Public Categories

Election day is almost here and you might find it helpful to know what will be on your ballot. Find out by going to Publius.

Information that Publius will tell you:
• Who is running for which offices
• What proposals or referendums you will vote for (or against)
• The location of your polling place and its hours

Harry Houdini was best known as an illusionist, magician, stunt performer, and escape artist. He died in Detroit in 1926. The Mardigian Library doesn't have much about Houdini in our collection, but you can find lots of material in MeLCat. By using MeLCat, you can search the library catalogs of about 400 libraries in Michigan and have a book or DVD delivered right to the Mardigian Library to pick it up. Give it a try!

In 1918, Harry Houdini registered for Selective Service as Harry Handcuff Houdini. Do you have any interesting stories about Houdini? Something passed down in your family, perhaps?

This Friday, November 2, Dr. Sarah Veatch, Assistant Professor of Biophysics and Physics at the University of Michigan, will speak at the Natural Sciences Colloquium. Dr. Veatch’s presentation will be “Lipid Rafts Reach a Critical Point.”

And, if the presentation didn’t tell you enough about lipids, you can find more of Dr. Veatch’s research through the Summon Search tool on the library’s home page.

To help save on energy costs, motion sensing lights were installed in the library over the summer. During times of no traffic, or if you are very still for a long period of time, the lights may go out in the zone in which you are studying. So, if the lights go out on you, just stand up or wave an arm to turn the lights back on.

On this day 225 years ago, the Mozart opera "Don Giovanni" opened in Prague. The library has a CD of the opera, musical scores, different language translations, and many other items related to the opera. You can also stream nearly 500 tracks from various recordings of the opera through Naxos Music Library. Whether you like to listen to music, read about music, read music, or play music, we have something for you!

The Library Research Center will be holding several open research workshops for students during the fall semester.

Topics will include:
• Discovering what is new in the library
• How to conduct more effective research

Students will also be able to ask topical questions related to their current research assignments.

Fall 2012 open research workshops will be held in 1212 Mardigian Library on:

Wednesday, October 31 from 10:00 - 11:00 a.m. and again from 3:30 – 4:30 p.m.
Tuesday, November 29 from 11:00 a.m. – noon
Tuesday, December 4 from 4:00 p.m. – 5:00 p.m.

Contact Teague Orblych at mtorblyc@umd.umich.edu or 313-593-5562 with questions or to RSVP.

Have you been reading anything for fun lately? I’ve been reading The Baseball Codes: Beanballs, Sign Stealing, and Bench-Clearing Brawls: The Unwritten Rules of America's Pastime. It seemed to me to be appropriate with the Tigers in the World Series. This book helps explain some of the things that are happening behind the scenes that lead up to beanballs and bench-clearing brawls, among other things. I recommend it for any baseball fan -- or those who might want to be fans just because the Tigers did so well this season.

What are you reading for fun? What’s it about? Would you recommend it?

ICPSR Data
The Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research maintains the world's largest archive of computerized, numeric social science data. Topics covered include demography, economics, health care, politics, social behavior, public opinion.

ProQuest Sanborn Maps Geo Edition
Provides geocoding and indexing by address for a selection of Sanborn maps. Searching can be done by address or by latitude/longitude coordinates. Maps from different years can be layered, including modern maps using the Google Map interface.
States included: Florida, Illinois, Massachusetts, Michigan, New York, North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Virginia.
Cities included: Baltimore, Boston, Charlotte, Detroit, Los Angeles, Miami, New York, Newark, Philadelphia, Richmond, Seattle and Washington DC.

ProQuest Statistical Datasets
ProQuest Statistical Datasets provides access to statistical information produced by U.S. federal agencies, private companies, and intergovernmental organizations. Create maps and reports from data you select from over 640 datasets. Categories include Energy Resources and Demand, Food and Agriculture, Health and Vital Statistics, Natural Resources and Environment, and much more.
Note: ProQuest Statistical Datasets requires a Java-enabled browser.

SciFinder
Combined access to Chemical Abstracts' CAPlus, CAS Registry, CASREACT, CHEMLIST, and CHEMCATS databases as well as Medline. Search by chemical structure or substructure, reaction, name, formula, etc. or use natural language queries.
Note: Requires the creation of an individual user account (see instructions).

Statistica
Statista provides access to the most relevant and important statistics and studies gathered by market researchers, trade organizations, scientific publications, and government sources. Information comes from over 10,000 sources and covers over 600 industries.

WebCSD
The Cambridge Structural Database (CSD) is a worldwide repository of more than 500,000 small molecule crystal structures hosted by Cambridge Crystallographic Data Center. Browse structures or search by substructure, similarity, etc.

World Christian Database
Detailed information on 9,000 Christian denominations and on religions in every country of the world. Extensive data are available on 238 countries and 13,000 ethno-linguistic peoples, as well as on 5,000 cities and 3,000 provinces. Information is readily available on religious activities, growth rates, religious literature, worker activity, and demography. Additional secular data is included on population, health, education, languages, and communication. An invaluable resource for anyone interested in Christian and religious demography and the history of Christianity.

That was the topic of the Mathematics Colloquium yesterday afternoon. If you missed the presentation, you can find out more on this topic in the MathSciNet database.

