Array of New Digital Resources from CDL, June 2009
By Wendy Parfrey, Shared Content Coordinator
As part of its collaborative mission and if one-time funds are available, CDL acquires digital rights in perpetuity to important scholarly resources. CDL was able to purchase perpetual rights to eight new resources with end-of-year funds in June 2009.
The resources purchased by CDL were all top priorities requested by UC bibliographer groups, particularly African Studies, Califa, English and American Literature, GILS, News, and Performing Arts. Because such decisions must be made within a short period of time, preference is generally given to resources that can be accommodated under an existing license or whose licensing terms are expected to be straightforward. All UC campuses will have access to the new resources at no additional cost in FY 2009/2010.
Following is a brief summary of the new consortial acquisitions.
CDL End-of-Year Acquisitions in FY 2008/2009
Archivision Digital Research Library [http://uclibs.org/PID/44518] – 28,000 images of art, architecture, gardens, parks and historic or contemporary sites from all over the world. The Visual Resources group has requested Archivision as their #1 priority for a number of years. Archivision is hosted on the ARTstor platform and is now available to all UC users.
LexisNexis Congressional Hearings Digital Collection Part A (1824-1979) – [Note: This resource has not yet been activated. The PID will be distributed as soon as the licensing process has been completed.] Public policy starts and ends with Congressional committee hearings. In these hearings, Congressional committees assess, amend, approve or kill legislation, as well as oversee the implementation and effectiveness of previously enacted legislation falling under their jurisdiction. The LexisNexis Congressional Hearings Digital Collection forms an unparalleled documentary record of events and public policy issues faced by America, as well as the objectives and actions of Congress in dealing with these events and issues. In addition to responding to long-standing selector recommendations, this acquisition will also facilitate shared collection management initiatives for government documents.
San Francisco Chronicle , 1865-1922 (ProQuest) [http://uclibs.org/PID/131928] – Founded by two brothers in 1865 when the West was still wild, the San Francisco Chronicle covers the completion of the transcontinental railroad, the Klondike gold rush, the S.F. earthquake and fire of 1906, America’s entry into World War I, and the many events that shaped the San Francisco Bay region. The Historic S.F. Chronicle can be cross searched with the Historical Los Angeles Times (an earlier CDL purchase) for complete historical coverage of the State of California.
African Writers Series (ProQuest) [http://uclibs.org/PID/115824] –The Heinemann’s African Writers Series includes seminal works from the canon of African literature of the 20th century: influential stories, drama, poetry, author biographies and literary works from notable authors such as Nelson Mandela and Nadine Gordimer.
The next four resources were purchased from Alexander Street Press, an independent publisher of highly acclaimed and unique digital collections.
Latin American Women Writers [http://uclibs.org/PID/142275] – A collection of over 100,000 pages of literature by Latin American women from the colonial period in the 17th century forward to the present. Latin America and its literary culture encompass twenty diverse countries, each with its unique voice and struggle for independence after the end of colonization. The collection includes memoirs, essays and literature in the original language of the writers.
North American Theatre Online [http://uclibs.org/PID/142278] – More than 40,000 pages of critical, in-copyright reference works about authors, plays, theatres, productions, production companies, casts and related information covering the world of theatre from colonial times to the present. This reference collection includes upgrades to CDL’s previously purchased Black Drama (Vol. 2 upgrade) and Twentieth Century North American Drama as well as a new resource, North American Indian Drama.
Theatre in Video [http://uclibs.org/PID/142276] – Theatre in Video contains over 250 of the world’s most important 20th century plays together with over 100 video documentaries, including the BBC Shakespeare Series, delivered in streaming video. When using Theatre in Video together with North American Theatre Online, students will be able to find the complete performance of a play in streaming video, its full text, production background, reference materials and related ephemera.
Women and Social Movements in the United States: 1600 to 2000 [http://uclibs.org/PID/142277] – CDL originally purchased this award-winning collection in 2005 and we are now upgrading to the Scholar’s Edition, featuring 75,000 additional pages of scholarly material about women’s activism in public life since 1963.
Lastly, the remainder of CDL end-of-year funds have been used to extend the SCOPUS pilot through the end of December 2010. This will allow the CDC Scopus evaluation task force as well as individual UC libraries and research departments more time to complete their evaluation and analysis of this tool.