Reference at Newman Library

Tag: OneSearch

Search Page Alerts in OneSearch

With the help of the CUNY Office of Library Services, Baruch is now the first CUNY school to set up a useful customization that addresses the problem of users searching for things in OneSearch that can’t be found there or that are more easily found elsewhere. For example, one of the things that got searched for a lot last year in Bearcat Search and now in OneSearch is “factiva.” In the past, running a search like that would yield a search results page with a long list of articles about Factiva and no links to the database itself. Now, if you search for “Factiva” in OneSearch, you’ll get an alert message at the top of the search results pointing you to the specific page on the A-Z list of databases where you can find the link to Factiva.

OneSearch alert for Factiva

 

By looking a search query logs in Summon (our old discovery service), OneSearch (our current one), and the site search on the library web site, I was able to put together a list of things to add to this alert system:

  • every database we link to on our A-Z databases page and  common misspellings for the most popular ones (etc., Lexus Nexus, JSTORE)
  • commonly sought after periodicals with both the complete name (e.g., Harvard Business Review, Wall Street Journal) and common abbreviations found in prior search queries (e/g., HBR, WSJ, NYT)
  • library services and policies that are frequently searched for (e.g., fines/fees/overdue items, graphing calculators)

As much as possible, the choice of things to set up alerts for has been driven by actual evidence of need. Still, we’ll likely continue to discover things users are frequently searching for in OneSearch that can’t really be found there, and additional alerts will be added as needed. It’s worth noting that usability tests planned for OneSearch this spring will look at how effective these alerts are and consider additional design work to improve them.

RefWorks No Longer Works with the Catalog

If you want to save/export citations from the catalog, you’ll want to do so using OneSearch instead, as the RefWorks export from the catalog no longer works. The CUNY Office of Library Services says it is unlikely there will be a way to fix this problem.

Another option that offers students more flexibility in the long run is to suggest Zotero instead, which still works fine with the catalog as well as OneSearch and all of our bibliographic databases (and Amazon, nytimes.com, Wikipedia, etc.).

Planned Downtime for ProQuest Databases on 28 February

Beginning at 10 pm Eastern time on Saturday, February 28, and continuing for up to five hours, ProQuest databases and services will be down for planned site maintenance. This affects:

  • ABI/INFORM Global
  • Alt-PressWatch
  • American Periodicals
  • Books in Print
  • ebrary
  • Ethnic NewsWatch
  • Gannett Newsstand
  • GenderWatch
  • New York Times (1851-2010)
  • PAIS International
  • RefWorks
  • Wall Street Journal (1889-1997)

It may also affect the display of book jacket art in the catalog and OneSearch, as ProQuest also owns the Syndetics service that provides that art.

New Look for OneSearch

Today, the CUNY Office of Library Services rolled out a new, fresh look for the OneSearch interface with the following changes:

  • More white space
  • Less cluttered text
  • Options within the search facets on the search results page are now collapsed until you click the + icon
  • When you open up a search facet, you see a handful of options within that facet and a “show more” link. When you click “show more” the additional options are now shown on the same page instead of in a pop up window.
  • Links for the e-shelf, my account, and sign in have moved from the top right to the far left just above the search box
  • The advanced search page now has three boxes instead of five and a cleaner look
  • There’s a new “Browse CUNY Catalog” link on the right side of the main navigation bar

Future enhancements that are likely to show up in the coming weeks:

  • New source type icons that will appear to the left of every item in your search results
  • Clearer display of the help options on the sign in page.

Important Information about Logging in to OneSearch

As soon as you are viewing a set of search results in OneSearch, you get a warning message telling you to sign in so you can see a more complete set of search results:

OneSearch--login message on search results page

That sign in request is asking the user to type in their library ID number–the same system we use for logging in to My Account page in the library catalog. The system is not asking here for a Baruch username and password. This is causing confusion for our users for two reasons:

  1. They have come to associate login requests in database searches to be for their Baruch usernames and passwords (and that still holds true whenever you are off campus and are trying to launch one of our other databases)
  2. They might not have activated their library account at the circ desk yet and don’t get why it isn’t working.

