You are here: McCain Home > About the Library > Library News

McCain Library

Library News

Database Trial - Oxford Language Dictionaries Online - Trial has ended

Oxford Language Dictionaries Online

Initially offering millions of words, phrases, and translations, in French, German, Spanish and Italian, the site will expand to include many other languages such as Russian, Chinese, Japanese and Polish.

Included are usage examples and illustrative phrases, grammar guidance, click-through verb tables and pronunciation charts, explanations of grammatical terms, and help with spelling and punctuation. Also included are hundreds of correspondence templates including sample letters, CVs and resumes to provide practical help with writing in each language.

Contextualized language reference help includes notes on life and culture, guidance on grammar and idiomatic usage, and Words of the Day. Updates every six months ensure that the most current meanings and the latest new words are just a click away.

Advanced search options allow users to search the full text of each dictionary, or restrict a search to specific parts of speech or language register. Extensive links to language learning and usage supplements provide a 'learn as you go' gateway to further language study. Citation information is available for all entries.

Coming soon: revolutionary pronunciation software allowing users to hear how words sound.

The trial access will be active through October 26, 2007. Access is on-campus only.

Posted 10/10/2007, updated 10/28/07

Database Trial - Political Science Archives -Trial has ended

The following databases are available as part of this trial. Please click the blue "i" below for the database description, title coverage list, and other pertinent information for each database.

The Nation Archive Premium Edition

The National Review Archive

The New Republic Archive

The trial access will be active through the end of October 2007. Access is on-campus only.

Posted 10/10/2007

New media equipment available in McCain Library

McCain Library is offering some new media equipment to borrow this academic year:

2 digital cameras
1 digital camcorder
1 LCD projector
6 USB flash drives (no approval form necessary)
2 digital voice recorders

The library’s complete media equipment collection now consists of 10 laptop computers, 4 digital camcorders, 4 digital cameras, 7 portable stereos/cd players, 1 35 mm camera, 10 audiocassette recorders, 2 digital voice recorders, an overhead projector, a slide projector, headphones, microphones, tripods, and more.

Relevant Policies:

All pieces of equipment circulate for 1 day, but renewals and extensions can be made in special circumstances (please talk to library circulation staff member on duty).
Students need to submit an Equipment Checkout Approval Form with a faculty member’s signature before they can check out most media equipment. This can be obtained at the main circulation desk or by downloading the form: http://etc.agnesscott.edu/Media%20Forms/equip-check.pdf.
Students need to fill out a Statement of Responsibility (available at main circulation desk - no faculty signature necessary) in order to check out laptops.

Posted 9/28/2007

New Databases from GALILEO

A new suite of EBSCO databases is now available from GALILEO. These resources are available on and off campus (with the current GALILEO password) through the GALILEO home page, as well as through the McCain Library A-Z Database List.

This new suite contains the following databases; those in bold appear most useful to ASC’s curriculum/campus, based upon descriptions:

Academic Search Complete [premium version of current Academic Search product]
Advanced Placement Source [designed for high school students enrolled in various AP courses]
Agricola [citations to the agricultural literature created by the National Agricultural Library and its partners]
Book Collection: Nonfiction [aimed at K-12 school media centers – may help some MAT students]
Business Source Complete [premium version of current Business Source product]
Computer Science Index
Consumer Health Complete [comprehensive collection of online health and wellness resources]
Economia y Negocios [citations in Spanish for articles on business and economics]
Environment Complete [Deep coverage in areas of agriculture, ecosystem ecology, energy, natural resources, marine & freshwater science, geography, pollution & waste management, environmental technology, environmental law, public policy, social impacts, urban planning, and more. The database contains full text for 400 journals and 80 monographs.]
Fuente Academica [a Spanish language resource. It is a multidisciplinary database that indexes articles from more than 200 Spanish language scholarly journals and magazines. Full text is available for all but one title. Topics include history, literature, politics, business, current events, economics and more. Coverage for most titles begins in the 2000s. Earliest available date is 1990. Coverage varies by title.]
Garden, Landscape & Horticulture Index
History Reference Center [Full text for more than 2,000 reference books, encyclopedias and non-fiction books from leading history publishers. The database also includes full text for 130 leading history periodicals. Further, the database contains 59,640 historical documents; more than 50,000 biographies of historical figures; more than 110,200 historical photos and maps; and more than 80 hours of historical video.]
Hospitality & Tourism Complete
Information Science & Technology Abstracts
Insurance Periodicals Index
International Bibliography of Theater & Dance with Full Text [Provides full text of journal articles on all aspects of theater and performance, plus indexing for books, book articles and dissertation abstracts. IBTD with Full Text is a multicultural and inter-disciplinary research tool for theater students, educators and professionals.]
Internet & Personal Computing Abstracts
Legal Collection [Full text coverage for more than 250 law journals dating as far back as 1965]
Literary Reference Center [similar to the Literature Resource Center subscription we provide]
Medic Latina [a Spanish language collection of medical research and investigative journals published by respected Latin American medical publishers]
Science & Technology Collection [Bibliographic index that contains citations for articles from leading journals relevant to science, technology, and related fields. Topics include aeronautics, astrophysics, biology, chemistry, geology, physics, archaeology, marine sciences, and materials science. Most citations include abstracts and full text or link to full text content from other providers, based on institutional subscriptions.]
The Serials Directory [provides access to the up-to-date bibliographic information, as well as current pricing structures for popular journals/magazines]
Vocational & Career Collection
World History Collection [offers a global look at history with content from Africa, Asia, North and South America, Europe and the Middle East. Contains cover-to-cover full text for 150 titles, including many peer-reviewed journals. Full text dates as far back as 1964. Hand-selected information sources cover a wide range of historical topics including anthropology, art, culture, economics, government, heritage, military, politics, regional issues, and more.]

