24/7 Assistance With Lexis-Nexis Database

Welcome news for faculty users: LexisNexis has extended its 24 X 7 telephone support service to faculty. The service has been available to librarians for many years. Far more than a tech support center, the LexisNexis Customer Support team includes subject area specialists who can answer questions about content and help with search strategies. To use the service, you simply need to identify yourself as a faculty member from the University of Southern Indiana.

We hope that you will take advantage of this service and encourage your colleagues to use it for advanced content or search strategy questions.

The Customer Support number is 1-800-897-3419 and it operates around the clock.

Local History On Demand

Did you know you can listen and watch interviews with Eleanor Roosevelt?

Or watch Robert F. Kennedy give a speech in Muncie, Indiana?

Looking for artifacts or letters from important figures in American history such as Abraham Lincoln, Eugene Debs, Gus Grissom, or Amelia Earhart?

How about historical research? Are you interested in reading letters, land grants, or telegraphs logs from the Civil War?

You might say, “Well, of course, the world wide web has infinite materials.” But did you know all these things can be found in local libraries, archives and historical societies across the state?

There are more wonderful collections being made available today in ways that were not possible until now. Even just a few short years ago the most researchers, or enthusiasts, could hope was a finding aid or catalog record online. Thanks to technological advances in image software programs not only are these tools available but in many cases images of the primary sources can be uploaded. These are formatted to give an experience similar to seeing the actual item or reading the text in person.

So warm up the finger tips, grab your favorite beverage, drinks are allowed on this library trip, and take a little virtual tour that will give a glimpse of some of the larger, or more unique collections available around the corner and throughout the state.

Local History On Demand

Don't Let DOIs Leave You DOA

With the publication of the sixth edition of the American Psychological Association's Publication Manual, authors are required, if possible, to include a DOI with each journal article citation in their lists of references.  This chanage has prompted a series of questions with many Rice Library users:
1.  What's a DOI?  DOI stands for digital object identifier and is a permanent, unique alpha-numeric string assigned by the publisher and used to locate a document online.
2.  Where can DOIs be found?  Users may sometimes find DOIs included in the information given in a database's citation/abstract for the article.  At other times DOIs may be located either at the top or bottom on the first page of a journal article (print or online).  Sometimes the DOI is preceded by the letters DOI; at other times it is not.
3.  How are journal articles cited if there is no DOI?  According to the Publication Manual, if no DOI can be found, the author should cite the journal's web page, preceded by the phrase "Retrieved from".

A journal article that includes a DOI might look like this (with double-spacing and hanging indention, of course):

Borman, W. C. (2005).  Role of early supervisory experience in supervisor performance.  Journal of Applied Pschology, 78, 443-449.  doi:  10.1037/0021-9010.78.3.443

Whereas, one without a DOI might look like this (also with double-spacing and hanging indention):

Hamilton, C.  (1992).  A way of seeing:  Culture as political expression in the works of C.L.R. James.  Journal of Black Studies, 22, 429-443.  Retrieved from http://jbs.sagepub.com/

Students wanting to investigate the use of DOIs more thoroughly may find this tutorial available on the Database Tutorials / PsycINFO LibGuide helpful:  DOIs and How To Find Them in a Record.

For additional help in citing sources according to the APA Publication Manual, see the How To Cite Your Sources LibGuide.

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