Reference at Newman Library

Year: 2019

December 14-15 Downtime for Library Catalog and OneSearch

Beginning at 6 AM on Saturday, December 14, and ending (at the latest) by 6 PM on Sunday, December 15, CUNY CIS will be doing maintenance on systems that will affect the following services:

  • The library catalog (also known as CUNY+) may be entirely unavailable
    • Workaround: Use OneSearch to see if we actually have the item
  • OneSearch will be searchable but users won’t be able to get real-time info on the status of print books found, nor will users be able to log into their patron accounts to check loan periods, renew loans, etc.
    • Workaround: Stop by the circulation desk in the library
  • OneSearch will not be able to display the green “full text available” links in records
    • Workaround: Use the A-Z journals search tool to identify what database has access to any particular journal, magazine, newspaper, etc.
  • Databases will not display the “Find it @ CUNY” buttons or those buttons won’t work
    • Workaround: Use the A-Z journals search tool to identify what database has access to that journal, magazine, newspaper, etc.
  • Self-service kiosks won’t work: laptop kiosks on the 2nd floor of the library and Vertical Campus building; book loan kiosk on the 1st floor; self-checkout machine by the elevators on the 2nd floor.
    • Workaround: borrow laptops from the 3rd floor Tech Loan Desk and checkout books from the circulation desk.

Full Text Available Links Not Working in OneSearch (resolved 10 Dec 2019)

See updates in comments at bottom of the post.

SFX, the system that powers the green “Full text available” links in OneSearch seems to be down. When you click a link, you get an error page from SFX that says something like:

This site can’t be reached

The connection was reset.

Try:

Checking the connection
Checking the proxy and the firewall
Running Windows Network Diagnostics
ERR_CONNECTION_RESET

I’ve got a support ticket in to CUNY OLS to see what the story is with this. With any luck, it’s something that will get fixed shortly (maybe it’s just the SFX server at CUNY central that needs to be restarted).

As a workaround, use the A-Z journal tool to figure out where online access is for any given article you find. For ebooks, streaming audio, video, etc., try going directly to the database on the A-Z database page.

Full Text Available Links from OneSearch That Are Failing

A recent update from Ex Libris to the SFX system has broken links into ProQuest databases from OneSearch records. If you have found item in OneSearch and the “full text available” link is programmed to take to you to the text in a ProQuest database, you’ll get a weird error page from SFX that reads “Target URL could not be created” and looks like this:

Error page from SFX

Until a fix can be applied, use this as a workaround: use the A-Z journal tool from Serials Solutions to look up access for the needed item and use the links from there into the appropriate database.

Please note that you’ll only see this particular problem with links from OneSearch to ProQuest databases; links to Gale, EBSCO, etc, are not affected.

This problem is affecting all customers using Primo for their discovery service. A fix from Ex Libris may come at any moment. If it looks like Ex Libris is having problems with getting the fix out in a timely manner, we have a plan B here at CUNY to downgrade ProQuest links if there are also full text links to the same content from other vendors (Gale, EBSCO, etc.)

If you want to see the problem in action, try to connect to the full text for this article.

Three New Databases from EBSCOhost

All CUNY libraries now have access to three additional databases on the EBSCOhost platform. For each database below, I’ve included the vendor’s description and a list of what database pages includes a link. If there are any additional subjects these databases should be added to, please leave a comment on this blog post or email me.

Health Policy Reference Center

“The Health Policy Reference Center is a comprehensive full-text database covering all aspects of health policy and related issues. This collection provides unmatched full-text coverage of information relevant to many areas integral to health policy including, but not limited to: health care access, health care quality, health care financing, etc. The Health Policy Reference Center offers cover-to-cover content from more than 300 publications, including journals, monographs, magazines, and trade publications, all directly dealing with health policy and closely aligned topics. This includes complete coverage of more than 250 full-text titles. The database also offers tens of thousands of additional highly relevant articles, selected from thousands of industry publications. The Health Policy Reference Center offers a wealth of information essential for anyone involved in the creation, implementation, or study of health policy and the health care system.”

Added to:

  • A-Z page
  • Environmental Science
  • Health
  • Nursing
  • Public Affairs

International Security & Counter Terrorism Reference Center

“This database offers information on virtually every dimension of security & counter-terrorism and is designed to inform the analysis process, as well as enhance the general understanding of security and terrorism-related issues. ISCTRC provides a comprehensive Open Source Intelligence Resource for analysts, risk management professionals, and students. Content includes hundreds of full text journals and periodicals, hundreds of thousands of selected articles, news feeds, reports, summaries, books, FAQs, and proprietary Background Information Summaries that pertain to terrorism and security. ISCTRC also combines deep background from scholarly writings with expert commentary from a variety of organizations, agencies and publisher and timely reviews of recent developments across the international political, military, economic, social and technical spectrum.”

Added to:

  • A-Z page
  • Government
  • International Business
  • Political Science
  • Public Affairs

Urban Studies Abstracts

“Urban Studies Abstracts includes bibliographic records covering essential areas related to urban studies, including urban affairs, community development, urban history, and other areas of key relevance to the discipline. The index contains more than 51,600 records, which are carefully selected from the most important sources within the discipline.”

Added to:

  • A-Z page
  • History
  • Political Science
  • Public Affairs

Searching for Negative Business News

Both Factiva and NexisUni offer searchers easy access to negative news stories. In NexisUni you can narrow your search results to Negative News using the filters on the left of the results page. Run your news search, then select the Negative News filter. It will narrow your results to articles that contain negative or critical information about a person or a company. The results can be overwhelming so you might want to search within the results or limit by publication.

Factiva has pre-built searches for narrowing a search for news sentiment, either positive or negative. Set up your search on a person or company or industry and then click on Factiva Expert Search in the search options to choose “News Sentiment”.  The News Sentiment category is further subdivided by Negative News- Corporate, Negative News – People, Negative News – Political, and Negative News for various industry sectors. Make your choice by opening the plus sign to select English language. (You must select a language to add the category to your search).

Factiva Expert Searches are pre-defined search strings created by Factiva search experts to find not only News Sentiment but news on topics and subjects that are often difficult for searchers to compose on their own. Thought leadership, customer service, digital analytics, investor sentiment, and institutional investor risk are some of the topics in Expert Search. There are also a limited number of “Trending Topics” like Brexit.