Lauris Olson
Librarian & Coordinator, Social Sciences Collections
As the Penn Libraries' social sciences bibliographer - now coordinator for social sciences collections - since 1998, Lauris is responsible for selecting books, journals, electronic resources, and other media supporting Penn research and instruction in sociology, economics, linguistics, criminology, communication, and related fields. Lauris is Penn's Official Representative to the Inter-University Consortium for Political and Social Research and the contact person for the Penn Libraries' Pennsylvania State Data Center affiliate membership. Lauris coordinates collection development and management activities of subject librarians for anthropology & archaeology, business, education, gender, women's studies & sexuality, political science & international relations, psychology, and social policy & practice/social work. Lauris is also the Penn Libraries' African studies bibliographer. Lauris started at the Penn Libraries in 1991 as a Van Pelt Library reference librarian, but Lauris's presence at Penn began in 1975 as an undergraduate, earning BA and MA degrees in Anthropology here, alongside a Drexel library degree.
SPORTDiscus with Full Text covers the scholarly literature of sports and related fields, including physical education, exercise and fitness, kinesiology and exercise science, sports medicine, sports science, sports management, nutrition science, sports psychology, sports law, physical therapy, athletic training and coaching, general sports and leisure, and dance education and instruction.
SPORTDiscus provides subject indexing for 674 current periodicals, including 467 current academic journals in sports and related fields. For 33 current titles, the database includes subject indexing extending back more than 50 years. The database's true value is in its fulltext content, covering 438 academic journals, 227 of these titles with current fulltext. Many of these specialized journals - along with SPORTDiscus's popular and trade magazines and gray literature content - are not available through other Penn Libraries subscriptions.
SPORTDiscus was developed by the Sport Information Resource Centre (Canada) in the early 1970s. The EBSCOhost database sustains its international origins, offering current fulltext for academic journals from 45 countries, with strong representation from Spain, Turkey, Brazil, Romania, Poland, and Jordan : 66% of current fulltext academic journals were published outside the U.S., U.K., and Germany.
Franklin Catalog displays links to fulltext journals within SPORTDiscus. The database may be searched simultaneously with other EBSCOhost databases for enhanced research in popular magazines, business magazines and scholarly journals, the history of sport, and sports media studies.
