Articles posted by Mark Stumme

Oxford Scholarship Online includes the full-text of books published by Oxford University Press in 16 broad subject areas;

 Biology; Business and Management; Economics and Finance; History; Linguistics; Literature; Mathematics; Music; Neuroscience; Philosophy; Political Science; Psychology; Public Health and Epidemiology; Religion; Social Work and Sociology

These scholarly books date back to the 1980s and new books are added during each year.  After putting a topic in the search box and getting a list of results, be sure to check the availability in the left margin because some books have restricted access.

Oxford Handbooks Online

OHO provides lengthy, in-depth review articles covering several broad subject areas written by leading scholars in their respective fields.   The library currently has online access to those handbooks that have been published in the following seven subject areas;  Business & Management, History, Literature, Philosophy, Political Science, Psychology and Religion.   Each of the broad subject areas has content from handbooks that have been published within each field.   The handbooks are similar in type to subject specific encyclopedias.  The entire set contains over 20,000 articles in over 530 handbooks that address the key points surrounding the past development, current situation and future outlook  of each topic covered, as well as extensive bibliographies at the end of each essay.  The library currently has 71 of the Oxford handbooks on our shelves in the form of print books, which typically range from 600-800 pages in length.

A user can either do a single search across all subject areas or just within one selected subject area.   There is an advanced search option that enables one to search by specific fields, rather than full-text, such as; abstract, author, title, subject, bibliography and publication date.  The results are sorted by relevance, but can also be sorted by title, author or publication date.   All of the results are available in full-text.   For instance, if you search for “Presidential elections” in the Political Science module, you will retrieve over 1000 full-text articles and 3 complete handbooks that relate to that topic.  This resource is good for an extensive overview of any topic included in one of the seven subject areas mentioned above.

Oxford Bibliographies Online 

This resource provides annotated bibliographies on a variety of topics within five broad subject areas; Atlantic History, Education, Music, Psychology and Public Health.   The bibliographies include a range of sources from Reference works, books, journals, data sets and textbooks that have been peer reviewed by scholars in the field.   You can select one of the five subject areas to search or search across all five subjects at once.    For example, if you search for slavery in the Atlantic History category you get a list of 213 different topics relating to slavery, with each topic providing a bibliography of sources.   For each source listed in the bibliography there is a link to see if Drake has access to this source in print or online, or if you would need to request it on ILL.  The list of sources for each topic is updated to reflect current scholarship.

This is the third in a series of “Resources and Services” posts from the Faculty of Cowles Library, intended to increase awareness of the quality resources and services (many of them new!) available to Drake students, faculty, and staff. Earlier posts are listed at the bottom of this page.

Oxford Very Short Introductions

Very Short Introductions consist of 435 short books on a wide range of subject areas written by scholars in the field.  Each book is around 100 pages long, with a brief bibliography for further reading.   There is full-text access to every book included in the database.   (In addition to the online version of these books, the library currently has 84 of these Very Short Introductions available as print books.)

Each book attempts to provide a balanced view of the development of the topic over time and the reasons for its cultural, historical or scientific significance.  Among  the many  topics covered are; American Immigration, Animal Rights, Autism,  Climate Change, Dinosaurs, Dreaming, Evolution, Gandhi, Islam, Globalization, Microbiology, Modern China, and the Meaning of Life.

One can either browse the selection of topics covered within any of the 54 subject areas or else search for a topic across the entire set.  The results will be sorted by relevance, but can also be sorted alphabetically by title or by publication year. You may download or print these titles on a chapter-by-chapter basis.   All of the results are accessible in full-text.

Visit Very Short Introductions!

Previous Resources and Services announcements:

1) New York Times Digital Subscription
2) Chronicle of Higher Education