New to Oesterle Library: The International Encyclopedia of Men and Masculinities, a reference book offering comprehensive coverage of contemporary scholarship on how manhood is perceived, experienced, and understood in cultures around the world.

The Encyclopedia includes 353 entries arranged alphabetically, on topics ranging from “Bachelors and Bachelorhood” to “Violence, Sport.” Most articles are very brief and highly informative, and each entry includes a list of books and articles for further reading.

You can check out International Encyclopedia of Men and Masculinities in the library’s Reference Room at the call number R 305.3103 In8f.

Want to get the lowdown on drug testing in schools, electronic surveillance at work, or freedom of speech? You can look up the facts about these controversial issues and many others in the Encyclopedia of American Civil Rights & Liberties, a three-volume set recently added to Oesterle Library’s reference collection.

The numerous expert-written articles in Encyclopedia of American Civil Rights and Liberties offer brief and informative introductions to civil liberties topics, as well as bibliographies of sources that you can turn to for further information. In addition, the third volume of the encyclopedia also features the full text of primary source documents on American civil rights and liberties, ranging from “A Plea for Religious Liberty” (1664) to the text of one of President Roosevelt’s famous “fireside chats” from 1937.

You can find Encyclopedia of American Civil Rights and Liberties in the library’s reference collection at the call number R. 342.73085 En1s.

Oesterle Library has just added a new resource for students of accounting, business, and finance: the Risk Management Association’s RMA eStatement Studies database.

The database includes financial ratio benchmarks drawn from the financial statements of companies in over 740 industries. Industry searches may be sorted by title, North American Industry Classification System (NAICS) Code, or sector.

The database can be accessed by selecting “RMA eStatement Studies” from the “Choose a Database” pull-down menu on the library homepage (under the Find Articles link), from the Find Articles page, and from the Research by Subject pages for Accounting and Business.

Direct link to the database.

The Oxford English Dictionary–available online via the Oesterle Library wesbite–is the definitive record of how words in English are written and spoken around the world. If you want to know what a word means–or its origin and history of use going back to the Middle Ages–the OED is the place to look.

Since the English language is always changing, the OED is always, changing, too: the dictionary’s editors are constantly working to add entries for new words and revise words to reflect contemporary usage.

In the latest update of the dictionary, new or revised entries include “thingamabob,” “eco-friendly,” “retrovirus,” and even the”F-word.” If you want to check out all of the new entries, try this list from the Oxford website.

Library patrons can find authoritative answers quickly through Credo Reference, an online reference library accessible via the Oesterle Library website. Credo Reference, formerly known as, Xreferplus, features content from hundreds of reference books and covers a broad range of subject areas.

Credo Reference offers a complete reference collection from over 50 publishers. Facts, definitions, concepts, people, places and quotations can be found in dictionaries, encyclopedias, and subject specific sources in numerous subjects. Additionally, some artist entries include high-quality images of artworks.

Credo Reference can be accessed through the library’s website from the Reference Sources page.

• Credo Reference