Reference at Newman Library

Tag: Technical Problems

PAF 9318 problems with e-reserve readings

Two students complained that two readings on e-reserve are too small to read.  The articles were reduced to 75% and the students also said they are older and don’t have young eyes.  I am going to ask Access services to redo the readings.  The first, by Jonathan Kozol, from the Dec. 2005 issue of Phi Delta Kappan, Confections of Apartheid, is available through JSTOR and some of our other databases.  The second, a chapter in Deborah Stone’s book, Policy Paradox: The art of political decision making, may be available in the 1997 edition of the book, of which we have two copies.  The 2002 edition is currently in transit.

 

Rita

EBSCO Databases and Chrome Browser

Michael Waldman and I have confirmed that Ebsco will support the use of the Google Chrome browser for accessing full-text articles beginning in the Fall, 2011. Here’s the link that tells the tale from Ebsco:
http://support.ebsco.com/knowledge_base/detail.php?id=25&t=h

So, users accessing our Ebsco databases to get full-text articles will have some difficulty. Particularly for chat reference assistance, bear this Chrome browser issue in mind.

When Copy Cards Don’t Seem to Work

I learned a new fun fact yesterday from Annette while we were helping a student in the copy room: the card reader displays on the copiers (the ones that show how much money is on the card) show not two but three digits after the decimal point. So if a student puts in a copy card and the reader displays $.091 (as was the case yesterday), don’t make the mistake I made and think it means 91 cents; nope, it’s 9.1 cents.

When a copier is not being used, the LCD screen on it (the one that is nestled among the control buttons) says “Insert key card,” which really should say something like “Insert copy card.” If you insert a copy card with less than 10 cents on it (such as a card with $.091), the LCD display will continue to say “Insert key card” and no copies can be made.

It’s not clear if the vendor that maintains the copiers is going to be able to do anything about that third decimal place shown on card readers or the unhelpful “Insert key card” message on the copier’s LCD screen.

Roman Numerals in Page Navigator Feature of Ebrary

I recently noticed that an ebook that is required reading for a class this summer, the Gower Handbook of Internal Communication, shows something very odd in the page navigator part of the ebrary interface (see my annotated screenshot): instead of Arabic numerals you see Roman ones. This is not normally the case, as can be seen in this screenshot I took of a page in another book we have in ebrary, The Accidental Billionaires.

This problem has been reported to Mike Waldman. Support at ebrary has been notified. If you notice this problem occurring in any other title in ebrary, make a mention of here in the comments for this post.