Doing some rock ‘n’ roll research? Check out Rock’s Backpages, a database of music journalism from freelance and mainstream writers from the 1950s to now. The database has over 31,000 searchable full-text articles including interviews, features, and reviews of popular music styles from rock, soul, blues to modern day movements.
Articles come primarily from US and UK publications like Creem, Rolling Stone, Mojo, and more featuring over 300 different journalists.
You can’t beat the convenience of streaming video, and thanks to our subscription to Films on Demand, you can stream thousands (YES, THOUSANDS) of documentaries and educational films. Covering a wide breadth of disciplines, from Anthropology to Women & Gender Studies to the Sciences, Films on Demand provides full films and segmented clips that can be streamed from anywhere and even embedded into Blackboard and shared with others.
These are high-quality films from producers like the BBC, ABC News, PBS (including Frontline), California Newsreel, Films for the Humanities & Sciences and National Geographic, among others. All films are licensed for classroom use. So whether you want to share a documentary with your students or classmates, or just need to get a documentary fix on a Saturday night, check out Films on Demand.
Today we’re launching a new series “Beyond JSTOR” where we’ll periodically highlight different databases available through the SMCM Library. Find out both the content as well as a few targeted tips and tricks through screenshot tutorials and expand your searching horizons.
Note: SMCM Library databases are found by: 1. going to the library homepage (dev-library-smcm.pantheonsite.io/); 2. clicking the “Databases” icon; and searching by name or browsing by A-Z letter.
Accessible online through the Literature Criticism Online database, the Poetry Criticism series encompasses over 100 volumes, each volume featuring 3-6 poets and/or featured works from all eras and locations around the world.
Each volume has a standard format including:
The online version available through Literature Criticism Online, has powerful search, browse, and entry table of contents features highlighted below. Use the linked text to jump to the relevant screenshot sections.
1. Limit your search to Poetry Criticism Online sources, by selecting it from the “by Product/Services” dropdown, under “More Options” in the search screen.
2. Forget to select it before starting your search? You can always limit search results to Poetry Criticism Online sources but selecting it under the “Publication Title” filter in the left column.
1. Browse the volumes of Poetry Criticism by following “What’s Inside” (on any page), and selecting “Literature Criticism Online”…
2. …then expand the list under “Poetry Criticism” to see all available volumes.
3. Browse volume by table of contents, search within a single volume, or search within all volumes of Poetry Criticism!
Entry table of contents feature
1. Easily view the available content on a poet by selecting “Entry Table of Contents” in the right hand column.
2. Jump to a specific section or critical work using the linked titles.
Limit your search to Poetry Criticism Online sources, by selecting it from the “by Product/Services” dropdown, under “More Options” in the search screen.
Forget to select it before starting your search? You can always limit search results to Poetry Criticism Online sources but selecting it under the “Publication Title” filter in the left column.
Browse the volumes of Poetry Criticism by following “What’s Inside” (on any page), and selecting “Literature Criticism Online”…
…then expand the list under “Poetry Criticism” to see all available volumes.
Browse volume by table of contents, search within a single volume, or search within all volumes of Poetry Criticism!
Easily view the available content on a poet by selecting “Entry Table of Contents” in the right hand column.
Jump to a specific section or critical work using the linked titles.
image by Nikolas Coukouma [CC BY-SA 2.5], via Wikimedia Commons
Learn about Octavia Butler’s life in Credo Reference
Looking for some background information on Butler? The Credo Reference database provides online access to a number of high quality reference encyclopedias and dictionaries with entries on Butler.
Using the entry in the Encyclopedia of African-American Writing found in Credo Reference, can you name the prestigious science-fiction writing awards Butler won during her lifetime?
Read Octavia Butler’s novels, find them with the St. Mary’s Catalog
Experience Butler’s award winning sci-fi novels, featuring African-American female protagonists, first hand by checking them out of the SMCM Library!
Contained in one volume, Parable of the Sower; Parable of the Talents; and Kindred, three of Butler’s most well known works are available for check out. The first two works, which make up the Parable series, are set in California in the 2020s and present a dystopian future where corporate greed and lack of environmental stewardship lead to political and social collapse. The stand alone novel Kindred follows a 20th-century African-American woman who travels back in time to 19th century Maryland, where she meets her ancestors.
Find this collection under call number PS 3552. U827 P37 1999 in the second floor Stacks.
Want more? Search the USMAI catalog to borrow other Butler books from other Maryland libraries!
Research the scholarly response to Octavia Butler’s works in MLA International Bibliography and Project Muse
Maybe now you’ve learned a little about Octavia Butler’s life, read a couple of her novels, and are interested in doing research in the literature for a paper or project. While you might start you research using OneSearch (or *cough*googlescholar*cough*), how about giving a more targeted subject specific database like MLA International Bibliography or Project Muse a try?
Produced by the Modern Language Association (of MLA citation style fame) the MLA International Bibliography contains over 1.8 MILLION citations for books, journals, dissertations and theses, dating back to 1926! A search for “Octavia Butler and Kindred” turned up 38 highly relevant results. As the name suggests, results the MLA International Bibliography are mainly citations, but you can access the full text – if available – in one of the library’s other databases, or through Interlibrary Loan.
Looking to get your hands on full-text sources right away? The Project Muse database has full-text sources from over 400 titles. A search for “Octavia Butler and Kindred” turned up 117 full-text articles from journals ranging from literary criticism to women’s studies!
