My Librarian’s Favorite Resource(s): Religious Studies, English, and Business

Librarian Essraa Nawar wears many hats in the Leatherby Libraries and at Chapman University. In addition to her work as the Development Librarian, and her roles in campus organizations like the Chapman Egyptian Club, she is also the subject liaison librarian for Religious Studies, English, and Business. She shared with us her favorite resources in each of those areas:

“I am the subject liaison librarian for the Religious Studies Department, the English Department, and the Argyros School of Business & Economics. In my role, I embed myself into the ongoing life of the schools and departments I serve, forge ties, build relationships, conduct information literacy sessions, attend faculty meetings, and more.

For the English Department, I am a big fan of Gale Literature: LitFinder. LitFinder provides access to literary works and authors throughout history and includes more than 130,000 full-text poems and more than 650,000 poetry citations, as well as short stories, speeches, and plays. The database also includes secondary materials like biographies, images, and more.

For the Business School students and faculty, I always recommend SimplyAnalytics, a mapping application that enables users to develop interactive thematic maps and reports using thousands of demographic, business, and marketing data variables. It includes access to the EASI Standard Package, which includes data from the years 2000 and 2010, Current Estimates, and Five-Year Projections; Experian SimmonsLOCAL; and Nielsen PRIZM Data Packages. As COVID-19 started spreading across the United States, the SimplyAnalytics team added COVID-19 data at the national, state, and county levels to their database. The data is from USAFacts.org and is updated daily with the latest numbers. It is extremely user-friendly and I am always happy to provide a training session when needed.

Also, Business Source Premier is another great resource. It is a comprehensive index of business journals, magazines, and other sources, with full text for more than 2,300 journals with searchable cited references back to 1998. Coverage includes leading journals in marketing, management, MIS, POM, accounting, finance, econometrics, economics, international business, and more. Non-journal content includes market research reports, industry reports, country economic reports, industry reports, company profiles, monographs, and SWOT analyses. As always, if you’d like to know more about using this database, don’t hesitate to contact me directly.

In regards to the Religious Studies department, I have been fascinated lately with the World Religion Database. The World Religion Database (WRD) contains detailed statistics on religious affiliation for every country of the world. It provides source material, including censuses and surveys, as well as best estimates for every religion to offer a definitive picture of international religious demography. It offers best estimates at multiple dates for each of the world’s religions for the period 1900 to 2050. The WRD is constantly updated with new sources of data as they become available, such as estimates of religious affiliation at the province level within countries and religious freedom information for all countries.

Also please continue to follow Leatherby Libraries Remote Resources or the Library Content for Online Teaching and Learning guide for up-to-date information on how the Leatherby Libraries can support your needs.

Do not hesitate to contact me at 714-532-7748 or nawar@chapman.edu. Meeting students or faculty and helping them with any of their information needs is my number one goal.

Link to all my LibGuides: https://chapman.libguides.com/prf.php?account_id=156028“