E-Resources, or Where Have All the Databases Gone?

Looking for peer-reviewed, full-text articles from the world's leading journals and reference sources?  We've got them. Detailed instructions on care, troubleshooting and repair information for cars, listed by year, make and model?  That too. Scholarly, government and general-interest titles on global warming, green building, pollution, sustainable agriculture, renewable energy, recycling, and more? Ditto.  Thousands of legal forms, including legal reference books provided through Nolo, the nation's oldest and most-respected provider of legal information for consumers and small businesses? Yes, yes, & yes!  All this & more is available to you 24/7 via our website, with your valid library card & 4 digit PIN.

I get questions all the time to lead me to suggest our copious eResources & LibGuides. Many people don't know we have them. Other people remember finding them from a link called 'Databases' and wonder where they've gone. Well, as we expanded beyond collections of magazine and journal articles (stored in databases) to live one-on-one tutoring, language learning systems, practice exams for things like the GRE and LSAT, and streaming classical music...well, the term databases didn't fit anymore. After trying out a few other terms (including, we're afraid, online electronic resources - what a mouthful) we decided eResources was the best option, to match our other online collections: eBooks and eAudiobooks.

Once you are at the library website (you can find the URL on your card!), you want to look down the sidebar on the left for Research Assistance, which is followed by the "eResources" link.  It'll look like this:

If you click on "eResources", you'll come to this page:

The eResources page is kind of one-stop shopping.  It explains that generally, what we call eResources are collections and services paid for by the library and only available over the Internet. Examples include databases full of magazine articles, one-on-one live homework help, study guides and practice tests, dictionaries, business and financial information, and much more. All the eResources are split into handy, browsable categories.

Maybe you already know what you want, for example to access Morningstar® Investment Research Center or Newsbank, but just need to find the link.  You probably just need  to consult the A to Z eResource List, which you can find at the top of the Featured Guides list.  This guide contains a full list of our subscription eResources organized by name. Here's a sampling of what that guide looks like:

I hope this addresses questions you might have had regarding our eResources.  I encourage you to stop by the library website & explore!

Monsters are Invading the (Literary) World!

"Monster Lit" -- Classic Works, Now with Added Monsters!

Some people think it all started with YouTube.

The video sharing website that encouraged users to "broadcast yourself" made it easy to post videos. Off-the-shelf software made video editing simple, and people discovered that they could easily cut together video footage from two different genres -- say, Star Trek and Love Boat -- and get something possibly very entertaining. Thus was the video mashup born.

But mashups have been around long before that term was coined. In the world of literature, they are called pastiches: works that include characters or elements from other works, either in homage or as satire. A popular form of pastiche is for an author to write in the style of a famous author. Another popular pastiche is to put characters from different series or genres together -- a literary "culture clash."

The literary mashup went a new direction with the release in 2009 of Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, by "Jane Austen and Seth Grahame-Smith." The work took Jane Austen's text and added "ultraviolent zombie mayhem!" The book was a surprise success, reaching the New York Times bestseller list. A followup prequel, Pride and Prejudice and Zombies: Dawn of the Dreadfuls by Steve Hockensmith, also went bestseller.

And thus the monster mashup was born and now no favorite work, no matter how revered, is safe from the army of the undead and supernatural beings flying, running, swimming, and shambling toward the classics shelves. The mashups range in style from the original text with interjections of monster action, to entirely new works that give fresh insight into the characters and the cultures they lived in.

Publishers like monster mashups because they don't have to pay for the rights on the classic book -- once a work is in the public domain, anyone may legally use the text and characters.

Authors like mashups because they get to have loving revenge upon works that they had to write reports on in high school, and nowhere they take the story can be too outrageous.

And readers like mashups because -- they're fun! It's a matter of opinion whether mashups are hilarious or horrific (people sometimes mutter the word, "sacrilege") but no one can argue against the fact that monster mashups take beloved characters in entirely new directions.

Jane Austen was the first victim of this monstrous invasion, but the Bronte sisters, Louisa May Alcott, Lewis Carroll, Leo Tolstoy, and many other famous writers were soon assaulted, as well as some of the great figures from history.

It seems as though there are new mashup coming out every week.

Visit the Monster Mashups LibGuide to learn more about the

wide wild world of the monster mashup.

Spring is upon us!

Ignore for the moment the fact that there was ice in the bird waterer last week, and that we may still get a freeze well into April.

Gardener’s spring is upon us, that time when the buds are swelling, the earthworms are shallow under the mulch, and gardeners get distracted if they spend too much time indoors on the weekends. Some of the fruit trees are already in bloom (and we cross our fingers that they won’t get nipped by a late freeze), many bulbs are starting to emerge, and a fine winter crop of gardening catalogs are awaiting attention.

At the Libraries, we are seeing many gardening books checking out as people plan their gardens. We are also seeing new and increasing interest in what has come to be called mini-farming – what one book* defines as “becoming more economically independent on a small holding.” Another name for mini-farming is backyard homesteading, which reflects the pioneer spirit and desire for independence that leads people to grow their own food.


Mini-farming encompasses not only high-yield vegetable gardening but also raising chickens and other livestock, food preservation, disaster preparedness, and self-reliant living – all of the old-timey rural skills that were once common across America.

To help people brush up on these skills or learn them anew, your library has developed a new resource: the Mini-Farming LibGuide (LibraryGuide).
In the Mini-Farming LibGuide you will find selected library items and links to useful City of Albuquerque and Extension Service resources. Follow the helpful list of links on related subjects to search your library’s Encore search & discovery engine for titles on those subjects.

Here are a few of those subjects:

• beekeeping
• biodynamic gardening• build a chicken coop
• canning food• community gardens
• country recipes• disaster preparedness• food preservation• growing your own food• kitchen gardens
• old-fashioned recipes• raised bed gardening• raising chickens• rural home economics• self-reliant living
• self-sufficiency• sustainable gardening• urban farming


The Albuquerque/Bernalillo County Library System is here to help you in your quest to grow good food for your family, and make the most of your land!
* The Backyard Homestead, Mini-Farm & Garden Log Book by John Jeavons, J. Mogador Griffin and Robin Leler

Written by Scott, ABCLS Staff Member.