Good morning, readers! Here’s this week’s installment:
- Simon Critchley discusses the relevance of Heidegger here, here, and here. (A hat-tip to Bookforum.com for these.)
- The June 2009 book reviews from Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews are in.
- Update: I received word this morning about new changes to Project MUSE:
“– A ‘Search this Journal’ search box. This search box appears on each journal’s home page, on the Table of Contents (TOC) of each issue, and on each article. The ‘Search This Journal’ feature enables a user to quickly check all issues of the journal in MUSE, with a single search, for all articles in that journal pertaining to a particular subject.
– Summaries (abstracts) for articles. MUSE now provides a link for the summary of each article. Users know that the ability to scan summaries of articles is essential to determining which articles are relevant to their research. That ability is now available in MUSE. The Summary links appear on the TOCs and in search results, next to the article format options of HTML and PDF.
New Option for Custom Print
–Custom Print is a service provided by Sheridan Press that allows a user to click on a link from MUSE and purchase an article or groups of articles for the purpose of creating a custom publication. MUSE is one of the first online providers to activate this service. The user may choose either print or electronic format for the purchased articles. At this time, articles contained in ‘The American Indian Quarterly’ published by the University of Nebraska Press are the only articles in MUSE for which this option is available. On the article page, look for the link ‘Custom Print’ to initiate the transaction.
MUSE on Facebook
MUSE has been on Facebook for some time now, but we just secured our own URL and wanted to pass the word on to MUSE users. Find MUSE at www.facebook.com/ProjectMUSE. Become a fan of MUSE! You can also follow us on Twitter, @ProjectMUSE.”
I will be on vacation starting next and will be away for two weeks. I’ll resume posting on 24 July. Until then, have a happy and safe Fourth of July, and I’ll see you when I return!
Vodcast on How to Use LC Subject Headings in Project MUSE
January 26th, 2009
Good morning, readers! Happy Monday to you!
Some of you may not know about Project MUSE, a database of online journals maintained by Johns Hopkins University. Project MUSE is a great database to use for research in the humanities, and especially in philosophy.
Last week, I was sent a link to a vodcast (video podcast), highlighting how to use the Library of Congress (LC) subject headings to refine your searching in Project MUSE, and, by extension, in library catalogs. Here’s the promotion from Project MUSE:
A vodcast is a video podcast. The MUSE vodcast is a tool for both users and librarians and runs just over three minutes in length. Users can learn, on their own, what subject headings are, where to find them in MUSE, and how they help locate articles specific to a research topic. Librarians may find the vodcast useful as a supplement to instruction classes. The vodcast is a lighthearted approach to demystifying the notion of Library of Congress Subject Headings as they appear in MUSE.
On the MUSE website, find the link for the vodcast in the Training Materials section under the Tools & Resources and Librarians tabs, http://muse.jhu.edu/about/resources/vodcasts.html.
I’ve watched the video, and it is indeed amusing and funny, and very helpful in showing someone how to use the LC subject headings in Project MUSE. It’s a good illustration of using search limiters to target a search and locate articles on the topic you’re researching.
If you’d like to learn more, please contact me to arrange a bibliographic instruction session. I’d love to show you!
Useful Databases for Philosophical Research
September 16th, 2008
Good morning, readers!
During the first week of term, I’m going to revisit some of my earlier posts, to remind you of some useful tools for philosophical research. Today, I’ll be looking at databases. All of the following can be located and accessed via HOLLIS, using your Harvard ID and PIN. I will organize the list according to the classification scheme that I outlined last year.
Citation Databases
- Arts & Humanities Citation Index (and a note about an update.)
- Philosopher’s Index
Full-Text Archival Databases
Full-Text Current Databases
- POIESIS (and an update.)
- Project MUSE (and a note about an update.)
- Social Science Research (which includes the Humanities Research Network and the Philosophy Research Network)
- Science Direct
- Wiley Interscience (which includes the former Blackwell materials)
Hybrid Databases
- Academic Search Premier (and a note about an update.)
This list makes no claims to be exclusive or exhaustive. These databases are merely the ones that you will most commonly use when doing philosophical research. Depending on your area(s) of interest and study, you may want to consider other, more specialized databases as well, e.g., LexisNexis Academic, PubMed, or the Science Citation Index. If so, please let me know, and I’ll be happy to direct you to them, and show you how to use them.
Database Overview: Update to Project MUSE
May 29th, 2008
Last fall, I wrote about the database, Project MUSE, which houses electronic versions of the many academic journals published by the Johns Hopkins University Press.
I received, last week, a notice from one of my library colleagues, announcing a new feature that has been recently been added to the Project MUSE records:
Project MUSE introduces linked subject headings
Users of Project MUSE articles and Tables of Contents in our recently-launched new format may have noticed an additional feature -”clickable” subject headings for each article, allowing fast and easy connections to related content in Project MUSE. Built upon the rich controlled vocabulary classification of all MUSE articles and reviews with Library of Congress Subject Headings (LCSH) by our in-house professional cataloging staff, this new functionality quickly connects scholars to additional relevant content to enhance their research.
Linked subject headings are a powerful discovery tool for users. Following a subject heading link brings the user to an alphabetical listing of all current subject headings utilized for MUSE articles, with the selected heading as the entry point in the list. The researcher may then view additional articles that share the same subject heading, or peruse further articles with related headings. The list of subject headings is annotated with the current number of MUSE articles and reviews to which that heading is assigned.
