From the Research Desk

Need some summer reading ideas?  Try these books from our collection:

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Wolf Hall by Hilary Mantel, Call Number: PR 6063 .A438 W65 2009

To read a review: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/01/books/review/Benfey-t.html?pagewanted=all

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The Valley of Amazement by Amy Tan, Call Number: PS 3570 .A48 V35 2013

To read a review: http://www.npr.org/2013/11/09/239172093/amy-tans-latest-mothers-daughters-and-the-oldest-profession

The Boston Girl by Anita Diamant, Call Number: PS 3554 .I227 B68 2014

To read a review: http://www.npr.org/2014/12/06/368714299/first-generation-boston-girl-becomes-career-woman-in-diamants-latest

A Spool of Blue Thread by Anne Tyler, Call Number: PS 3570 .Y45 S68 2015

To read a review: http://www.theguardian.com/books/2015/feb/04/a-spool-of-blue-thread-anne-tyler-review

The Martian by Andy Weir, Call Number: PS 3623 .E446 M37 2014

To read a review:  https://www.kirkusreviews.com/book-reviews/andy-weir/the-martian/

Dead Wake: The Last Crossing of the Lusitania by Erik Larson, Call Number: D 592 .L8 L28 2015

To read a review: http://www.theguardian.com/books/2015/may/07/dead-wake-the-last-crossing-of-the-lusitania-erik-larson-review

Goldfinch by Donna Tartt, Call Number: PS 3570 .A657 G65 2013

To read a review:  http://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/13/books/review/donna-tartts-goldfinch.html

Bird Box by Josh Malerman, Call Number: PS 3613 .A43535 B57 2014

To read a review: http://www.avclub.com/review/josh-malerman-overreaches-chilling-debut-bird-box-204771

Want to find more books?  Call on your friendly UDM librarian for assistance at 313-993-1071.

Sue Homant

If you’re planning ahead and thinking about where you want to apply for a job after you graduate, or if you have developed the business and leadership skills to start your own business instead, DemographicsNow can help you get started.

DemographicsNow, one of the UDM Library’s subscription databases, contains information on over 23 million businesses as well as consumer and demographic information on millions of possible customers. Job seekers can quickly and easily get information on all of the businesses based on business type, size and location or within a certain driving distance. The information includes contact names, addresses and phone numbers, so that job seekers know where to send resumes and the database makes it easy to make custom maps showing where the different businesses are located.

Entrepreneurs can use the same tools to locate competitors and potential customers in different locations. Entrepreneurs can check to see how much each household in a region spent on a particular type of product or service during the last year, and they can even see how many similar businesses failed in the same region, giving them a heads up that a certain location might not support their business venture.

To get to DemographicsNow, go to the library homepage at http://research.udmercy.edu and click on the “Articles, Journals, + Databases” tab in the middle of the page.

 

Click on the letter “D” in the alphabet that appears, then click on the first link:

 

Click on the View Our Tutorials link for step-by-step videos that can help guide your job search or business plan.

 

 

As always, contact a librarian for more details or help.

Jill Spreitzer, Librarian

The implements in your toolbox can be used in many ways, but are best suited for specific jobs. You can hammer nails with a screwdriver, but there has to be a better way.

A research tool such as the UDM Library Catalog works the same way. You can use just a single implement with a One Size Fits All approach, but there may be more effective ways.

To illustrate, let’s forget about research for a minute and consider a real life situation. It’s time for your two-year-old to make that first visit to the UDM Dental School for a check-up. The Little Darling doesn’t know exactly what is going on, but every instinct is telling them to scream bloody murder, and they are doing so. You decide this is the perfect time to calm them down in the soothing atmosphere of a library, and wonder if the one at the Dental School might have some material to help amuse them.

So you get out your Machine of Choice and got to the UDM Catalog and search for “Dentist” and get 365 entries.

 

 

This is going to have to be scaled down a bit. You’ve got a panicky two-year-old on your hands, after all.

There’s a little box on the right of the screen that says “Limit by”, so you select “Dental Library“.

 

 

This knocks you down to 279 entries, and the first few don’t look promising. Again you click the Limit by box, and now you see “Juvenile Collections”. That sounds distinctly promising!

