Important New eResources:
The Scholars Portal Suite of Services and Content
Scholars Portal, a suite of services and products offered through a partnership of Ontario academic libraries, continues to expand to meet your research needs. Originally a database of e-journals, Scholars Portal has evolved beyond fulltext electronic journal content to include numerous indexes and abstracts (now called Scholars Portal Search) with seamless linking from initial search to final results via the Find It @York feature. RACER is the new interlibrary loan requesting system featured elsewhere in this newsletter. And Refworks is the bibliographic management tool that helps you keep track of your findings. Below is a summary of these various elements that now make up Scholars Portal.
Using software developed by Cambridge Scientific Abstracts called Illumina, Scholars Portal Search now offers a single point of access for the 7000+ e-journal collection, and a host of popular periodical indexes licensed by York Libraries. With a single search, you can now retrieve records from over 40 different indexes, including popular databases such as: Sociological Abstracts, Inspec, Philosopher’s Index, Worldwide Political Science Abstracts, and ERIC. Interdisciplinary researchers will benefit greatly from having this single point of access to a wealth of scholarly material. You can also direct your students to Scholars Portal Search to locate peer-reviewed articles on a wide variety of topics. Click here to view the full list of indexes available through Scholars Portal Search.
Benefits of Scholars Portal Search
This past summer, librarians at York and other Ontario university libraries conducted a small user study with faculty, graduate students, and undergraduate students to test perceptions and satisfaction with Scholars Portal Search. Users were asked to search for a topic of interest in three separate tools: a single database, a cluster of subject-specific databases, and the full suite of databases offered through Scholars Portal Search. The results were not surprising: faculty members preferred the aggregated search results over those retrieved from a single database, particularly when dealing with a specialized topic. Many observed that aggregated search tools like Scholars Portal Search not only save time, but also, allow for serendipitous searching of a cross-section of disciplines. Others noted that Scholars Portal Search was particularly appealing for interdisciplinary research areas, and would be a useful tool for undergraduates who are trying to select or refine a research topic.
Sound intriguing?
Try it yourself!
You can access this resource by typing Scholars Portal Search into the Title Quick Search box on the right side of the home page and following the link.
Click on the Specific Databases link on the Quick Search page to select all or some of the many databases that are currently available.
For more information on Scholars Portal Search and how it might meet your teaching or research needs, contact Patti Ryan at pryan@yorku.ca.
III. Find It @ York using SFX
This small icon is an integral performer in the search process, taking you from a citation in an index or abstract to the resulting electronic fulltext equivalent when available and to the catalogue record for information on print equivalent when the electronic is not available.
E-Journals @ Scholars Portal is just one of numerous databases that can be searched using the Scholars Portal Search interface. It contains records for all 8.5 million articles contained in ScienceServer. This database is mounted on Scholars Portal Search so that it can be searched in combination with all the other databases on that platform. (In other words, in terms of content, it is analogous to the original Scholars Portal described above but resides in this new environment in order that it may be searched in conjunction with all the other content.)
V. RACER : Rapid Access to Collections by Electronic Requesting
RACER is the interlibrary loan component, profiled in more detail elsewhere in this newsletter. This system allows you to search multiple library catalogues, identify items of interest and submit requests directly to Resource Sharing staff.
VI. RefWorks
RefWorks is also described in more detail elsewhere – this is the tool that helps faculty and students manage the accumulated results of their various research undertakings.