One of the many benefits of the linked subject headings is the ability to refine a research topic when articles with a more specific focus are needed. Conversely, the linked subject headings can guide a user to articles with a broader approach when the assignment requires a more general discussion of the research topic.
MUSE has always assigned LC subject headings to articles to help users identify the topics discussed within an article and in turn, to select articles most suitable to their research. Now, by simply clicking on a subject heading, users can move from subject to subject, article to article, exploring topics and articles related to their search topic.
All MUSE articles and Tables of Contents produced since mid-April 2008 offer the new linked subject headings functionality; as older content is converted to the new format, the feature will also become available for archival articles, reviews, and Tables of Contents. Please direct any questions or comments about MUSE’s linked subject headings to Customer Support at
HTML Version |
Library of Congress Subject Headings:
Notice the LC Subject Headings. If you click on any of the links — you will need your Harvard ID and PIN to access them — you will be taken to a list of subject headings, indicating how many articles and book reviews on that subject heading are cataloged so far in Project MUSE. So, for instance, if you are interested in more research on Kant, click on the first link, which indicates that 65 articles and 60 reviews with this subject heading can be found in this database. Scroll down the list, and you will find further refinements, with their respective listings.
This feature can be helpful, as the announcement notes, if you want to narrow or expand your research, or if you are curious to see what other research might exist on a given topic.
Any thoughts on this new feature?
Database Overview: Project MUSE
October 17th, 2007
Good afternoon! Today, I’ll be looking at Project MUSE, a useful database for research in the humanities, the social sciences, and mathematics.
What it is
As its Web site notes, Project MUSE is “a unique collaboration between libraries and publishers providing 100% full-text, affordable and user-friendly online access to over 300 high quality humanities, arts, and social sciences journals from 60 scholarly publishers.
MUSE began in 1993 as a pioneering joint project of the Johns Hopkins University Press and the Milton S. Eisenhower Library at JHU. Grants from the Mellon Foundation and the National Endowment for the Humanities allowed MUSE to go live with JHU Press journals in 1995. Journals from other publishers were first incorporated in 2000, with additional university press and scholarly society publishers joining in each subsequent year.”
Strengths
- Project MUSE is very strong in the humanities, social sciences and mathematics. This database is an excellent addition to databases such as JSTOR, Academic Search Premier, and the like.
- The Advanced Search option allows you to include back issues on JSTOR in your search.
Limitations
- The above being stated, Project MUSE’s collection of philosophy-related periodicals is limited at present, totaling only 22 journals. Most of the included journals have a very limited number of back issues in this database, though this is offset by the inclusion of JSTOR back issues in the Advanced Search option that I outlined above.
Using Project MUSE
- Go to the HOLLIS search page, and select the “Digital Resources” tab.
- Set the “Search type” to “Title beginning with,” and the search terms to “project muse.”
- In the results list, scroll down to “project muse,” and click on that link.
- Clink on the Internet link in the record, and login with your ID and PIN.
- When you get to the home page, you will see an alphabetical list of all the journals available on Project MUSE, which you can scroll through and browse. The second row at the top of the page also gives you the option of sorting the journals by subject and by “Collection,” i.e.: Standard Collection; Basic Research Collection; Basic Undergraduate Collection; Arts and Humanities Collection; and Social Sciences Collection. I wouldn’t worry too much about these options, as they are more for librarians and bibliographers who might only want to purchase those parts of the Project MUSE database that are relevant for their patrons.
- Searching. You have two options for searching in Project MUSE:
- Basic Search. This is the default search option. I have found this search to be of limited use, except for very general searches.
- Advanced Search. This is my preferred search, and the one that I recommend that you use most often.
- Search results. If your search returns results, they will come up showing basic bibliographic information, and the option to view the article(s) in HTML or in PDF. You will also have the option of looking at your search term(s) in context, which may help you determine if an article is relevant or not.
- Results. You can e-mail your results to yourself, or export them to bibliographic management software by clicking on the relevant button. You’ll be asked to save the desired results first before you do so.
- Things to note when searching:
- Including JSTOR Back Issues. As I noted in the Strengths section above, you can include JSTOR back issues in the Advanced Search by checking off the box right under the boxes where you enter in your search term(s).
- Limiting by Article Type. You can limit your search to Article, Review, Poetry, Fiction, or Drama.
- Limiting by Journals. You have the option to search by Muse Titles Available at Your Institution, All Muse Titles, and All Muse Titles by Subject. This can be useful if you want to search only philosophy journals, for example.
- Sorting. There are five sorting options: Relevance; Date, Latest First; Date, Earliest First; Journal, A-Z; and Journal, Z-A. The Relevance category is the default category, but I’ve never quite been able to figure out how the database determines what is relevant or not. My suggestion is to use reverse chronological order, i.e., Date, Latest First, as your default for sorting your results, unless your search strategy suggests otherwise.
- Search History. Finally, you’ll be able to view and modify your search history and strategy by clicking on this button, which will be in the third row at the top of page, to the right of the first two rows.
Summary
Project MUSE is a good secondary database to have in your research toolkit. On its own, it’s of secondary value, but, used in conjunction with some of the other databases that I’ve reviewed over the last two months, it can fill in some areas that might be missed.
I am thinking of looking at Lexis Nexis Academic next week, focusing on its legal resources for those interested in philosophy of law and politics.