News Updates and Briefs

In Memory

Richard Neidig, UMUC's vice provost for academic affairs, passed away suddenly Wednesday evening, March 20, at his home.

Neidig was a collegiate professor in the Graduate School who served as the associate director of the Human Resource Management program, then director, General Management Programs, and as associate dean for academic affairs in the Graduate School. He was appointed vice provost for academic affairs in October 2001, overseeing the University's offices of Information and Library Services, Distance Education and Lifelong Learning, and Regional Programs.

Neidig was a part of the UMUC community since 1988 in a variety of capacities—colleague, confidant, mentor, advisor, and dear friend. He was a caring teacher, a wonderful practitioner, and an especially effective facilitator who knew how to get people of differing views working together. He will be deeply missed.

Neidig is survived by his wife, Pam, and two children, Kim and Matt.

Information and Library Services Adds Databases

Information and Library Services has added several new databases to MdUSA that will allow faculty and staff access to a greater array of full-text materials in the sciences, social sciences, arts, humanities, and business.

Science Direct
Science Direct provides full-text access to more than 1.7 million articles in journals published by Elsevier Science as well as to articles in related secondary databases. Coverage includes the biological, agricultural, chemical, physical, mathematical, and medical sciences, as well as social sciences such as psychology, education, history, and arts and humanities.

PsycARTICLES
PsycARTICLES offers access to more than 26,000 full-text articles from the American Psychological Association (APA) and selected Educational Publishing Foundation (EPF) journals. Coverage includes general psychology and specialized basic, applied, clinical, and theoretical research in psychology.

Emerald
Emerald is a full-text database of more than 35,000 articles from over 100 journals in various subject areas in management, economics, accounting, auditing, training, and information science.

ingenta
Beginning in March, the ingenta Gateway will also be available to faculty and staff. The ingenta Gateway offers access to an easy-to-use searchable database of scholarly journals. It provides more than 12 million citations from over 26,000 journals. Look for the link to ingenta in the NEW DATABASES section next to the MdUSA logo on the MdUSA login page.

ILS is also establishing a pilot program to provide faculty and doctoral students access through a deposit account to articles from journals that are cited in ingenta but not available in full text. There will be a per article cap price of $35. Contact ILS at library@umuc.edu for more information about this service.

The Peck Virtual Library Classroom

The Peck Virtual Library Classroom (VLC) is a new service available to help students, staff, and faculty use library resources. The VLC is set up as a classroom in Web Tycho under the course number VLIB 101. After self-rostering in this free class, students, faculty, and staff will have access to UMUC library database tutorials, exercises to enhance their research and writing skills, and a virtual library handbook to help them identify and locate information resources. A recently added tutorial, "Using the Web for Academic Research," provides instruction on the different types of Web pages that can be helpful for academic, scholarly, or professional research, as well as offering some useful examples of each type. For more information about the VLC, visit www.umuc.edu/library/vlc.html.