2017 – Page 2 – Reference at Newman Library

How to Browse for a Book Title in OneSearch

A speedy way to find a specific book in the catalog is to do a “Title begins with…” search:

The results look like this:

You can do the same kind of thing in OneSearch by going to the “BROWSE” option at the top of the screen and using the “Browse by title” mode:

Here’s one caveat about title browsing: in OneSearch, the books you find will be almost exclusively print books. What you are browsing in OneSearch are just the records that we’ve carried over from the catalog. In OneSearch, we represent our ebook titles not from catalog records but instead from records in ebook collections that Ex Libris (the vendor behind OneSearch) gets directly from the vendors of the ebook platforms we subscribe to (such as Ebook Central from ProQuest). In another post, I’ll describe the best way to find a specific ebook.

ProQuest Databases Are Working Again

It looks like ProQuest sorted out whatever problems were behind the crazy display issues we were seeing yesterday.

ProQuest Databases Having Problems

A number of libraries are reporting the same problem we’re seeing now in ProQuest databases: the interface is missing all sorts of design elements and looks to be non-functional. I’ve left a message with ProQuest support to find out what’s going on. It’s likely the problem will get sorted out in a matter of hours or less.

Planned Downtime for the Library Catalog on October 24

On Tuesday, October 24, between 8 am and 9 am, the library catalog will be unavailable as work is done by CUNY CIS on the server. You can still use OneSearch to find books in our collection, but the real-time availability info will not be accurate until the catalog server is back online at 9 am.

Remote Access to Artstor Is Working Again

As it turned out, Artstor had been doing work on its search system and changed enough things that remote access broke for all libraries using EZproxy. Remote access is now working again.

Remote Access Problems for Artstor

On the EZproxy mailing list, a number of libraries are reporting the same problems we’ve been seeing here at Baruch. On campus access is fine, but users from off campus aren’t able to view content (they can log in and get to the Artstor home screen, but that’s it).

Today, I’ll be trying a number of fixes to our settings in EZproxy suggested on the mailing list by other librarians to see what works (neither Artstor nor OCLC, which owns EZproxy have working solutions of their own yet).

Odd Behavior from Firefox with OneSearch

Recent versions of Firefox have created an odd problem in OneSearch that is essentially benign but still annoying. If the user starts a search from the search box on our library website and if the user puts quotes around any part of the query, then the search results are displayed with this Firefox window asking you if you want to save or open a file download for pdsLogin:

If you see this file download window, you can just close it and get back to the search results. Please note that you won’t see this problem once you run searches from within the OneSearch interface; the problem only appears after your initial search from the search widget on the library website.

This problem is showing up for all Primo customers (not just CUNY). Ex Libris is aware of the problem and is working on a fix to the code that should be available soon.

New Database: International Encyclopedia of Communication

We recently started a subscription to the International Encyclopedia of Communication (from Wiley-Blackwell). Links to this database can be found on the main databases page and on the database pages for communication studies and for dictionaries and encyclopedias.

Records for this database are not yet indexed by Ex Libris for inclusion in the Primo Central Index, which means that the records can’t be found in OneSearch. The main point of access is by going directly to the database.

New Database: Periodicals Archive Online

We now have access to a new database, Periodicals Archive Online, that is on the ProQuest platform. Somewhat like JSTOR, this database offers backfiles of scholarly journals as well as to a number of magazines, in some cases all the way back to the early 1800s. There is a link to the database on the main databases page.

It is expected that we’ll be able to discover records for these articles in OneSearch soon. We’re working with the CUNY Office of Library Services to determine which specific collections in SFX we need to activate.

New Interface for MathSciNet

We’ve long had access to MathSciNet on the American Mathematical Society’s own platform. This week, we were able to add another access point to the same database: EBSCOhost. If you browse the list of math databases or the main databases page, you’ll now see a separate link for “MathSciNet (EBSCOhost interface).”

Records from MathSciNet are also discoverable in OneSearch; if you click to view the full text from a record in OneSearch, you’ll likely be taken to the article on the American Mathematical Society platform.