Changes in Extend Search: American Philosophical Society Publications

We have added a new possibility in the Extend Search for the Electronic Book Projects. For some time, one option has been to select Full-Text University Press Books, which actually searches Google Books and automatically limits your search to freely accessible full-text books, published by a university press.

We have added an additional drop-down box after you select this option. The default is still to search "university press" publishers, but you can now select free books published by the well-respected American Philosophical Society, founded by Benjamin Franklin himself. The Society publishes in all fields, and not just "philosophy".

Here is an example search using the Extend Search for Michelangelo. When you click on Full-Text University Press Books, you will be viewing the full-text books published by various university presses in the world. Not all are in English. But in the drop down box, there is now the option for American Philosophical Society. Select it, wait a few seconds, and their publications will appear. You can sort and limit the results in the normal ways in Google Books. 

• For more information on using the Extend Search, see the Two-Minute Tutorial.

Let us know what you think!

Project Syndicate Added to Op-Ed Search

We have added a new site to the page that allows you to find what is currently being discussed in the opinion and editorial pages of some of the major newspapers and magazines around the world. This site is called Project Syndicate and provides access to many opinions and articles by some of the leading thinkers.

AUR Library's Latest Opinion Pages provides a quick and easy way to find out what even more "movers and shakers" around the world are currently writing. Just select an area of the world in the menu on the left and select the site that interests you. There is also the possibility to get an instant translation through Google Translate by clicking on .

Be careful of bizarre translations, however! The idea of adding Google Translate is simply to provide an idea of what a web page in another language is saying, not an exact or even accurate translation.

If you have a suggestion for a new site to add, please let us know!

Google Translate Added to the AUR Library Catalog

The AUR Library Catalog has added a new function: to get an almost immediate translation using Google Translate.

It is very simple to use. On the opening page, as well as on pages for individual resources, you will see a drop-down box that allows you to search the language you want. You can watch as the page is translated into the language you choose, as if by magic!

Since all of this comes from Google's servers, and lives "in the cloud", you may have to wait for a second or two for the box to load, or for the translate to work, but give it a try, and tell us how you like it.

Be aware that the AUR Library uses Google Translate in other ways as well, for example, in the Italian newspapers page, and in the Op-Ed pages. We've added it this this blog, as well.

Welcome and the Latest Enhancements

Welcome to the AUR Library!

We have made some enhancements, two are available through the catalog:

1. You can now resort your search by publication date, by clicking on either Ascending or Descending. Of course, Ascending gives you the results by publication date with the earliest items first, and Descending with the newest items first. Remember you can also see the latest items added into the collection by going to the drop-down menu, choosing Browsing --> Latest additions and then selecting the format you are interested in.
2. We have made a change to the Extend Search for the Electronic Books Projects, which now searches Google Books in specific ways to find full-text copies of books published by University Presses. See an example search for Mussolini. Click on "Full Text Univ. Press Books." There will be other methods as well.

Available through the catalog, but separate from it, is the page to get the Latest News in International Relations. We have begun an experiment using a method to provide the latest 50 items added to Google Scholar using specific terms: International Relations, Political science, and Human Rights.

Let us know if it's useful or not.

Finally, remember the Two-Minute Tutorials that will give you a quick overview of what the library has. The most important to get that quick overview are:

• A Quick Overview of the AUR Library Catalog 
• Records in the AUR Catalog and How to Use Them
• Extending the Search: Overview

These tutorials are all supposed to be Two-Minutes or less, so if something seems to be too long, let us know!