearch.

As we had announced, yesterday we held the launch party for EagleSpace and the Waddie Welcome Archive.  A roomful of people, many of them students, were here to learn more about Mr. Welcome and the collection of murals and other hand-painted signs representing Savannah community artwork.  The exhibit on the first floor of Henderson Library includes some actual signs, as well as photographs of others and accompanying explanations.

So what is EagleSpace, you ask?  Some of you are already familiar with the idea of institutional repositories, which are free online archives (see some frequently asked questions about IR’s here).  EagleSpace, which uses the DSpace software, is Georgia Southern’s new repository.  Now, in our soft launch, you can access EagleSpace at http://eaglespace.georgiasouthern.edu (the main URL will stay the same, although the links to the individual collections & items might change soon with a new server).  Try searching for “waddie welcome” and then browsing the collection by title to see the images.  (There are more images being added, so keep an eye on it!)  EagleSpace is Georgia Southern’s component of a statewide project, the GALILEO Knowledge Repository, or GKR, which is in its early stages.  (Sneak a peek here!)  The repository can be used to archive, and make freely accessible, our electronic theses and dissertations, faculty publications, multimedia files, etc., in order to provide seamless access to the digital intellectual product of the University System of Georgia.

Stay tuned for future developments, including discussion forums here on the Georgia Southern campus.

In the present economic climate, which has seen library budgets decrease, and South Carolina’s PASCAL (their counterpart to Georgia’s GALILEO) lose 90% of its funding, one thing remains steady:  the rising prices of periodical subscriptions and electronic resource licenses.  For the rundown, including tables with periodical costs by discipline, please visit this link to Library Journal’s annual Periodicals Price Survey.

The Zach S. Henderson Library invites faculty members to participate in our next Library Budget Forum:

Wednesday, April 15, 10:00 a.m.

This session will be held in Room 1300, on the first floor of Henderson Library.

We look forward to meeting with you and discussing trends in scholarly communication, library service statistics by subject area (including circulation, interlibrary loan, and collection data), library funding, and disciplinary preferences for journals vs. monographs. We will also clarify any questions you might have about the current subscription review.

Please bring your questions, comments, and suggestions, and join us in our decision making.