Reference at Newman Library

Tag: ProQuest

Guides to ProQuest Databases

ProQuest has its own LibGuides account and has a nice collection of help guides for its databases, including many of the ones we subscribe to:

I thought some of the content of these guides might give us ideas about things we’d like to add to our guides. ProQuest’s guides may also be easier for us to navigate when we’re looking for help documentation about things like connectors, search syntax, etc.

All ProQuest Databases Down on February 15

On Saturday, February 15, beginning at 10 pm and continuing for up to eight hours, all ProQuest databases will be offline for scheduled maintenance. Affected databases and services include:

  • ABI/INFORM Global
  • Alt-PressWatch
  • American Periodicals
  • EthnicNewsWatch
  • Gannett Newsstand
  • GenderWatch
  • New York Times (1851-2010)
  • PAIS International
  • ProQuest Digital Microfilm
  • RefWorks
  • Wall Street Journal (1889-1996)

This will not affect ebrary (it will be available during the maintenance work).

More details from ProQuest.

ProQuest Databases Down This Saturday Night

I just got an email from ProQuest alerting customers that all ProQuest databases will be down for six hours, beginning at 10 pm this Saturday night:

On Saturday, March 9, 2013 ProQuest will install new enhancements, features, and databases, to improve the research experience. Highlights from this release include:

  • Publication search & discover enhancements
  • Thesaurus search & discover enhancements
  • Athens authentication software upgrade to the Shibboleth® based OpenAthens Federation

A six (6) hour maintenance window is needed to install these enhancements. The window will take place from Saturday, March 9, 2012, at 22:00 ET to Sunday, March 10, 2013 at 4:00 ET.

The databases affected are:

  • ABI/INFORM Global‎
  • Alt-PressWatch‎
  • American Periodicals‎
  • Ethnic NewsWatch‎
  • GenderWatch‎
  • PAIS International‎ (1914 – current)
  • The New York Times (1851-2009)‎
  • The Wall Street Journal (1889-1995)‎

 

 

Chat Widget Now in ProQuest Databases

If you are covering chat reference, you may notice Baruch students coming into the chat service now via the chat reference widget (AKA qwidget) that is now embedded in the search results pages for all ProQuest databases (e.g., ABI/INFORM Global). As you can see from this screenshot, the widget is way down on the right side of the page (as it is the case with the widget in EBSCOhost search results pages).

I hope that more of our vendors set aside space for us to embed qwidget, as it has been getting a fair amount of use already from students who’ve found it while searching in EBSCOhost databases.

 

New Interface for ProQuest Databases

Today we switched over to the new ProQuest interface. The look of this new interface is a lot cleaner and lightweight (this seems to be a mini-trend, as the new Factiva and Passport GMID interfaces feel lighter, too).

What’s New Here?

  • PAIS International is now in ProQuest instead in CSA
  • Links to SFX now include the “Find It” icon instead of just text
  • A “Figures & Tables” search in some databases
  • A “Data & Reports” search in ABI/INFORM Global
  • Historical and non-historical databases can be searched together

Bugs/Quirks

  • If you are looking at the item record for an article where there is no full text, you’ll see two “Find It” icons (see this example). ProQuest told me that they are working on this problem.
  • The link to our Ask a Librarian service went from the top right of the page in the old interface to the bottom right of the new one (but we now can have an icon instead of just a text link).
  • Please contact Mike or me with any problems you find in the new interface.

Fixing Links in LibGuides

The new interface has a new base URL (search.proquest.com). Using a find and replace feature in LibGuides, I was able to update some but not all of the links in LibGuides that went to the old interface (the search and find only works in certain kinds of boxes in the LibGuides system). Please check any links in your guides now to make sure they point to the new URLs.