Reference at Newman Library

Tag: Ebooks

New Sign On Method for Safari Ebooks

There’s a new method of sign on for Safari that you will encounter when clicking the database link on our website or clicking on a “full text available” link in a OneSearch record for a specific Safari ebook. You’ll first see a glimpse of the Safari website or a landing page in Safari for a specific ebook and then you’ll be redirected to this new kind of login page:

Safari sign on page

This page asks for the same set of credentials that any student or staff or faculty member of Baruch or SPS should have: a Baruch username and password (similar to the ones entered in the proxy page). Once those credentials are entered, the user will be taken back to the Safari site and have access.

As you can see from the screenshot of the login page, it mentions “O’Reilly.” That is the company that owns the Safari ebook platform.

If you encounter any problems with this new system, please let Mike Waldman or me know.

New Database: Safari

We now subscribe to Safari, a collection of over 40,000 ebooks in information technology. This database includes all titles published by O’Reilly Media as well as titles from a number of other publishers. The collection also includes videos and a small number of case studies.

To use Safari, you’ll need to use the link on the A-Z database list (there is also a link on the ebooks databases page). Logging in to Safari from on or off campus requires a Baruch or CUNY SPS email address. Once the user provides that email, they are in. If a user wants to be able to use the iOS or Android app and read ebooks offline, they will need to set up an account with Safari using their Baruch or CUNY SPS email address and a password of their own choosing.

The vendor hopes to have their content indexed in the coming months by Ex Libris so records for each ebook can be found in the Primo discovery service (OneSearch here at CUNY).

MyiLibrary Content Now in Ebook Central

ProQuest recently shut down the MyiLibrary ebook platform. All of the ebooks we had there are now found in Ebook Central.

If you have any featured book boxes in your LibGuides that have URLs going straight into the MyiLibrary platform, you will want to update them. The new link can either go to a permalink for the book record in OneSearch or to a permalink to the book in Ebook Central.

New Books Search Options in the Search Bar

Today, the search bar features a new set of options for book searches. If you want to find print and ebooks at the same time, use the first option, “Books (print + ebooks).” Searches run from this option will go to OneSearch, where all of our print and ebooks records can be found. If you want to limit your search to just print books, you’ll want to use the second option, “Books (print).” The second option sends search queries to the catalog, which no longer includes records for most of our ebook collections.

New search bar menu options

Over the coming months, we’ll be running usability tests and conducting other forms of user research to assess how this change is being received by our students and faculty. If you receive feedback from our users, please pass it along to Michael Waldman or me.

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):

OneSearch--Books24x7 error page

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.

Direct Links to Books 24×7 Ebooks Restored

Our catalog update last weekend restored direct links to our Books 24×7 subscription from the Baruch Library Catalog (CUNY+ catalog) . Clicking on the direct link in the Baruch holdings will now take users to the Baruch log-in screen (including on-campus access). Books 24×7 ebooks are available to current Baruch students, faculty and staff only, on and off campus. All users must log-in to reach the resource.

Users who wish to access Books 24×7 directly through our Databases page will continue to be able to do so, and will be presented with the same Baruch log-in screen (including on-campus access).

Books 24×7 ebooks OPAC record display Nov 16-17, 2013

In an effort to update records in our library catalog, bibliographic records for all Books 24×7 ebooks will be unavailable on the CUNY+ OPAC on Saturday and Sunday, Nov 16-17. Only ebooks in our Books 24×7 subscription are affected. These records will not appear in browse or search results as existing records are being removed. On Sunday, users might begin to SEE partially loaded new records (records without holdings or external links). We expect full functionality to be in place by Sunday evening. In the meantime, users can continue to access these ebooks via the publisher’s site (instructions). We hope that this update will lead to restoring direct click-throughs from the CUNY+ OPAC later on.  Thank you for your patience.

Ebooks Overview in the Reference Wiki

Today, I’ve been substantially updating the entry on Ebooks in the reference wiki to give public services staff a quick overview of the various platforms we have.

As I was working on this, I made a mental note to return later to Sage Research Methods Online, which I can see is going to be the place I go to from now on to get any answers about methodologies I should use for my own research. Not only are there hundreds of books here, there are also 26 videos that give me another way to take in the information.

New Ebook Collection from the APA

We now have access to the ebook editions of all the handbooks published by the American Psychological Association. As soon as we can get the MARC records for each title loaded into the catalog, you’ll be able to find them when doing searches in the catalog. Until then, you can go to the APA Books listing on the databases page and run searches there for them (once you click that APA Books link, you’re taken to the APA PsycNET interface, where you can find the handbooks and all the other ebooks we get from the APA).