Homepage image credit: Containment Zone by L.E. Spry (CC BY 2.0) via flic.kr/p/3d9TcK
ARTstor is a library database containing nearly one-million high quality images. A perfect place to research art and architecture, ARTstor is also a great place to explore works by both well known and new artists.
Search by artist name, artwork title, and keyword or browse images by geographic location or type of art.
By creating an account, you can save images to specific folders and download images individual, in groups, or directly to PowerPoint presentations!
In honor of Black History Month, use ARTstore to explore more works by the four contemporary Black artists highlighted below.
Iona Rozeal Brown‘s painting combine Japanese and hi-hop iconography as a commentary on race and culture.
image: Off the Dome: don’t front, you know we got you open, by Iona Rozeal Brown; photo by Cliff via https://flic.kr/p/5vx9P8
Kehinde Wiley‘s larger than life portraits combine old and new by referencing or recreating Old Masters paintings with contemporary figures as a way to address the image and status of young African-American men in contemporary culture.
image: Kehinde Wiley, A New Republic, Brooklyn Museum; photo by Garrett Ziegler via https://flic.kr/p/r2VqeD
Nick Cave is a sculptor, dancer, and performance artist most well know for his “Soundsuits” – wearable sculptures made of fabric and other materials.
image: Nick Cave, Soundsuit, 2010; photo by Sharon Mollerus via https://flic.kr/p/ocTio6
Kara Walker is best known for her large scale silhouette installations through which she explores themes of race, gender, sexuality, violence, and identity.
image: work by Kara Walker; photo by Phillip Merritt via https://flic.kr/p/4gVDka
If you’ve been to the SMCM Library’s databases page in the last few weeks you’ve probably noticed some changes from the previous version.
Don’t stress! The new versions has all the same great features (and databases!) just in a slightly different format.
The main difference is the new version defaults to an A-Z list of allllll the SMCM Library databases. Want to find suggestions based on subject (like the old version)? Just use the “All Subjects” drop-down menu under the search bar.
Speaking of the search bar, you can easily go directly to your favorite database (*cough*JSTORE*cough*) by searching OR using the A-Z letter links near the top of the page.
As always if you have any trouble or questions, Ask Us by sending an email to ask@smcm.libasnwers.com or calling the Reference desk at 240-895-4272.
Until November 30, SMCM Library has trial access to oaFindr from 1science.
oaFindr makes finding Open Access articles that are freely available on the internet a breeze. Instead of performing a number of different searches on different sites and different platforms, oaFindr offers one-click access to article PDFs from the search results.
And oaFindr is not just for the Sciences! Use it to find Open Access articles in the Arts, Humanities, and Social Sciences as well.
If you like Google Scholar, you’ll love oaFindr!
Find oaFindr on the O tab on the SMCM Library Databases page.
The United Nations has declared October 20, 2015 World Statistics Day. Over the next few weeks, we will be featuring resources available from the SMCM Library related to statistics and data. For more info on World Statistics day, check out https://worldstatisticsday.org/index.html
eMarketer. (n.d.). Methods used for watching video content by U.S. college students in 2011. In Statista – The Statistics Portal. Retrieved October 19, 2015, from http://www.statista.com/statistics/212260/methods-for-watching-video-content-among-us-college-students/.
Happy World Statistics Day! Celebrate in style by checking out the Statista database, an awesome source for statistics available from the SMCM Library.
Statista is a statistics aggregator with over one million statistical facts covering over 80,000 topics, from over 18,000 sources, with over 500 stats added daily (phew!). Not only can you use Statista to get serious stats on industry, health, and society, but you can also find out what the most pirated TV show of 2014 was. (Spoiler: it was Game of Thrones, which apparently costs $6 million per episode to make. WHAT.)
On top of being crammed full of all kinds of stats, Statista provides attractive graphs (like the one at the beginning of this post) that you can incorporate into your paper or presentation!
Statista is available through the SMCM Library Databases page libguides.smcm.edu/databases
September 15 to October 15 is National Hispanic Heritage Month. Throughout the month we will be featuring resources available from the SMCM Library. For more info check out hispanicheritagemonth.gov
Suramérica by Carlos Adampol Galindo (CC BY-SA 2.0) https://flic.kr/p/36CEAz
HAPI (Hispanic American Periodical Index), a non-profit project of the Latin American Institute at UCLA, provides access to hundreds of thousands of article citations.
Topics range from political, economic, social issues, to the arts and humanities from journals published around the world focusing on issues effecting Latin America and the Caribbean.
HAPI has over 300,000 citations with over 170,000 links to full text from over 675 journals going back to the 1970s.
HAPI is available through the SMCM Library Databases page libguides.smcm.edu/databases
Photo by charamelody on Flickr
Are you looking for film or television reviews? Or maybe you’re convinced that some scholar, somewhere, must have written a critical analysis of Mad Men (spoiler alert: they have).
Look no further than Film & Television Literature Index (with Full Text!) for this information and so much more. Using the standard EBSCOhost interface, Film & Television Literature Index is a fantastic database for film and television research. In addition to reviews and critical papers, you’ll find articles on cinematography, production, screenwriting, and preservation/restoration.
Explore Film & Television Literature Index now (or learn more about it).
