Thursday, July 25, 2013

St. Louis Post Dispatch change

Starting on August 1, the Library will no longer have access to the St. Louis Post Dispatch and the Kansas City Star through NewsBank. MOREnet, who provided these databases, has decided to no longer offer them due to low usage. Since we get the St. Louis Post Dispatch through our ProQuest Newsstand subscription and the Kansas City Star didn't get much usage, we will not be adding the NewsBank's offerings to our collection. A new link for the St. Louis Post Dispatch, available through ProQuest, will be added to the Research pages. Contact the Reference Department if you need assistance.  

--Heather

Monday, July 22, 2013

Term Paper Help Part 4--Proquest Digital Microfilm Database

To supplement the Historical Newpapers database, the Proquest Digital Microfilm database provides full text images of New York Times and St. Louis Post-Dispatch articles from 2008 through 2013.  The beauty of this database is that users can see the images and advertisements from the newspapers as well as see the papers as they were published.

For those who recall that an article appeared on a given day or during a time period, the viewer can browse the newspapers as if laid in front of them.  They can adjust the image size and resolution.  They can also save the image or print it out.

To compare with the Proquest Newstand database, for the same month, April 2008, that database features only four dates for the month and the user must select an image of each article. This database is most effective!

For browsers, or those seeking to see articles in context, or view photographs and graphs, the Proquest Digital Microfilm database is invaluable.  It also eliminates the need to use a micofilm reader for articles in these newspapers for the past five years.

--Harry C., Reference


Monday, July 15, 2013

Enciclopedia Estudiantil Hallazgos/World Book's Student Discovery Encyclopedia


La Biblioteca del Condado de St. Louis ofrece recursos en línea para los estudiantes que hablan español también! Esta versión en español de la Enciclopedia Estudiantil Hallazgos del mundo libro contiene temas que hacen la búsqueda fácil y actividades para ayudar a los niños a aprender. Leer periódicos españoles, como "El Nuevo Día", "El Universale," y "El Mundo". Descubre nuevos hechos asombrosos sobre los animales o aprender nuevas palabras visuales. Todo está en sus manos!

The St. Louis County Library offers online resources for Spanish speaking students too! This Spanish language version of World Book's Student Discovery Encyclopedia contains topics that make searching easy and activities to help kids learn. Read Spanish newspapers, such as "El Nuevo Dia," "El Universale," and "El Mundo." Discover wondrous new facts about animals or learn new words visually. It's all at your fingertips!

---Anna H., Jamestown Bluffs

Monday, July 1, 2013

Term Paper Help - Part 3: Historical Newspapers

An overlooked resource in writing research papers is the historical newspaper database.  The library offers the Historical New York Times (1851-2009) and the Historical St. Louis Post-Dispatch newspapers. These databases are easy to access and offer full text of the articles as they appeared at the time.  This primary source information is invaluable for the student needing to cite primary print sources.

For example, the Historical New York Times has a June 17, 1931 page 1 article on gangster Al Capone's guilty plea to tax evasion, containing tidbits such as Capone beaming as he seated himself in court, wearing a "sulphur-colored suit," pleading guilty in a scarcely audible voice, and considering himself still young at 32.  The Historical St. Louis Post-Dispatch also has articles such as this one from July 28, 1885: "A Brewery Switch: the Trouble and Turmoil it Causes in Southern St. Louis."

Accessing these databases is easy.  Go to www.slcl.org, then click on the Research tab at the top of the page.  Select the category "News, Sports & Weather" from the subject guides and then click on Historical New York Times or Historical St. Louis Post-Dispatch.
After logging in with library card number and PIN number, the articles are available in pdf format and searchable by keywords.

--Harry C., Reference