The Crafty, Ingenious World of Subscription Databases, Part Six: EBSCO MegaFILE

After the film "Supersize Me", a lot of people may be thinking twice about ordering up to the largest item on the menu, but you may want to reconsider that with the EBSCO MegaFILE. The MegaFILE is one big heaping helping of publication gold that contains no unhealthy trans fats (when used properly).

What is the MegaFILE? Admittedly, the name is a bit vague, but if you're doing research for a school paper, it may be your very best friend (sorry, Fido, back to you when the grades have been posted). If you look up "teachers" on Wikipedia, you will see them defined as "those people who don't accept Wikipedia as a source on school papers." MegaFILE to the rescue.

The MegaFILE gives you access to thousands of newspaper, magazine, and academic journal articles and allows you to read (and print) them from your computer.

All of the resources available in the treasure trove that is the MegaFILE are from paper publications that exist in real space, not just in cyberspace. In many cases, you can even print out either the full text of these articles (HTML Full text) or even a reproduction of the actual pages from the publication (PDF). Just make sure that the default "full text" box is checked and you'll be able read the articles.

Want to e-mail the articles to yourself? Can do.

Hate writing official citations for your articles? (And, really, who doesn't?) Let the MegaFILE do it for you. Once you have selected your article, and are set to e-mail it to yourself, go to the right side of the page and select "Citation Format" and select APA, ALA, Chicago or MLA formats and the citation will be delivered to you in email format.

Need to limit your search to scholarly journals? How about magazine articles only? Check and check.

Need to find an article in a particular publication? You can search within a particular publication (or look to see what coverage the library has for it) in a simple publication search.

Can you select a topic and be alerted in your RSS reader when a new article is printed on you topic? Well, we would hardly ask that question if the answer was anything but a huge affirmative, would we?

Can you access this database at three in the morning the night before your paper is due? We're not advising you to wait that long, but you can do it. You can access MegaFILE from any internet connection as long as you have a Rochester Public Library card in good standing (i.e. keeping your overdue fees under $10.00 and making sure to keep your user privilege current).

Probably the biggest drawback to the MegaFILE, is that it cannot write your paper for you. Perhaps in the next update.

November New Non-Fiction Notes

Fall (which has been beautiful and amazingly temperate this year) will quickly be changing to that other season (the one with all the snow), and that means it's time for a quick slice of new non-fiction books for indoor reading at your RPL reference blog.

Let's start with some of that jazz: John Coltrane jazz to be specific. The new book Coltrane - the story of a sound by Ben Ratliff follows the career and art of legendary jazz saxophonist John Coltrane from his beginnings with Miles Davis in the 1950's to his more, shall we say, "experimental" recordings up to the time of his death. Hold on though, that's just the first half. The second half talks about the influence of Coltrane as a musical and spiritual figure in popular (and sometimes not-as-popular-as-it-should-be-because-of-the-word-"jazz") culture. Stop down and pick up some Coltrane CDs downstairs, too, and they will certainly become some of your favorite things.

And now to the funnier side of life, illustrated (in great 1980's detail), in the book Spy - The Funny Years by Kurt Andersen, Graydon Carter, and George Kalogerakis - a look at the great days of the late-lamented humor magazine. Think of the Daily Show or the Colbert Report in glossy magazine format (or, perhaps more accurately, think of the books that those shows have produced). And really, when you get down to it, is there any decade more ripe for making fun of than the eighties? This book will make you laugh more than Bill Cosby trying to tell you that "New Coke" is better than "Classic Coke". According to the back cover blurb Donald Trump describes Spy as "a piece of garbage". And he ought to know. Enjoy!

While it would be great to spend the entire afternoon telling you about every single one of the new non-fiction titles on the Great Blue Nonfiction Wall, we're just going to mention one more, The Other Side of War: Women's Stories of Hope and Survival by Zainab Salbi which "takes readers into the heart of Afghanistan, Bosnia, Columbia, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Rwanda, and Sudan to hear the stories of women who daily reclaim the lives of their families and communities from the ashes of conflict." A truly moving book well worth reading.

For these new titles and more, you owe it to yourself to visit the Great Blue Nonfiction Wall before you need to get out the shovel.