AAIDD Journals
American Association on Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities (AAIDD) publishes two highly-ranked journals: the American Journal on Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities (AJIDD, formerly AJMR), the premier journal in the field, and Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities (IDD), an informative policy and practice journal.

APA Handbooks
Search or browse the full text of all five American Psychological Association handbooks.

PsycTESTS
PsycTESTS provides access to psychological tests, measures, scales, surveys, and other assessments, as well as descriptive information about the test and its development and administration. The focus is primarily on unpublished tests developed by researchers, but not made commercially available. Covers 1910 to present, but over 70% is from 1990 and later.

Atlanta Constitution Historical (1868-1945)
Detroit Free Press Historical (1831-1922)
These two newspapers provide scholars, researchers, and genealogists with online, easily searchable, first-hand accounts as well as unparalleled coverage of the politics, society, and events of the time. More recent dates for these newspapers are also available.

Gutenberg-e
This is a collection of prizewinning history books, published electronically. Topics include, but are not limited to Africa, Colonial Latin America, South Asia, Europe before 1800, Military History, and History of Foreign Relations.

Liberty Magazine Historical Archive (1924-1950)
The Liberty Magazine Historical Archive offers researchers and students of 20th century studies digital access to one of the most popular American illustrated weekly magazines of the 1920s-1950s. Containing over 17,000 fiction and non-fiction articles and stories, the archive includes the complete 26-year run of the magazine - all scanned in full color and fully searchable.

March of Time
March of Time is Time Inc.'s unique and controversial newsreel series that ran from 1935 to 1967. The newsreels have been restored to their original luster by HBO Archives, allowing viewers to experience these historic newsreels as audiences did in earlier decades. The most unusual feature of the films was the re-creation or staging of events that had taken place, but had not been photographed by newsreel cameras.

National Geographic Historical Archive (1888-1994)
Features the complete archive of the magazine to the mid-1990s. National Geographic Magazine Archive includes every page and every photograph, all fully searchable through an intuitive interface. National Geographic Magazine Archive is a powerful tool for finding and reading through the 100+ years of impactful articles found in this archive.

North China Herald
The English North China Herald is universally acclaimed as the prime printed source - in any language - for the history of the foreign presence in China from around 1850 to the 1940s. It was published in Shanghai and was the official journal for British consular notifications and announcements of the Shanghai Municipal Council. It is the first - and sometimes only - point of reference for information and comment on a range of foreign and Chinese activities.

Sunday Times Digital Archive, 1822-2006
This is the full digital edition of the weekly Sunday newspaper, published in London, England. The Sunday Times Digital Archive includes approximately 600,000 searchable pages.

Translated Texts for Historians E-Library
Scholarly English translations of key historical sources from the time of late antiquity and the early middle ages. This digital library contains translations of historical sources, from the political letters and speeches of Ambrose of Milan to Zachariah of Mytilene's Chronicle. Texts span 300-800 CE and have been translated into English from Greek, Latin, Syriac, Coptic, Arabic, Georgian, and Armenian. Each volume includes an introduction setting the text into context, and rigorous notes on content, interpretation, and debates.

Women and Social Movements, International
Through the writings of women activists, their personal letters and diaries, and the proceedings of conferences at which pivotal decisions were made, this collection lets you see how women's social movements shaped much of the events and attitudes that have defined modern life.

Today is the anniversary of the Charter of the United Nations. Don’t know much about the United Nations? Do you know something, but wish you knew more? The Mardigian Library has more than 130 books about some aspect of the United Nations, including many e-books. Check out one (or more).

Making of Modern Law: Foreign, Comparative and International Law
Contains historical legal materials covering 1600 to 1926. The bulk of the material covers mainly Western European law, but also includes Scandinavia and former European territories such as Canada, Cuba, China, and India. The primary languages of the digitized material are English, French, and German. The content is primarily treatises, but there are some digitized primary materials such as codes and collections of cases.

Dr. Sonia M. Tiquia-Arashiro, Associate Professor of Biology and Microbiology at UM-Dearborn, will be the guest speaker at the Natural Sciences Colloquium on Friday, October 26. Dr. Tiquia-Arashiro’s presentation will be “Isolation and screening of carboxydotrophs isolated from composts and their potential for butanol production.”

Want to read about some of Dr. Tiquia-Arashiro's research? Access journal articles through the library’s Summon discovery tool.

Ad*Access
Images and database information for over 7,000 advertisements printed in U.S. and Canadian newspapers and magazines between 1911 and 1955. Ad*Access concentrates on five main subject areas: Radio, Television, Transportation, Beauty and Hygiene, and World War II, providing a coherent view of a number of major campaigns and companies through images preserved in one particular advertising collection available at Duke University.

Business Insights: Essentials replaced Business and Company Resource Center
Business Insights: Essentials makes it easy for researchers to use in-depth information on U.S. and international businesses, industries, and products. Investigate investment opportunities, comprehensively and easily; find parent-subsidiary relationships; obtain competitive intelligence, market share information, and product trends; explore market-industry information and analysis; study product and brand information; compare companies within an industry; and much more.
Note: Business Insights: Essentials has replaced Business and Company Resource Center.