 

 

Now you’re down to just five results, featuring such upstanding citizens as Barney or the Berenstain Bears visiting their dentists. The day is saved, and the kid is lulled into a happy slumber that hopefully lasts throughout the rest of the ordeal.

Now, that was a lot of work because you didn’t choose the best tool for the job. In this case, using the Advanced Search allows such limiting in just one step.

On the Advanced Search screen, are several sets of boxes.

Those at the top provide the same types of search options as appear on the general screen. However, one advantage of the Advanced Search is that more than one type of search can be done at the same time, which can help narrow search results to the most relevant areas. Plain keyword can be so broadening.

 

The boxes in the middle will refine or limit the search by location (McNichols, Dental, Online, etc.), or to one of the Libraries’ special collections (Juvenile, Architecture, DVD, etc.).

 

The unfortunate part is that effective use of the Advance Search requires thought and planning. But hey, this is research, and it never hurts to focus and refine your ideas before getting started. And think back to the home workshop. Instead of just grabbing the first screwdriver that comes to hand, you consider which one to use based on the situation. Even your two-year-old knows that.

 

David Moody, Librarian

The University of Detroit Mercy houses a collection of federal government documents in print, microfiche, and tangible electronic format (CD-ROMs and DVDs).  It also provides access to titles available online through the Government Printing Office (GPO).  These resources are available not only to students, faculty, staff, and administrators of the University, but also by federal law to anyone else who may wish to consult them.

The University has the distinction of having been a selective depository library since 1884.  A selective depository is not required to collect, or provide online access to, every single document published by the federal government, but tailors its collection according to the needs of its users.  There are, however, regional depository libraries throughout the United States mandated to do just that.  Besides maintaining as comprehensive a collection as possible within their own four walls, these regional depositories “oversee” selective depositories in each state to ensure that an adequate number of copies (or adequate online access to) documents and other government information in a given geographic area.  The University of Minnesota is currently the regional depository for all selective depository libraries in Michigan as well as those in Minnesota and South Dakota.

Included in the University’s depository print and microfiche collection are Census files from 1960 through 1990; publications from the National Library of Medicine going back several decades; and publications from NASA dating back to the early days of the space program.

The classification system for government documents is known as the Superintendent of Documents Classification Scheme, or SuDoc for short.  Whereas book, videos, etc. are usually classified by subject, author, or title in the Dewey and Library of Congress classification systems; SuDoc classifies titles by the issuing body (NASA, for example).  Other types of punctuation besides the period (.) are used in this system; capitalization and the use of spaces within a SuDoc number are also very important.  Here is a link to the basic SuDoc Classification scheme, and additional information about it:

http://www.fdlp.gov/22-about/services/929-sudoc-classification-scheme

The print documents that the University has available in tangible format and classified in SuDoc are housed in the electric compact shelving that faces east in the lower level.  CD-ROMs and DVDs are in a set of drawers immediately south of that shelving.  Microfiche is kept in several filing cabinets along the south and southwest walls, behind the electric compact shelving for books and serials classified under H.

Depository libraries have the flexibility of classifying government documents under a different classification system to allow for greater accessibility.  Many of the print documents that are part of the University’s depository collection are classified with Library of Congress numbers and shelved among other titles with those numbers.

Documents available on the Internet will have URLs indicated when found as part of a search via the library online catalog (whether in the building or on a computer at home).  Simply clicking on these URLs should bring up the full text of the publication.  (Contrary to popular belief, Google has NOT cataloged the entire collection of government documents.)

If you have any questions about the University’s government documents collection; or need help locating a government resource; you may contact Kris McLonis by phone (313-578-0457) or email (mclonika@udmercy.edu).

Go for a walk and get your blood moving again, or, if the weather is nasty (its spring in Michigan after all), get away from it all for an hour or two with a movie. You can check the catalog for your favorites, or you can browse by entering “feature film” in the keyword search box. Pick a comedy or a fantasy, watch it with your friends. Taking a little break from studying will help your eyes uncross, and your brain won’t feel so overloaded.  Good luck on all your finals!