Please send us any comments or problems encountered.

Posted 7/3/2007

Database Additions

McCain Library has added access to three Alexander Street Press databases. Alexander Street is a premier publisher of scholarly databases in the humanities. These resources include reference and primary-source collections.

Black Thought and Culture is a landmark collection of non-fiction writings by major African American figures. Authors include Frederic Douglass, W.E.B. Du Bois, Booker T. Washington, Malcolm X, Muhammad Ali, Thurgood Marshall, Martin Luther King, Jr., and many more. Black Thought and Culture also contains exclusive Black Panther oral histories and the full, extant catalogue of The Black Panther newspaper.

Black Women Writers is composed of literature and essays never before available in electronic format. This growing collection documents black women's struggles with both racism and sexism, from the late eighteenth century to the Harlem Renaissance to today.

British and Irish Women's Letters and Diaries is the largest collection of British and Irish women's diaries and correspondence ever assembled. Spanning more than 300 years, it brings the personal experiences of nearly 500 women to researchers, students, and general readers.

Please send us any comments or problems encountered.

Posted 6/26/2007; updated 6/28/2007

Database Addition - Film & Television Literature Index with Full Text

Film & Television Literature Index with Full Text is an online tool for film and television research. It is a comprehensive bibliographic and full-text database covering the entire spectrum of television and film. Subject coverage includes film & television theory, preservation & restoration, writing, production, cinematography, technical aspects, and reviews. The database provides cover-to-cover indexing and abstracts for more than 270 publications (and selected coverage of more than 300), as well as full text for 70 journals and nearly 50 books.

Please send us any comments or problems encountered.

Posted 6/21/2007; updated 8/15/2007

Database Addition

We now have access to ebrary

This ebook collection spans all academic subjects and has many convenient features such as individual bookshelves, text highlighting, and automatic bibliographic citations with copy and print.

You may download the ebrary user guide and one-page overview of the ebrary interface and ebrary Reader(TM) toolbar. The ebrary Reader add-on software will need to be installed on your computer; you will need to set your browser to allow add-on installation by site.ebrary.com.

Please send us any comments or problems encountered.

Posted 6/21/2007; updated 6/28/2007

Database Addition

We have added access to Credo Reference (formerly Xreferplus)

Credo Reference features full-text content from over 240 reference books from over 50 publishers, covering such subjects as medicine, art, technology, and history. The collection includes encyclopedias, dictionaries and thesauri, as well as subject-specific titles.

Credo Reference enriches the content by adding a unique network of cross-references that cut across topics, titles and publishers, to add context to results and enable further discovery. Also included are cross-searchable images, maps and sound files; customizable data tables; interactive, visual displays of search results; and a citation formatter with multiple citation styles.

Credo Reference includes over 2.5 million entries, 65,000+ images (art, diagrams, maps and photos), and over 93,000 audio pronunciation files.

To use the concept map feature, you will need to set your browser to allow pop-ups for www.xreferplus.com

Please send us any comments or problems encountered.

Posted 6/21/2007; updated 7/9/2007

Open WorldCat

Find materials in local libraries using Open WorldCat, Yahoo!, and Google!

1. Enter your search terms in the WorldCat search boxes conveniently located on our library homepage or from our SOPHIA (online catalog) webpage.

2. Follow the link to the WorldCat Find in a Library interface, where you'll see information about the item -- often including a cover image.

3. Enter your ZIP postal code (the zip code for Agnes Scott is 30030) beneath that information to see a list of local libraries that have the item. If our library owns it, our name will appear as a link that leads directly to our Web site and the online record for the item.

4. Please see our Interlibrary Use webpage before you plan to visit or borrow from another library. You must see an ASC reference librarian in order to obtain an Interlibrary Use (ILU) card before borrowing materials from participating area libraries. If you are unable to borrow an item directly, you can also submit an Interlibrary loan request.

Posted 8/17/2006