August 2009

ebrary

Over 43,000 online books are available in ebrary, a research database newly available through the Mundt Library & Learning Commons.

To search ebrary, select EBRARY Academic Complete in the “Database Quicklinks” dropdown menu in the upper right corner of the Library homepage.

SIGNIN first !!! This saves hassle later when want to make notes and save items to your personal "bookshelf". To signin, click the signin link on the upper right side of the ebrary screen, and use your library ID and password to signin.

• After doing a search, you can select an item from the search results by clicking on its title. You can navigate through the book using the arrow keys above the book text. The arrow with a magnifying glass will let you move to the next occurrence of the words you searched. The Table of Contents is on the right side of the screen, and you can click on a chapter to navigate to the chapter.

• If you signed into ebrary, you will be able to use the highlighter to highlight items. And, on the right side of the screen, just above the contents, click on "Add to My Bookshelf" to save the book and its highlighted areas for your future use.

• If you click on the Bookshelf tab, you'll see the items you've saved to your personal bookshelf. Note that you can "add a folder" there and drag items into the folders you've created.

If you prefer audio books (and you are using Window or Linux operating systems; not Mac), ebrary has a text-to-speech option. To get that option, follow these steps,

1. The first time only, you will need to download the ebrary reader called the "Unity Reader." Here's how:

a. Signin if you are not already signed in.

b. To get the Unity Reader, click on “My Settings” at the top of the screen. Keep Quickview as your primary choice, but in the preference area for downloadable readers (labeled “When a document is open in a reader use this one”), select “Unity Reader.” Use the "Set Preferences" button to save your preferences.

c. Then go to any book and click on the blue “ebrary Reader” button. The *first time* you click on the “ebrary Reader” button, you will be prompted to download the Reader.

2. After you've downloaded it, the reader will be available whenever you click on the blue “ebrary Reader” button.

3. For text-to-speech, select a book to read and then click on the blue "ebrary Reader" button. In the ebrary reader, highlight the text to be read, and then click the “Speech” tab on the right side of the screen. On the Speech tab, click the “speech bubble” icon to hear the text. On the Speech tab, you can choose Bob or other voices to read to you.

Journal prestige

Journal Citation Reports is a tool for researchers wishing to evaluate the prestige of journals. To use it, select “Web of Knowledge” in the Database Quicklinks drop-down menu at the top of the Library home page; then use the “Select a Database” tab to find Journal Citation Reports (JCR).

JCR can be used to evaluate journal “prestige” based on impact factor, Eigenfactor score and Article Influence Score. These measures use citation data to assess and track the influence of a journal in relation to other journals.

We currently have access to the 2008 editions of JCR Science and JCR Social Science, which provide 2008 data on the journals covered. JCR Science Edition contains data from over 5,900 journals in science and technology. JCR Social Sciences Edition contains data from over 1,700 journals in the social sciences.

To examine data:

• View a group of journals by Subject Category, Publisher, Country/Territory. The default option is Subject Category.
• Search for a specific journal. Search for a specific title.
• View all journals. View all journals in the JCR edition and year you selected.

For more information, go to the JCR search page and click on "Information for New Users." Then do a search; view a group of journals by subject category. When you display the results that show impact factor, eigenfactor, and article influence scores, click on the "i" links at the top of each column for more information about each measure.