USF Polytechnic Library

The Magnum Photos collection is now available in ARTstor.

This first launch of more than 73,000 high-quality photographs of major world events and personalities provides the academic community with access to a selection of Magnum’s iconic images. The ARTstor and Magnum Photos collaboration will showcase a total of 80,000 images by this world-renowned group of documentary photographers.

This collection relates to courses of study across the arts, humanities, social sciences, and beyond. The ARTstor community will now be able to access high-quality photographs from around the world, covering industry, society and people, places of interest, politics, news events, disasters and conflict, from the late 1930s to the present day. From the Spanish Civil War to the Gulf War, from Marilyn Monroe to Paul Newman, from John Updike to Toni Morrison, from Christian Dior to Oscar de la Renta, from the fall of the Berlin Wall to the crisis in Chechnya, these images capture wars, celebrities, authors, fashion designers, and defining moments in our shared history.

Magnum Photos International, Inc., is a cooperative founded just after World War II and owned today by its 80 prominent photographers, including Henri Cartier-Bresson, Robert Capa, Eve Arnold, Elliott Erwitt, Josef Koudelka, Rene Burri, Hiroji Kubota, Susan Meiselas, Martin Parr, Alex Webb and dozens of others. Magnum was created from the belief that photographers must have a point of view in their imagery that transcends any formulaic recording of contemporary events. “Magnum is a community of thought, a shared human quality, a curiosity about what is going on in the world, a respect for what is going on, and a desire to transcribe it visually,” said Henri Cartier-Bresson.

For these databases and other library resources visit http://www.poly.usf.edu/library. Click on “Search the databases” to begin.

Announcing the recent acquisition of a suite of International Monetary Fund databases.

International Financial Statistics Online is a standard source of international statistics on all aspects of international and domestic finance. It reports, for most countries of the world, current data needed in the analysis of problems of international payments and of inflation and deflation, i.e., data on exchange rates, international liquidity, international banking, money and banking, interest rates, prices, production, international transactions, government accounts, and national accounts. This database contains time series data from 1948 and contains approximately 32,000 time series covering more than 200 countries. One can browse the database, select series of interest, and display and save the selected series in a spreadsheet format, such as Microsoft Excel.

The Direction of Trade Statistics (DOTS) present, for most member countries of the International Monetary Fund (IMF), current figures on the value of exports and imports with the most important trading partners, providing current figures for about 158 countries. Smaller countries appear in the area and world tables. The information on exports and imports by trading partners that countries report to the IMF varies in terms of frequency and currency. Reported data, including total imports and exports reported for publication in the IMF International Financial Statistics (IFS), are the basis of all estimates in DOTS. The entire DOTS database is continuously supplemented with estimates.

Balance of Payments Statistics summarizes, for a specific period, the economic transactions of an economy with the rest of the world. It reports total goods, services, factor income, and current transfers an economy receives from or provides to the rest of the world. The database contains time series data from 1948 and approximately 100,000 time series covering more than 170 countries and areas.

For these databases and other library resources visit http://www.poly.usf.edu/library. Click on Databases by “Search the databases” to begin.

PRONTO is a service for faculty members to obtain a quick scan of an article in print or in microfilm format held at the USF Tampa Library. In order to facilitate easier and faster communication between PRONTO and ILL, PRONTO services is now using a module of the ILLiad program to process incoming requests. Patrons who already have ILLiad accounts for ILL will log-in the same way; patrons who do not already have ILLiad accounts, will need to create them.

The new URL for the PRONTO service on the USF Tampa Library site is http://www.lib.usf.edu/public/index.cfm?Pg=BooksArticlesMediaDeliveryPRONTO

Sunday morning , August 17th, starting at 6:00am and ending by 6:30am, Information Technology will be upgrading the software on the two backbone routers in the SVC Data Center. For the Libraries, it means that web and EZProxy access will be affected.

You now have a new option in the catalog when looking at a particular item. Among the little icons underneath the location (the ones saying “Add”, “Print”, “Email”, etc), you will find a new one showing a cell phone and the wording “Text”. This can be used to text yourself the call number of a book as well as it title and location - no need for scrap paper and pencil. Be careful if you don’t have a text messaging plan for your phone - carrier charges may apply.

Some enhancements to the still new OvidSP interface have been announced:

• French, Spanish, and German speakers now have the option to view OvidSP in their native language.
• Users can now export search results annotations to EndNote®, Refworks®, and other standard citation managers.
• After performing a search, the OvidSP screen remains at the search field rather than “jumping” down to the results.
• Users can now choose to subscribe to an AutoAlert RSS feed using Google, My Yahoo!, or Bloglines.
• The “Actions” portion of the Results Manager now appears at the bottom as well as at the top of the page; users no longer have to scroll up to the actions box to select preferences.

MEDLINE and PsychINFO are two of the databases offered by the USF Libraries through OvidSP.

PsychiatryOnline features online access to DSM-IV-TR, a widely used psychiatric reference and The American Journal of Psychiatry from American Psychiatric Publishing, Inc. Beyond these two significant resources this site also provides access to:

• Reference Resources– including DSM-IV-TR, DSM-IV-TR Casebook and its Treatment Companion, and the American Psychiatric Association Practice Guidelines for the Treatment of Psychiatric Disorders
• Journals– including The American Journal of Psychiatry and Psychiatric Services
• Textbooks– including The American Psychiatric Publishing Textbook of Clinical Psychiatry
• Self-assessment tools for study, board certification and recertification review, and lifelong learning
• Clinical & research news from Psychiatric News

This trial will expire on April 10, 2008.

For these databases and other library resources visit the USF Lakeland Library website. Click on “Search the Databases”.

During the Spring Break, the USFL Library will be open during the following hours:

• Saturday, March 8: 9:00 AM to 3:00 PM (usual hours)
• From Monday, March 10 to Friday March 14: 8:00 AM to 5 PM
• Saturday, March 15: 9:00 AM to 3:00 PM (usual hours)

Regular opening hours will resume Monday, March 17 at 9:00 AM.

These hours also apply to the Open Use Computer Lab.

To promote literacy during the month of September, visitors can enter Florida State Parks for free by:

• Presenting a library card
• Presenting a library book
• Donating a new or gently used book

Doesn’t reading a book, under a shady tree, sound just lovely?

Instructors, please remember that I am available to come to your class to offer instruction on library resources and information literacy to your students. Instruction is customized according to your needs.

You can call or email me to set up a date and time. Online, evening and week-end classes are a possibility as well with advance scheduling.