Tag: Trials
NOW ON TRIAL: Japan Times and Japan Chronicle Weekly
A UC-wide trial to the Japan Times Archive and the Japan Chronicle Weekly is available through December 31, 2014.
More than a century of Japanese history, as it happened, in English, is available in The Japan Times. Every issue published between March 1897 through 2013 is available.
The English-language Japan Chronicle Weekly (1902-1940) is the newspaper of record for Japan’s engagement with modernity and its emergence, through war, political and social upheaval and seismic social change in East Asia, onto the world stage in the first half of the twentieth century. Historians of East Asia have long seen the Japan Chronicle as a uniquely valuable resource.
Please send comments and questions to Toshie Marra.
NOW ON TRIAL: Oxford Dictionaries | Arabic
Our trial to this resource will end on November 12, 2014 (extended from October 29). Send feedback and comments to Shayee Khanaka.
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Oxford Dictionaries | Arabic is a new groundbreaking resource for those with an interest in the Arabic language. Structured by Oxford’s renowned language research and compiled by an international team of expert advisers, the dictionary is based on language as it’s used today.
Oxford Dictionaries | Arabic contains the latest vocabulary in technology, business, media, and the arts in both languages to ensure you have the most up-to-date words at your fingertips.
Key benefits include:
- Over 330,000 words, phrases, and translations
- 70,000 real life example sentences
- Vowels in all Arabic text
- Fully searchable in Modern Standard Arabic and English
- Regular word and content updates to ensure this resource is the most up to date bi-directional Arabic and English dictionary available
- Incorporates extra content including tables of Arabic verbs, numbers, and dates
- Modern and user-friendly design is optimized for use on a phone or tablet
Visit the Oxford Dictionaries | Arabic website to explore the Arabic language, learn more about the language situation in the Arabic speaking world, learn how to write dates in Arabic, and more!
NOW ON TRIAL: Classic Arabic Texts Online
From now through November 21, 2014, we have trial access to a beta version of Classic Arabic Texts Online from Brill. The trial version includes access to the following texts:
Kitab Futuh al-buldan (Arabic text) | Author: Ahmad b. Yahya al-Baladhuri | Edited by: M.J. de Goeje (1866)
The Kitab Futuh al-buldan by Ahmad b. Yahya al-Baladhuri (d. c. 892 CE), edited by M.J. de Goeje and originally titled Liber expugnationis regionum (Leiden, 1866), offers an account of the early conquests of the Islamic polity. It has the form of a geographical survey of the Caliphate’s territories, describing how each location came under Muslim rule.
Kitab Futuh al-buldan (English translation) | Subtitle: The Origins of the Islamic State | Author: Ahmad b. Yahya al-Baladhuri | Translation by: P.K. Hitti (volume I: 1916) and F.C. Murgotten (volume II: 1924)
The Origins of the Islamic State is the English translation of Kitab Futuh al-buldan, written by Ahmad b. Yahya al-Baladhuri (d. c. 892 CE). The work offers an account of the early conquests of the Islamic polity. It has the form of a geographical survey of the Caliphate’s territories, describing how each location came under Muslim rule. It was translated into English by Philip Khûri Hitti (volume I: 1916) and Francis Clark Murgotten (volume II: 1924).
Mukhtasar Kitab al-Buldan | Subtitle: Bibliotheca Geographorum Arabicorum 1-5 | Author: Ibn al-Faqih al-Hamadhani | Edited by: M.J. de Goeje (1885)
Ibn al-Faqih was the Iranian author of a Geography in Arabic entitled Kitab al-buldan written around the year 903. The original work is lost, but the abridged version, possibly composed around 1022, has survived in a handful of manuscripts. Only three manuscripts were known during De Goeje’s life and he used them all for his edition, which was originally published in 1885. Its introduction includes a summary of Ibn Faqih’s life on the basis of the classical sources by De Goeje. Ibn al-Faqih’s Kitab al-buldan offers geographical and historical details not found in other sources, and it was in itself an important source for later works, for example by Muqaddasi and Yaqut.
As Brill builds out this product, they plan to add the following texts by the end of 2014:
- Bibliotheca Geographorum Arabicorum (with indices and glossaries) edited by M.J. de Goeje and J.H. Kramers
- De Goeje’s edition of al-Tabari’s Ta’rikh al-rusul wa l-muluk
- Origins of the Islamic State by Murgotten and Hitti, the English translation of al-Baladhari’s Kitab Futuh al-buldan
Please send comments and feedback to Shayee Khanaka.
NOW ON TRIAL: ProQuest databases — learn more at PQ Day on 11/13
On Thursday, November 13, a team from ProQuest will be coming to campus to tell us more about some of the products we are considering licensing and to answer our questions. ProQuest is calling this event “PQ Day,” but the good news for you is that you don’t have to spend a whole day! A series of short sessions will be offered following the schedule below (note a few repeat sessions).
These sessions are open to all — librarians, faculty, graduate students, etc. Anyone with an interest in learning more is welcome.
