BarnardRefDesk

The database "Waterloo Directroy of English Newspapers and Periodicals, 1800-1900 was recently acquired by the Libraries and is available through CLIO and the Databases list

http://www.columbia.edu/cgi-bin/cul/resolve?clio5560715

Waterloo is a directory to the largest single body of historical documents arising out of nineteenth century England at the height of the British Empire. It is a subject-inclusive, language-inclusive bibliography of 50,000 publications, 48,000 personal names, 4,572 issuing bodies and 756 subjects.

ERC: Mary Cargill

The backend for generating E-Journal search results has been rewritten and is now in production. The new backend uses the same search technology already in place for Generating database search results.

What's New?

1. response time is significantly better
   
2. alternate titles are displayed in parenthetical "also known as" fields
   
3. search syntax and processing are consistent with databases, for example:
   • phrase searching is available for keyword searches (use quotation marks)
     
   • wildcards must be explicitly stated for keyword searches. (wildcards continue Implicit for "title (start of title)" searches)
     
   • stopwords for keyword searches are the same as those for databases (shorter list)
     
   • diacritics are indexed, i.e., not ignored
     
   • punctuation is ignored for keyword searches
     
   • boolean operators "OR" and "NOT" can be used for keyword searches

Existing bookmarks will need to be updated. Please re-run your original request in E-Journals to get the new URL and syntax for your search.

Any canned searches or forms pointing to the old E-Journals will need to be updated.

The following short-cut URLs to LibraryWeb are now in production and may be publicized:

http://www.columbia.edu/library

http://www.columbia.edu/library/ask

http://www.columbia.edu/library/myaccount

http://www.columbia.edu/library/collections

It appears that the Q-Zs are on their way down to the second floor, to the area formerly occupied by the NYT Index and some periodicals. If someone reports a missing Q or even a whole section of missing classes, they're probably down here!

The Reference Coordinating Committee has posted a list of local staff expertise in languages and specialized software on Swift. It can be found on the Reference homepage, https://www1.columbia.edu/sec/cu/libraries/staffweb/reference/index.html

as well as on the Reference Coordinating Committee homepage, https://www1.columbia.edu/sec/cu/libraries/staffweb/groups/committees/refcoord/index.html

On behalf of the committee I would like to thank all the staff members who have voluntarily elected to share their prodigious talents with all of us.

--Anice Mills for the Reference Coordinating Committee