If the user is off campus–and this is essential–and they click on an article link in the search results, they will then get our usual off campus access login page that requires a Baruch username and password. This means that the off campus user needs to be prepared to use one login system–the library ID number–to see all the search results and another login system–the Baruch username and password–to view the full text of content found.

To help clarify what is being asked for in this initial OneSearch login, the CUNY OLS staff have revamped the OneSearch login page with some help information that can be found when you click the question mark button to the right of each entry box:

OneSearch--new login page--2015

Here’s what you see when you click the help button for the barcode:

OneSearch--new login page--barcode help--2015

Here’s what you see when you click the help button for the password:

OneSearch--new login page--password help--2015

 

 

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.

Please Remove All Links to Bearcat Search in LibGuides

Now that our subscription to Bearcat Search (Summon) is ending and has been replaced on the library site with OneSearch (Primo), we need to remove all links and search boxes for Bearcat Search on our LibGuides.

Please click this link that will run a search for “bearcat” across our LibGuides system and show you what pages have that phrase (and maybe links) on them. If you see any of your guides listed in the results, please update them ASAP.

There is now a canonical version of the link for OneSearch that you can map to on your guides (instructions for mapping to a canonical database link). There’s also a box with a OneSearch search widget that you can add to your guides, too; you can preview that widget on this page of “box templates.”

Top 5 Things to Know about OneSearch, the Bearcat Search Replacement

  1. Search for books and all other items from the catalog at the same time as articles.
  2. Start with simple searches and then use facets to refine your search, instead of starting with complex constructed searches
  3. Boolean operators must be typed in ALL CAPS.
  4. Two different authentication systems are used:
    1. Library ID number: if you sign in with it, OneSearch will show up to ~15% more search results than if you’re not signed in
    2. Baruch username and password: for off-campus access to articles, ebooks, etc.
  5. If you don’t sign in with your library ID number, you won’t see article records from any ProQuest database or from Web of Science

Other recent blog posts about OneSearch

OneSearch to Launch at Baruch on Thursday October 30

This Thursday (October 30), we will officially launch OneSearch on the library’s home page. You’ll see a redesigned yellow search bar that has the following options:

  • OneSearch (this will search all of OneSearch and will yield article records as well as records imported into OneSearch from our catalog)
  • Articles (this will no longer search Bearcat Search but instead OneSearch’s articles)
  • Books (this still searches the the library catalog)
  • Journals (this still searches our A-Z journals list from Serials Solutions)
  • Our Website (this still searches our library website using the the Google Search Appliance)

You can try out OneSearch right now using this direct link to it or by looking for the link to it that is on our A-Z list of databases.

Other sources of info about OneSearch

OneSearch: a new discovery service

At the end of October, Baruch will switch from Bearcat Search (which has been using the Summon service from ProQuest) to OneSearch (which uses the Primo service from Ex Libris).

The biggest advantage of the switch is to create a unified search experience for articles, books and other material.

OneSearch contains:
· All records from the catalog – not just that school’s records, but all CUNY records in the catalog (books, DVDs, etc.)

· records for most of the articles that that particular library has in its databases (i.e., all the article records we see in Baruch search results will be things we have in full text somewhere)

OneSearch is hosted and managed by the CUNY Office of Library Services, it is not going to be managed locally by me and Stephen. We need you to continue to send us any issues you encounter and we will work with OLS to solve it; solving issues will probably take longer.

Next steps:
· Please try it out! You can find it by going to the OneSearch link on the main databases page

· The search bar will be updated to reflect what is now being searched. The Book link will remain for catalog-only searches

· Watch out for updates to the Library Services wiki with FAQs and feedback forms.

Please go try it! Go to OneSearch link on the main databases page!