Reference Universe - Worth A Second Look

It is easy to overlook, but Reference Universe is vastly improved in content and searching. For example, a search on Irrigation was slow. Two years ago, this subject search allowed you enough time to 'go for a cup of coffee and come back to get results finally...' to now being WOW... I can say supercalifragilisticexpialidocious and get 10 citations on "irrigation" before getting to the "cious" part of the word -- Reference Universe is FAST.

There is a higher level of detail in Reference Universe then the regular ibistro catalog for hard to answer questions using print resources and it even has a few electronic resources we have access to.

Database content...
- 20,000 works from print and e-resource form with table of contents and index citations, 100's recently added just in June alone....
- Prominent publsher with the books in our collection from Gale, Greenwood, Springer and others..
- Patrons stumble upon seredipitous/useful facts to what they are looking for...

Keys to searching the database well...
- Use the browse searching if your unsure how to search. It functions similiar to catalog subject search.
- Use of phrase searching is the main way to use the databae.
- Use of "and" or "or" boolean searching in a strict sense does not work -- think phrase searching.

Things to watch for while searching...
- Each result should be checked for a title availability searching in Ibistro. Due to ISBN linking, format, and edition problems e-resources/books we do have in the collection say (prior editions) to links in database might not show up in Ibistro eventhough it is on the shelf or available online.
- AccessScience/GVRL direct full-text links within the database recently went down... we are hoping to restore these soon.
- If a title sounds to scholary for a public library, we probably don't have it -- try ILL or CofC if this is what the patron wants and it seems there is NO alternative for the needed info...

Job Hunting Resource - Part 4 Furthering Your Education

This is the forth post in a series on Job Hunting and the South Carolina Pathways.org website. Previous posts on the topic are available in 1, 2 and 3. Are you looking at continuing your education in a degree or non-degree program? The Kuter “Considering Education or Training” section may help.

The education or training component covers degree and non degree programs for further areas of study you may want to consider. The schools profiled in detail are based on in person classroom settings or online throughout the United States, military installations and US territories. Various tabs such as “name and location”, “school and campus characteristics”, “programs and majors” and “admissions and costs” all allow a person to narrow there list of schools down by various criteria in one search list combined in a “see list” format.

Overall, the Kuter education component is very useful in considering furthering your education, tuition costs, application process and other preferences associated with selecting a school of your choice and desired education outcomes.

The Job Hunting Resource Helps Statewide...

A new resource is available for South Carolina residents looking for a job change, wanting directional help in their job search or returning to the workplace after an abscence. The SC Pathways website, which is powered by Kuder skills assessment testing and paid for by various state agencies/organizations, for SC residents is available to adults, students of all ages and businesses for people to find jobs that interest them and businesses to find employees. In the next series of posts, I'm going to cover the four main components of the Kuder resource. Keep in mind this product does require a registration process that takes a few minutes. SC Pathways is available for just SC residents and residents of other states who have paid access to the the following:

Skills/Interests Assessments Section

Occupational Interests

Education or Training Considerations

Getting Ready for the Job Search

= Creating Resumes Online

= Finding Employers

Note: SCOIS at this time is not available as part of SC Pathways for adults, but is available to most students state wide through individual schools.

Reference Universe - Need for Speed Answered...

Reference Universe in the past was a product you could go for a cup of coffee and still be waiting on search results... Recently, search result speed was greatly enhanced. The same general search strategies of using just one or two words in a phrase still works best and it will be nice to see possibly boolean searching become available some day. Bottom line, by far the faster retrieval time of search results is the best improvement to the database outside of content since we got it a couple of years ago or so...

Hathi Trust Ditigal Library - Great Ebooks Online

The Hathi Trust provides a combined collection of public domain/content restricted titles from primarily academic libraries in ebook form online. According to the Hathi website on November 8th, 2008, there are approximately 353,000 titles like Charleston Furniture 1700-1825 which are publicly available online, while approximately an additional 2 million are online with digital rights management restrictions. The Hathi Trust now has a beta ebook search website.

Stocked Photos for Use...

Digital Image Magazine has a blog post that lists 25 free image galleries online. This resource comes via blog posts from Phil Bradley's Internet Search Blog and Sara Houghton-Jan LibrarianinBlack blog. The images and websites are rather impressive from the Digital Image Magazine. My favorite thus far comes from ImageBase which has the embedded image in this article post of a book. The link to the original Digital Image Magazine post is here.

Cool Graphics Tool

Need a cool image set? Try Multicolr Search Lab. RSS4LIB has a neat really post on what is being done at Multicolr Search Lab with image searching of like colors on Flicker and a fee based 3 million photo images archive. The art speaks for itself... Direct link to displayed image is:
http://labs.ideeinc.com/multicolr/#colors=ffffff,20394a,fefc55;

P4A - Auction Values for Antiques

Prices 4 Antiques (P4A) Historical nick nacks to items of great value, Prices 4 Antiques is a source for valuing information on items of importance or prominence. Values and item descriptions are generated from about 50 leading regional auction houses with notable repuations and specialists that generate in-person and over the phone bidder auction sales. Many of the item listings also refer to older or more recent comparable items sold at auction for spoting historical price trends.



The database is organized well, with the options of searching by drill down menu such as: 1) Category, 2)Origin, 3) Keywords, and 4) Year (meaning year of origination); and the ability to just to search exclusively by keyword.

Many of these auction houses have specialized sales in one area... On the P4A website, there is a listing of sales upcoming with auctions exclusively listing paintings, dolls, musical instruments, and numerous other areas. Some of the specialized auction sales in antiques may include, but are not limited to such areas as: art, clocks, dolls, furniture, glass works, toys, watches, paintings, and numerous other categories...

Bottom line, P4A is a highly searchable database of auction prices from reputable sellers and buyers using actual historical prices paid for antiques.

Steven S.