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New Resources Available July 1

June 29, 2000 Author: CDLCategories:

Availability of the following four diverse and highly recommended resources is the result of the CDL’s consultative process with the CDL Joint Steering Committee on Shared Collections, Resource Liaisons, and the Bibliographer Groups.  These groups conducted surveys and consulted faculty and staff in making their recommendations.

a. Oxford English Dictionary (OED)

The Oxford English Dictionary, a new subscription funded by the CDL, is a historical dictionary of English, covering the language from the earliest times to the present day.  OED Online offers a lexicography of every English word and its every meaning, illustrated by 2.5 million quotations from a millennium of change.

It aims to show not only the current meanings of words, but also to trace their development through time.  Entries contain detailed etymological analysis, and are illustrated by quotations from a wide range of English language sources from around the world, making the OED a unique historical record.

The revision of the OED is a $55 million project scheduled over the next 10 years.  With new material released online quarterly, online subscribers have a unique opportunity to follow the progress of the revision project.

Features of OED Online:

  • At least 1,000 new and revised entries each quarter
  • Search the equivalent of over 20 volumes of information
  • Display entries according to your needs – you can turn pronunciation, etymologies, variant spellings, and quotations on and off
  • Compare revised entries with entries from the Second Edition to see how the language has changed

b. Art Index Retrospective

Art Index Retrospective is a “Tier 2” (those licensed by a subset of the 9 campuses whose licensing is assisted by the CDL) resource whose licensing was initiated by the Visual Resources librarians and integrated with licensing Art Abstracts at the CDL.  It extends Art Abstracts by indexing over 420 art journalism publications from 1929 through 1984 (it does not include abstracts).  Art Abstracts covers 1984 to present with abstracts available from 1994 to present.  Art Index Retrospective cumulates citations to Art Index Volumes 20-32 of the printed index.

The sources include those published in French, Italian, German, Spanish, and Dutch, as well as English.  In addition to periodicals, there are also data from important yearbooks and select museum bulletins.  The subject coverage includes publications which focus on advertising art; antiques; archaeology; architecture and architectural history; art history; computers in art; crafts; decorative arts; fashion; folk art; graphic arts; industrial design; interior design; landscape architecture; motion pictures; museology; painting; photography; pottery; sculpture; television; textiles; and video.

Both Art Index and Art Index Retrospective are now available on the same (new) WilsonWeb platform.  Art Abstracts is available to all UC campuses.  Art Index Retrospective is not available to UC Riverside.

c. Human Relations Area File (HRAF)

Human Relations Area File licensing represents a co-investment by all the campuses and the CDL.  This resource includes two products: the electronic Collection of Ethnography and electronic Collection of Archaeology.  All UC campuses will have access to the Collection of Ethnography effective July 1.  Access to the Archaeology Collection will begin January 1, 2001 for all campuses except UCSF.

The HRAF Collection of Ethnography contains records from 1949 to the present, totaling nearly one million pages of information on over 365 cultures, past and present.  HRAF adds 2-3 new cultures each year, concentrating mostly on immigrant groups in the US and Canada.  HRAF is also converting and updating the 60 cultures previously published.

Each culture case or tradition file contains a brief encyclopedic summary of the culture (“Guide to the File”), as well as a variety of source materials such as books, articles with illustrations, figures, and tables and manuscripts, indexed and organized in HRAF’s culture and subject classification schemes–Outline of World Culture and Outline of Cultural Materials.  There is an online thesaurus of terms with subject codes.  The online thesaurus is key to effective searching of this web resource.

d. Declassified Documents Reference System (DDRS)

The Declassified Documents Reference System (DDRS) was licensed through a co-investment by all the campuses and the CDL.  DDRS is a collection of over 70,000 primary source government documents.  The documents cover the post-World War II period through the 1970’s.  Nearly every major foreign and domestic event of these years is included (such as the Cold War, Vietnam Conflict and civil rights movement). Some of the source agencies included are the Central Intelligence Agency, Department of State, Department of Defense, plus the White House, Federal Bureau of Investigation, and Department of Justice.  The documents are provided by the presidential libraries, that release them as researchers request them, so the documents included in DDRS are precisely those that respond to researchers’ current needs.

Items range from telegrams, correspondence, field reports to background studies and minutes of cabinet-level meetings. DDRS regularly covers:

  • Cabinet meeting minutes
  • National Security Council policy statements
  • CIA intelligence studies
  • Presidential conferences
  • State Department political analyses
  • Joint Chiefs Papers

When the DDRS digitization project is complete, it will include more than 400,000 digitized pages.  The digitized version includes both GIFF images of the original and searchable full text of all of the documents, providing extensive search opportunities.

UC students, staff and faculty now have greatly enhanced research opportunities for these materials as well as the opportunity to view, download and print them.