Reference at Newman Library

Tag: Technical Problems

Some Full Text Links in Bearcat Search Results Not Working (11/27 Update: Now Working)

11/27/2013 Update: This problem that was reported a few days ago seems to have been corrected. If you encounter any further problems with full text links, please add a comment here about it.

11/25/2013 Original Post: I’ve got a support ticket in with Serials Solutions about a problem that just cropped up today in Bearcat Search (that’s the same thing as the “Articles” search in the yellow search bar on the home page). There are three kinds of search results in any search you run in Bearcat, and one of them is currently not working:

  1. “Full Text Online.” These aren’t working. Usually, when you click on these, you get a SFX menu next directing to you the database where full text can be found. At the moment, when you click them you get our remote access login page even when you are on campus. After you login, you are taken to a generic page listing all the databases that we’ve configured for remote access. The SFX menu is nowhere to be seen.
  2. “Available Online.” These are links that will go directly to the article (if you are off campus, you’ll see our remote access login page first, then you’ll go straight to the article). These kinds of links are still working.
  3. “Citation Online.” These links take you to a page with more details about the article, which Bearcat Search knows we don’t have in full text anywhere online. These links still work.

Bearcat Search---links not working

As soon as Serials Solutions solves this problem, I’ll post an update here on the blog.

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).

Find It Links in Business Source Complete for WSJ Don’t Work

If you find a record for a Wall Street Journal article in Business Source Complete and try to click the “Find it” button to get to the full text, the link on the SFX menu that opens up will offer a link to the full text in ABI/INFORM Global. That link, though, will fail once you are taken into ABI/INFORM Global. The full text of the Wall Street Journal is actually there in ABI/INFORM Global and can still be found by searching within the ABI/INFORM Global interface for the article; the problem is that EBSCO and ProQuest have different ways of indexing articles from the WSJ. That difference makes the Find It service from SFX fail, as the metadata that EBSCO has doesn’t match up with what ProQuest has.

EBSCO support told me that they are aware of this problem and are working to resolve it. It’s not clear how long it may be before it is fixed.

Here are some screenshots to illustrate the problem we are currently seeing:

A Wall Street Journal article record in Business Source Complete…

WSJ article in BSC

…clicking the “Find it” button opens up a SFX menu window that looks like this…

SFX menu

 

…clicking the “Full Text Online” link in the SFX menu window takes you into ABI/INFORM Global but fails to find the article…

ABI INFORM Global error message

 

…even though the article is really findable in ABI/INFORM Global if you search for it:

WSJ article in ABI

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.

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.

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:

EBSCOhost--icon problem in IE

 

Then, go to this form in Qualtrics to answer a few questions about whether it worked or not.

Thank you so much!