Library gains access to the complete Nature Archive, 1869 to present

Alkek Library has purchased to the complete Nature archive, 1869-1996. This purchase makes the journal accessible from 1869 to present, spanning 139 years of scientific world history.

Search for Nature in the Periodical List or bookmark the link below:

http://libproxy.txstate.edu/login?url=http://www.nature.com/nature/index.html

Nature is one of the most read—and cited—scientific scholarly journals. Nature publishes peer-reviewed research in all fields of science and technology on the basis of its originality, importance, interdisciplinary interest, timeliness, and surprising conclusions. In many fields of scientific research, important new advances and original research are published as articles or letters in Nature.

Library Hours and Closure @ Alkek During the Holiday Break

Well finals have ended and another semester is over. Hopefully everyone is feeling good and preparing for the holidays. The hours for the library during this time are:

• December 11th -December 20th---------8:00am - 5:00pm
• December 15-16 -----------------------------------Closed
  
• December 21, 2007-January 1, 2008------Closed
  
• January 2-January 11 2008--------------8:00am - 5:00pm
  
• January 5-6----------------------------Closed

Remember, even though the library may be closed, you can still access many things via the library website. You can read the newspaper, online books or other full-text publications. A good newspaper database is Library Press Display. This database lets you see the scanned image of the newspapers the day they are published. It includes over 500 newspapers and even some of the small town newspapers.

You can also use the Periodical List to search for other newspapers, magazines and journals. The results show you our holdings and the databases that have the publication online in full-text format.

The library catalog has the majority of the eBooks in it now. When searching, limit your search to eBooks. You can search by subject, title or author.

You can also ask questions using the Ask a Librarian service. I will be monitoring the email questions throughout the holiday break.

Have a safe and happy holiday!

LibQUAL Survey

The library is currently conducting ARL's LibQUAL survey so please take the time to fill it out and send it back in. You will receive the survey link from Joe Meyer from Institutional Research or you can follow this link to the survey. It takes roughly about 10 minutes to complete and you can enter your email address (optional) to win a 30GB video iPod. (Five random winners.)

We welcome all comments good or not so good. We use this data to improve our services for you our patron. Alkek wants our students, faculty and staff to find and use the many resources and services we offer. When we get anonymous comments such as "The only thing lacking from the library is electronic access to daily papers like the new york times. Also it needs to make more clear the way to use its vast collection of online databases (eg JStor) from outside the library" we take them seriously. The library does have subscriptions to most of the major daily newspapers and remote access to databases is available. This comment tells me we need to do a much better job to get the word out....and make it a more obvious to everyone.

To find out if we have a subscription to any magazine, newspaper or journal use the Periodical List (there is a link on the home page and also the main databases page) When you type in a title such as the New York Times, the results you see will tell you if there is is a current print subscription and information about old issues as well. This will also tell you the format old copies are stored in (bound, microfilm or microfiche.) You can also see whether the "periodical" is full-text online in one of the many databases we subscribe to.

Then all you do is follow the link to the database that has the current issues. Sometimes publishers will restrict the online access for a period of time and so you will see the word "embargo" in the results, with a time period listed. This means that until the "embargo" is up, you have to access the hard copy. (typically this is 3mo. to a year.)

I'll continue to comment on the feedback we are getting from LibQUAL and when the final results are in from the survey, the library will take this information to make the library better!