As a follow up to earlier posts here on the reference blog about the restrictions that Harvard Business School Press has put on how we can search and use articles from the Harvard Business Review, I thought I’d share this list of the 500 articles that the publisher has decided can’t be downloaded or printed from Business Source Complete (pdf).
Tag: EBSCOhost
Display Problem for EBSCOhost Databases Only in Latest Version of Firefox (UPDATED)
UPDATE 09/08/2014: This problem is now fixed.
If you are using the latest version of Firefox (version 27) and are looking at the search screen, you’ll see that the drop down menu of boolean operators is obscured:
I’ve reported this problem to EBSCO and will do an update here when it gets fixed.
Full Text Problem in PsycINFO (updated)
Since yesterday afternoon, there’s been a notable problem with PsycINFO. If you run a search, you’ll see that none of your results will include full text, only Find it! links from the SFX service. EBSCO support told me on the phone yesterday that this was a known problem (i.e., it’s a widespread problem for all PsycINFO subscribers). As a workaround, try the Find it! links as a means to tracking down full text or use our our journals search feature in the yellow search bar of our website.
This problem is not appearing in any other EBSCOhost database (including PsycARTICLES). As soon as EBSCO fixes this, I’ll post a new entry on the blog (with any luck, that fix will come through later today).
UPDATE 11/18/2013: The problem has been fixed by EBSCO.
Help Needed for Troubleshooting Problem with EBSCOhost and Internet Explorer
After contacting EBSCOhost about the problem some of us have seen in Internet Explorer where the clickable icons on the article records don’t work, I learned that we may need to look more closely at the internet options and plugins in the browsers to see if that is the source of the problem. To help find those machines and begin comparing set up differences, I need your help.
On any computer in your office, classroom, lab, etc., please go into any EBSCOhost database while using the Internet Explorer browser, run a search, click through to an individual article, and then see if the icons on the right work for you:
Then, go to this form in Qualtrics to answer a few questions about whether it worked or not.
Thank you so much!
More on Harvard Business Review and EBSCO
Recently, BRASS (Business Reference and Services Section) of RUSA issued a statement decrying the restrictions that Harvard Business School Publishing has put on use of the Harvard Business Review in EBSCO. Today, the Chronicle of Higher Education covers that story in more detail.
EBSCOhost and Internet Explorer 9 Problem
On some machines (but not all), we are seeing a problem when the user is in an EBSCOhost database while using the Internet Explorer 9 browser. When the user is viewing an article record, the row of icons on the right (to save the article, cite it, etc.) are inoperable; you click them and nothing happens. I’ve just submitted a support request to EBSCO to find out why this is only happening on some machines running IE9 but not all. If you hear of a student or faculty member having this problem, please suggest that they use Firefox, Chrome, Safari, etc. instead until we can figure out what’s behind the problem.
New Tweaks to the EBSCOhost Interface
Today, EBSCO pushed out a modest set of changes to the search and results pages in all EBSCOhost databases. Overall, the look is cleaner and more modern. Fonts have been changed, more white space is available, and the design of boxes has been simplified. Here are the most notable changes that were detailed on a long blog post from EBSCO today about the update:
Database Descriptions in EBSCOhost Platform Obscured
When we go into Academic Search Complete or any other database we have on the EBSCOhost platform and click the “Choose Databases” link to bring up the window listing all the databases, we are unable to see the database descriptions that are linked to from each database in that “Choose Databases” window. For the databases on the right column, you can see half of the description window for any given database; for any on the right, the descriptions seem to be completely obscured.
Here’s an annotated screenshot that may better explain the problem:
I’ve reported this issue to EBSCO support and hope it will get resolved soon.
Wilson Databases All Moved to EBSCOhost
As of this week, all of the Wilson databases we had access to on the WilsonWeb platform have moved over to EBSCOhost. Links to these databases have been updated on the library’s databases page and on the LibGuides Reusable Links page. With this move, there are some notable benefits to searchers.
Greater integration with full text
Many article records in WilsonWeb relied on SFX to get you to the full text; now, the records are right within EBSCOhost, which offers a vast trove of full text content. So we’ll see fewer SFX links in Wilson databases than we used to and more direct links to text.
Additional retrospective databases
After the merger, EBSCO gave us access to a bunch of retrospective databases we didn’t have before. Rather than add each one to our databases page as a separate listing, we’ve created a listing in the database that takes you to a page that lets you search the retrospective and the full text editions at the same time. These are the new retrospective indexes we now have:
- Applied Science & Technology Index Retrospective: 1913-1983
- Biography Index Retrospective: 1946-1983
- Education Index Retrospective: 1929-1983
- Humanities Index Retrospective: 1907-1984
- Library Literature & Information Science Retrospective: 1905-1983
- Social Sciences Index Retrospective: 1929-1983
Ability to search a huge set of databases at once
EBSCO has long offered a nice way to search all their databases at once. With all the new Wilson databases that are part of the platform now, that list of databases that could be searched simultaneously is quite large.
Now that all the Wilson databases are available on the EBSCOhost platform, the next step from EBSCO will be merge some of the similar Wilson and EBSCO databases into one project. This post from InfoDocket last summer shows what database mergers may take place.
EBSCO problems
Just an update on the Baruch situation regarding EBSCO databases: BCTC is working with OLS/CUNY CIS and EBSCO to resolve this issue. As you may have gathered via CULIBS it’s a system wide problem, maybe even a NY problem.
In any case, feel free to email me with any EBSCO problems you might be experiencing (especially if they are not about timing out).