Our access to a handful of EBSCO databases was disrupted late this morning (including Academic Search Complete and Business Source Complete). The EBSCO tech support rep I just spoke with on the phone said that our access should return this afternoon.
Country overview facet in Gale Virtual Reference Library
Today I stumbled on a handy way to find overview articles in Gale Virtual Reference Library when you’re looking for background info on a country. If you run a search just using the country name and then apply the “Country overview” facet found in the “Document Type” options, you’ll get a much nicer search set:
Reference Services Schedule For The Week Of December 8, 2014
This schedule is now confirmed and posted to the Reference Desk LibGuide.
Reference Services Schedule For The Week Of December 1, 2014
This schedule is now confirmed and posted to the Reference Desk LibGuide.
ProQuest Databases Working Again
After I called ProQuest this morning and confirmed a system-wide problem, access returned.
Phew!
ProQuest Databases Not Accessible (updated)
UPDATE (11:11 am) They’re accessible again.
I’ve been unable to load any ProQuest databases this morning and will contact their tech support ASAP.
Books24x7 Does Not Work with OneSearch
If you have found an ebook from Books24x7 in OneSearch and try to view it online, you’ll be unable to open that ebook. There is not a problem, though, with connecting to these same books from within the library catalog or from the main Books24x7 page that is linked to on the Databases page. It’s also important to note that ebooks from other vendors can be found and accessed via OneSearch with no problem.
When you click the “View Online” tab for a Books24x7 title in OneSearch, you’ll first get our EZproxy login page (as expected). Then after you enter your credentials to get past our Baruch login, you get an error page from Books24x7 that says
You must log-in through your library.
If you already have, please check your browser’s Privacy settings to make sure cookies are being accepted.
Here’s what that error page looks like (note that it is embedded within the OneSearch page frame):
I’ve got support tickets out with the CUNY Office of Library Services, Books24x7, and to OCLC (who provide the EZproxy software we use for authentication). As soon as this is fixed, I’ll post about it here.
New Subscription: Rosetta Stone
We now have two services that offer online language instruction: Mango Languages and Rosetta Stone. Rosetta Stone offers 30 different languages. Getting started in Rosetta Stone requires a few steps which are a bit out of the ordinary:
- Go to the link to it on our A-Z list of databases or on the languages databases page
- If you’re off campus, you’ll get our usual EZproxy login page requiring a Baruch username and password.
- Once you pass through authentication, you’ll see a Rosetta Stone login page that also has an EBSCO logo (EBSCO helps provide access to Rosetta Stone even though the two are separate companies)
- On the Rosetta Stone login page, first-time users will have to pick a user name and password and also choose which language they’ll study
- After you sign in on the Rosetta Stone page, you get a landing page titled “Rosetta Stone Language Learning Suite” on which you can do a couple of different things:
- check your browser’s compatibility with the service using the “First Time Users” link
- go straight to the language lessons using the “Launch Rosetta Stone Language Lessons Version 3” link
Our subscription to Rosetta Stone is limited to “Level 1” only, although that does seem like it is pretty substantial once you get into it.
Trial: World Bank eLibrary
Vendor description:
The World Bank eLibrary covers more than 20 disciplines related to poverty, development, and social science including economic and human development, agriculture, infrastructure, health, education, climate change, natural resources, and regional integration. To learn more, browse the eLibrary by Topic, Region, or Country.
The World Bank eLibrary includes:
- World Bank flagship and annual publications
- Data publications
- Regional and thematic series
- Training manuals and handbooks
- Working papers
- Journal articles
Trial ends: December, 2014
Access: on campus only; use link on trials tab of main databases page
Please share with any interested faculty and encourage feedback on the form we have on the trials tab
EBSCO is experiencing system wide problems
UPDATE: These problems were resolved the following day.
It seems to be affecting the campuses differently but some of the issues reported are slowness of response and difficulty in opening PDFs.