- Noon to 12:30: ProQuest History Vault & Historical Collections
- 12:45 to 1:15: ProQuest Historic Newspapers & Text Data Mining Overview
- 1:30 to 2:00: ProQuest Intota Overview
- 2:15 to 2:45: ProQuest e-Book Perpetual Access Collections (e.g., Pickering and Chatto)
- 3:00 to 3:30: ProQuest Social Science Databases (e.g., Digital National Security Archive, Periodicals Archive Online, and more)
- 3:45 to 4:15: ProQuest Historic Newspapers & Text Data Mining Overview (repeat)
- 4:30 to 5:00: ProQuest History Vault & Historical Collections (repeat)
All sessions will be held in 305 Wurster Hall. It’s a food-friendly room, and ProQuest is planning to bring in snacks, so come hungry and come curious!
A link to all ProQuest resources on trial for UC Berkeley is available at this page. The trial is currently set to end on November 30, 2014.
NOW ON TRIAL: Reference Universe
From October 15 through November 15, 2014, the University of California has system-wide trial access to Reference Universe.
Reference Universe is a unique finding aid, supporting index-level analysis of a library’s major reference works (e.g., subject encyclopedias, scholarly handbooks, and compendia).
All information regarding the UC system trial, including important details about the content being searched (note that this trial access uses the holdings profile of UCLA — not UC Berkeley) and the access link, can be found at http://www.paratext.com/pdf/uctrialletter.pdf
Some other things to note about this trial:
- Use Firefox or Chrome – older versions of IE don’t seem to work well.
- Try the “Show Non-Local Results” to get reference books not owned by UCLA.
Please give this product a look and direct your comments and questions to our local campus coordinator, Myrtis Cochran.
NOW ON TRIAL: Loeb Classical Library
We currently have a 60-day free trial to the Loeb Classical Library (expiring on December 6, 2014). Our trial has been set up for IP access, so no password is required. Send your comments and questions to John Ceballos.
The mission of the Loeb Classical Library, founded by James Loeb in 1911, has always been to make Greek and Latin literature accessible to the broadest range of readers. The digital Loeb Classical Library extends this mission into the twenty-first century. Harvard University Press is honored to renew James Loeb’s vision of accessibility and presents an interconnected, fully searchable, perpetually growing, virtual library of all that is important in Greek and Latin literature. Epic and lyric poetry; tragedy and comedy; history, travel, philosophy, and oratory; the great medical writers and mathematicians; those Church Fathers who made particular use of pagan culture — in short, our entire Greek and Latin Classical heritage is represented here with up-to-date texts and accurate English translations. More than 520 volumes of Latin, Greek, and English texts are available in a modern and elegant interface, allowing readers to browse, search, bookmark, annotate, and share content with ease.
Key features include:
- Single- and dual-language reading modes
- Sophisticated bookmarking and annotation features
- Tools for sharing bookmarks and annotations
- Greek keyboard
- User account and My Loeb content saved in perpetuity
- Intuitive search and browse
- Inclusion of every Loeb volume in print
- Regular uploading of new and revised volumes
OpenEdition Freemium: currently on trial
Through next fall, the Library will have access to an extended trial to one of the most innovative research publishing models coming from Europe. Through a combination of open access (OA) and fee-based subscriptions, OpenEdition Freemium offers an infrastructure for electronic publishing dedicated to academic communication across the humanities and social sciences. OpenEdition is the umbrella portal for OpenEdition Books, Revues.org, Hypotheses and Calenda — four platforms dedicated to electronic resources in the humanities and social sciences. While most of the content is in French and freely available through OpenEdition, an institutional subscription would allow Berkeley to participate in an acquisitions policy that both supports sustainable development of OA and that respects the needs of teaching, research and learning communities: no DRM or download quotas are applied. Other advantages of an institutional subscription is that it would seamlessly integrate all OpenEdition ebooks and journals into our catalogs and bibliographic search tools while also benefitting from a full range of digital formats, some optimized specifically for e-readers, tablets, and smart phones. With the current database trial, UCB affiliates can access html, ePub, and PDF formats for 120 freemium journals and 140+ open access journals in Revues.org in html. For OpenEdition Books, 64 ebooks and 57 OA ebooks also currently available in the same three formats.
OpenEdition is run by the Centre for Open Electronic Publishing (Cléo), a unit that brings together the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS), the Université d’Aix-Marseille, the École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales (EHESS) and the Université d’Avignon et des Pays de Vaucluse.
Send comments, questions, and feedback to Claude Potts.
Trial: Dictionary of American Regional English (DARE) online
The Dictionary of American Regional English, also known as DARE, is a dictionary of regional aspects of the English language, documenting words, phrases, and pronunciations that vary from one place to another. The digital version allows users to browse by region and hear clips from over 4,000 audio recordings—wherever the DARE interviews are quoted.
DARE’s search engine enables users to find words in definitions, etymologies, usage labels, and regional labels. An interactive map allows users to create their own maps using the DARE survey data.
A user guide is available at this link.
The trial expires March 25, 2014. Please send feedback to Shayee Khanaka at skhanaka@berkeley.edu
Trial: al-Manhal e-books (redux)
A second trial of al-Manhal, a full-text database in Arabic is available through the end of December 2013. al-Manhal uses ebrary as its platform.
Send feedback to Shayee.
Trial: Nineteenth Century Collections Online (NCCO), parts 5-8
We currently have trial access to Nineteenth Century Collections Online (NCCO), parts 5-8 through October 17. NCCO, from Gale, describes itself as “A ground-breaking resource … focused on primary source collections of the ‘long nineteenth century.'” Parts 1-4 were licensed about a year ago by CDL.
Send your feedback to me by October 17.
Margaret