Reference at Newman Library

Tag: Technical Problems

Part of the SRDS Database Only Works in Internet Explorer

Most of the SRDS database works in all browsers, but a portion of the content–the Local Market Audience Analyst–will only work in Internet Explorer:

SRDS screenshot

 

If you are using Internet Explorer 9, then this portion will work with no problem. If you are using Internet Explorer 10, then you’ll have to go into the “Tools” menu in the browser to make a change to the “Compatibility view settings.” These screenshots walk you through the change you need to make:

Step 1: Click “Tools” from the menu bar in the browser (if the menu bar isn’t showing, just hit ALT-T on the keyboard to make it visible).

Step 1 of web compatibility view settings

Step 2: From the list of commands, select “Compatibility View settings”

Step2 - select Compatibility View settings

Step 3: Type “claritas.com” in the box and click the “Add” button

Step 3 - Type claritas.com in the box and click the Add button

Step 4: Make sure claritas.com now appears in the large box and then click “Close.”

Step 4: Make sure claritas.com now appears in the large box and then click "Close."

 

That should fix the problem for the time you are working in the database. If you close the window, though, and then come back later to the database, you will likely have to re-enter these settings again.

SRDS is aware of this issue and is likely working on a fix for it.

 

Printer Woes at the Ref Desk

We already have a support ticket in with the BCTC Help Desk to look into the problem with print jobs from across campus mysteriously coming out of our ref desk printer. I just added an additional item to that ticket to note that we can no longer sent print jobs from the ref desk computers to the printer.

If you want to check on the status of the ticket, it is #19616.

News Pages in Factiva Show Headlines When There Is No Full Text Access

Louise alerted Mike and me that several sources whose daily headlines are displayed on the News Pages section of Factiva wouldn’t let us click through to the full text. The two newspapers with this issue are the Chicago Tribune and the Los Angeles Times. If you try to click through on a headline, you get this error message:

Factiva--news pages error message

 

After contacting the vendor (ProQuest in this case, as they handle academic markets for this Dow Jones product) and from responses I got on the ERIL-L mailing list, I learned that there is nothing that we can do. Others have reported this problem over the years and only heard the the vendor say they’ll add it to the list of feature requests.

As you can see from the image below, there is a drop-down menu on the top left corner that lets you select other sets of sources. One of them is a set of sources called “United States: Academic” that also puts the WSJ and the NYT at the top of the page, but then instead of showing the LA Times and the Chicago Tribune, it offers another newspaper for which we have no access here: the San Francisco Chronicle.

In other databases, we do have limited access to these three papers that are unhelpfully displayed in the New Pages:

Factiva--news pages problem

 

Problem with the A-Z Journals Search Tool

Lots of Serials Solutions customers are reporting a problem right now that we’re also seeing: if you search for a journal, you won’t be able to click through to all of the search results pages. Here’s a screenshot of an example of the problem:

SerSol index problem

 

You can see this search problem live for yourself with this search results page for “technology,” where I’ve gone to the end of the available search results but logic would suggest there should be more (such as journals that begin with the letter T).

Knowing Serials Solutions, I’d guess that this problem will probably get fixed later today.