Information Resources for Biology, Math, and Nursing

The website called RN to MSN.com offers a directory of over 2,200 national accredited programs. You may target your search by accessing a list on online programs, programs by state, ADN to MSN programs, and more. Also, the Site provides helpful information about advanced practice nursing as a career choice. Check it out, but always contact any institution you identify to make sure you are aware of any details or particular requirements of the program before making any major decisions.

Check out some of the key math resources available via GALILEO. MathSciNet is a searchable Web database providing access to Mathematical Reviews and Current Mathematical Publications (from 1940 to the present). Mathematical Reviews provides timely reviews or summaries of articles and books that contain new contributions to mathematical research.

Two additional databases provided by the National Science Digital Library are the Math Forum: Student Center and the Math Forum: The Teacher’s Place.   The Math Forum: Student Center is a collection of activities, puzzles, games, weekly challenges, and other resources for mathematics students from preschool through graduate school. The Student Center also includes the the Ask Dr. Math question and answer service and The Math Library. The Math Forum: Teacher’s Place is a collection of resources for teaching mathematics from preschool through graduate school. The Teacher’s Place also includes the Math Forum Community and the Teacher Exchange to discuss and share materials as well as the Ask Dr. Math question and answer service and The Math Library.

Finally, Math: Wolfram Functions Site provides formulas and visualizations of mathematical functions. The site was developed as an encyclopedic resource to the educational, mathematical, and scientific communities and is partially funded by the National Science Foundation.

Check out the Henderson Library’s newly improved Eagle Source. Eagle Source helps researchers locate key print and electronic resources on specific subjects. I maintain the subjects Biology, Mathematical Sciences, and Nursing. In addition to listing resources by subject area, Eagle Source also provides links to resources in two basic areas related to information literacy: Academic Integrity and Evaluating Information. These two areas are important to all students, regardless of their major. Please make suggestions of resources you would like to see added to the Eagle Source categories.

Beginning Fall semester 2008, I will be located on the second floor of the nursing school (exact location TBA) each Monday from 10 am to 2 pm. Faculty may receive one-on-one assistance in accessing the myriad of information resources for nursing and health sciences. Services range from identifying appropriate databases, accessing our electronic journals, accessing ILLIAD (Interlibary Loan), to creating the optimum search strategy. The purpose for this service is to place the library’s resources, services, and personnel where it is needed most…just down the hall from you.

At the conclusion of this pilot semester, I will distribute a short survey to gather your opinions of the time and day of this service. Based on your feedback, suggestions for  improvement will be implemented in future semesters.

Other departments to which I serve as Library Liaison (Math and Biology) are eligible for the same service. Please contact me to discuss how I might help in the same or a similar manner.

Beginning Fall 2008, I will be stationed in the School of Nursing on Mondays from 10 am until 2 pm. I will be there to provide one-on-one reference assistance and instruction to the Nursing faculty. Currently, I am available via email and by personal appointment to assist with accessing our databases, developing search strategies, and overall navigation of the myriad of library resources. As you may have discovered, the locations of our resources have been somewhat tricky to determine due to our library construction and impending move.  We hope by having a librarian located within the academic building, faculty will be able to more easily discover and use the library resources available to them.

On March 17, 2008, GALILEO got a makeover. You will notice a new (and improved) interface. Institutions of higher education access GALILEO Scholar which offers many enhanced features, including cross-database searching and more intuitive searching. Other useful features include the e-journal locator and citation finder. For more information about the upgrade, go to http://www.usg.edu/galileo/planet/index.phtml

Feel free to explore the new interface and contact me for one-on-one training or group training soon.

 Georgia Southern provides access to a powerful suite of research databases known as the Web of Knowledge^TM by Thomson Scientific. Web of Knowledge is found under the GALILEO menu. You may search all databases within Web of Knowledge at once or choose to search each database individually.  Web of Science® provides access to the three well-known citation indexes, including Science Citation Index Expanded (1976-present), Social Sciences Citation Index (1976-present), Arts & Humanities Citation Index (1976-present). Another database available via Web of Knowledge is Current Contents, which provides contents and bibliographic information from the world’s leading scholarly journals and books. Last, but not least,   Biosis Previews® allows you to access life sciences and biomedical research covering pre-clinical and experimental research, methods and instrumentation, animal studies, and more. Our coverage for Biosis Previews is 1990 to present.

The Henderson library is offering an opportunity to learn about citing sources and avoiding plagiarism through a workshop. Next week, I will be conducting this one hour workshop in Eagle Village at 6pm on Thursday, January 24th as part of the Fresh Start Program sponsored by University Housing.  If you can’t make it to that workshop, please phone the Reference Desk and set up a time for one-on-one instruction or we’ll be glad to schedule an entire class for it. The workshop focuses on what academic integrity means, paying attention mainly to plagiarism. Participants are introduced to a variety of citation styles as well.

GALILEO stands for GeorgiA LIbrary LEarning Online and through this virtual library, current Georgia Southern faculty, staff, and students have access to a vast collection of resources that include periodical databases, fulltext journals, books, and Web resources. Off-campus access requires the latest GALILEO password. To obtain this, call the library or access it online at from the Henderson Library Homepage at http://library.georgiasouthern.edu

This blog was created as a resource for the faculty and students for whom I serve as the Library Liaison at Georgia Southern University. The library is frequently adding new resources, both print and online, and this is one way to get the word out about these resources and events that you may be interested about.