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Faculty Library Resources

Useful services, resources, and helpful hints for faculty.

Search WISE: Enter title, subject, or author

  

Contents & Contact Info

Welcome to WISE! 

WISE is the library catalog and can be used to find books, articles, journals, videos, and many of the library's other resources. 

Contents:

Let Us Know!

The library wants to make WISE the best that it can be for Westminster College.  Please contact the library, or John Garrison directly, for problems you encounter with WISE or improvements or changes you would like to see.

Searching WISE

WISE is the library catalog and contains all title-level records for all of the resources that the Westminster College Library owns or otherwise has access to.

In addition, via a network called WorldCat, WISE also has records from thousands of libraries worldwide. This can be beneficial in discovering a wider scope of resources on a topic, but there are several important factors to keep in mind:

  • By default, items that Westminster College owns or has access to appear first in the search results.
  • To view all results by relevance, regardless of the item's location, sort the results by Best Match.
  • If Westminster College owns or has access to an item, this will be indicated in a green font below the item result.
  • For items not owned or accessible by Westminster College, WISE offers convenient access to our ILL services. See the ILL and WISE section for more information.

WISE is a user-friendly, all-in-one search tool, but is important to know when to use WISE, and when you may be better served by using the Library's other electronic resources. 

  • Print books and eBooks: WISE is the only place you can search our print book collection.  WISE is also the most convenient place to search our eBook collection, although links to particular eBook collections are available on the Online Journals and Reference Sources page.
  • Known items: If you know the exact book, journal, article, DVD, or other item you want, WISE will quickly show you if Westminster College owns or has access to that item.  If that item is not available through Westminster College, WISE provides an easy way to place an ILL request.
  • First-year or intro-level studies: WISE is the most user-friendly, all-in-one search option available and provides an adequate amount of relevant, appropriate sources for basic research needs.
  • Interdisciplinary research: WISE contains materials from all disciplines taught on campus. Therefore, using it is a more efficient Interdisciplinary search strategy than repeating the same search across numerous subject-specific databases.

Use the Online Journals and Reference Sources page for:

  • Discipline- or vendor-specific indices and databases: Searching specific databases  (e.g., PsycINFO, SciFinder, ScienceDirect, MLA International Bibliography) is a better search strategy for more in-depth, advanced research.  These databases allow for tailored search strings and provide citation tools.
    • Many of our subject-specific databases are either partially or fully citation and abstract-only.  If you find an article with only a citation and abstract, you can search for that article in WISE to determine whether the library has full-text access to that article in another database (or through a journal subscription). If we do not have any full-text access, you can request the item via ILL directly. See ILL and WISE for more information.
  • Other types of electronic sources:
    • Newspapers:  U.S. Major Dailies, NY Times, Nexis Uni
    • Reference: Credo, Oxford, SAGE
    • Discipline-based: Birds of the World, Mergent Online
    • Streaming: Video (Kanopy, Swank) and music (NAXOS)
    • Primary Sources
    • and more!

ILL and WISE

The library's Interlibrary Loan (ILL) service is integrated into WISE, providing a convenient process for borrowing items that Westminster College does not own or have direct access to.  It is recommended that you create an ILL account before you begin your search, but not required. 

To use ILL in WISE:

  • When you find an item that says Held by other libraries worldwide (instead of Held by Westminster College McGill Library), click on the title link for the item.
  • Under Check Availability, click on the navy blue button: I Need This! (ILL)
  • You will be taken to a new page and prompted to log in with your ILL user name and password (you can create your account at this stage if you have not already done so).
  • Once you have logged in, you will be taken to an ILL form, where all of the item information should auto-populate for you. Enter the borrowing purpose at the bottom of the form and submit.

For more information on the Interlibrary Loan process, see the Interlibrary Loan tab.

Troubleshooting

WISE is constantly undergoing upgrades and improving over time.  There are different problems you may encounter, and several of them are listed below.  Please contact the library to report other problems or questions.

There is a link to a full-text article, but the article cannot be found

This typically occurs when an item has not been indexed correctly in WISE. Newspaper and magazine articles are especially problematic in this case.

Solution: Go directly to the database source listed under the link to the article (eg: JSTOR, ScienceDirect, etc.). If the database source is unclear, please contact the library.

Results indicate that Westminster College owns or has access to an electronic resource, but there is no link to access the item

Please contact the library should this occur.

Possible causes:

  • WISE has incorrectly listed the item as owned/accessible by Westminster College.
  • The link is "hidden" but the item is owned/accessible by Westminster College.

The link redirects to an EBSCO page instead of the article

The library subscribes to all departmental journals through EBSCO, which offers an indexing service called "Electronic Journals Service" Not all journals are indexed at the article-level by EBSCO, and so you may be diverted to the title-level page instead.

Solution: On the EBSCO page, you should see "Your Access" followed by a green checkmark and a date range. Below this is "Available on Publisher's Site" with a linked date range. Click this link to navigate to the desired article. If this information is not present on the EBSCO page, or you cannot locate the article on the publisher's site, please contact the library.

From EBSCO Electronic Journals Service:

EBSCO screen shot