Research Tools - Fall 1999
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Emerald Library Now Available
The Weinberg Memorial Library began a subscription to the full-text journal package called the Emerald Library in April of this year. Similar in format to the already established services of IDEAL and Project Muse, the Emerald Library focuses on the content areas of management., human resources, information management, library and information science, operations, production and economics, training and education, quality, and engineering. The publisher of the service, MCB, offers the patron an alternative to physically culling the printed version of its journals and making photocopies. Instead, the patron can access the database from a web-based menu, search the individual "suites" of information, and ultimately print a full-text article. For example, if you were searching for articles on total quality management, you would enter the database and select the 'Quality Suite." From there you could search by keywords. If you want to limit your search to a particular journal in this suite, you simply click on the title of that work and search again by keyword. Or if you wish to scan the table of contents of a journal in the suite, you may select a title, then a volume and issue, and read the complete index of the journal for that particular month. Once you have selected the title of an article, you can read an abstract summarizing its content. If you wish to view or print the article in journal format, you then click on the DOWNLOAD FULL TEXT link at the bottom of the abstract. This opens the article in a PDF format read through Adobe Acrobat image viewer. This format loads the full text., including the graphics and any figures or tables from the article. It loads the article as it would appear in its printed form. If you choose the HTML full-text version, the article will load in the text version.
As you advance in comfort level with the database, you can use standard Boolean searching to combine authors, keywords and other concepts co narrow your results. There are four indexes which improve your search results as well: author, title, keyword, and journal. Click on the browse button at the top of your screen, and you may view terms from the indexes. Choosing an index allows you to see which words reside there prior to executing a search. You may also order (for a flat fee of 511.00) articles from the archival period of 1989 through 1994 that are held in the MOB Library by using the "Shopping Basket" function. Credit card orders are accepted.
Finally, the Emerald Library offers current. contents alerting service. By pre-selecting a subject area or journal name(s), Emerald will notify you by e-mail of the most recent articles published on your requested topic or in the journal you've named. Choose this option from the opening page of the Emerald Library menu and simply register by using your own e-mail address.
Emerald offers full-text journals in the social sciences that were often overlooked in the previous full-text services of IDEAL, which focuses on the life sciences, and Project Muse, which covers humanities. As with these services, you may access Emerald from the University of Scranton's Homepage by selecting Library, then Electronic Indexes. Emerald is found alphabetically on this menu. Call the Reference Desk at x 4000 for additional assistance or information.
Betsey Moylan
