LibGuides – Reference at Newman Library

Links from Brightspace to E-Reserves and Research Guides Not Working

This morning, we started to see problems with the Brightspace linking system that connects course pages there to specific e-reserves course pages or to specific research guides in the LibGuides system. In most cases, those links are now all going to a generic “Research Basics” guide. Springshare is working on this problem and should have a fix soon (within 24 hours).

As a workaround, please tell students and faculty that they can still go to the main E-Reserves page on the library website and find a link to their specific e-reserves page. If they don’t know the course password, the professor should have been emailed it at the start of the semester. Students and faculty can also call the circulation desk at 646-312-1660 (when it is open) to ask for the course password.

Friday, March 21 update: As of 12 PM, the linking still isn’t fixed. Springshare is still at work on the problem.

Wednesday, April 2 update: The problem has been fixed (see update post).

New Custom Search Boxes for Your LibGuides

On the privately published guide, “LibGuides–Reusable Boxes,” you’ll find a growing array of custom search boxes that you can add to your own research guides and course guides. The latest addition I added is a search box that will search a specific collection in CUNY Academic Works. This new box is set up to help students find honors theses in our collections. If you’d like to have a custom search box set up for a different collection in CUNY Academic Works, let me know.

Instructions for how to reuse a box can be found on this page from Springshare.

LibGuides System Is Down (see update)

Springshare customers in the US are reporting that their LibGuides systems are down. Here at Baruch, this means that we can’t access:

research guides
e-reserves
A-Z list of databases

As an alternative means of access to our A-Z list of databases, there is this Google Docs spreadsheet we can use to get links to all of our databases.

As soon as Springshare resolves the problem, an update will be posted here.

UPDATE (July 27, 2021, 12:17 pm): All LibGuides systems are now working again.

Instructions for Signing in to OneSearch

On the OneSearch research guide, I added a new box at the bottom that is written with our students and faculty in mind and explains the two separate sign in systems that are connected to OneSearch. The goal of this box was address the most common misunderstanding with OneSearch: to find and view search results, you don’t use the Sign In link in the top right corner that asks for your library ID number but instead use the remote authentication login page that comes up after you click “Full text available.”

Feel free to add this new box or any of the other boxes on this guide to your own research guides.

Thanks to Linda, Louise, Chris, and Mike for their input on the drafts of this new element on the OneSearch guide.

Updated Backup List of Databases and Their URLs

If LibGuides happens to be down, there is backup spreadsheet linked to at the top of the “Databases Overview” page in the Library Services wiki (password protected) that has all of our databases and their URLs. I just updated the spreadsheet today with the current information.

Log In to LibGuides Using Your Baruch Username and Password

Thanks to the help of BCTC, we’ve got the login working again in LibGuides that lets you use your regular Baruch username and password as an alternative to your LibGuides credentials.

When you go to login, you’ll see the familiar login screen:

On the right side where it says “You may also login using,” click on “Baruch Username and Password,” which will take you to this page to enter those credentials:

The first time you enter your credentials, you’ll get a verification page from Springshare checking that it’s OK for your username (but not password) to be shared with Springshare:

Click “Do Not Ask Me Again” and the “Accept” button and you’ll then be passed on into LibGuides. The next time you go to login, you won’t see this verification page again.

For those interested in the technical side of things, this new set up uses Shibboleth, which is an open-source project that allows for a single sign-on experience in systems that would otherwise require separate credentials for logging in. In the coming year, you can expect to see more systems that will use Shibboleth here at Baruch and across CUNY to simplify the process of logging into different services.

LibGuides Is Back Up

The outage in LibGuides from earlier this afternoon has been fixed by the vendor (Springshare).

LibGuides Is Down

Springshare has confirmed on their Twitter account that there is a system-wide problem. We are unable to access:

Research guides
A-Z databases page
- a link to the backup spreadsheet of databases (and their URLs) can be found in the “Databases Overview” page in the Library Services wiki.
e-reserves

The Twitter account for Springshare is posting updates (as per usual) for this outage.

LibGuides Are Back Online

The outage for LibGuides reported yesterday late in the afternoon ended early in the evening. All LibGuides (including our A-Z databases page and e-reserves system) are available again.

For future reference, the link to the backup spreadsheet of databases (and their URLs) can be found in the “Databases Overview” page in the Library Services wiki.

LibGuides Down (including A-Z databases page and e-reseves) UPDATED 6 Sept 2017

The vendor for LibGuides, Springshare, is aware of the outage affecting US libraries. All our guides are inaccessible, including the e-reserves system and the A-Z databases page.

As an alternative for database access, please use this list from Feb. 2017 of databases and links:

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1Jg-QcofaB0ZO5xVltjxL68RPYGQnJC5fJtrCoj1z50c/edit?usp=sharing

For status updates on the LibGuides outage, see the vendor’s Twitter account @springshare.

UPDATE 6 September 2017: All LibGuides came back online later in the evening of September 5.