Library Catalogue Unavailable on Thursday 28th August pm (UK time)

The Library catalogue (web OPAC) will be unavailable after 13.30 UK time on Thursday 28th August.

The Library's automated management system, including the catalogue, is to be migrated to a new server and into a new configuration by our system supplier working with CSD and Library staff. The whole system will be unavailable after 13.30 UK time on Thursday 28th August.

We hope to be able to restore access in the course of Friday morning, 29th August, but the system will remain 'at risk' that day while it is tested in its new environment.

This major upgrade will ensure that the catalogue and other Library systems remain responsive and capable of development in coming years.

Access to Library electronic resources will be maintained though through the Library MetaLib system and SFX e-journal list so this should minimise the impact on users. So please carry on accessing the Library resources through the University portal where access to MetaLib and the SFX e-journal list will be available as normal: http://portal.liv.ac.uk/

Chat box gone - use olib@liv.ac.uk for Library enquiries

You may have noticed that the chat box on the blog has gone. Thanks for all who have used it but as I'm leaving as Online Librarian at the end of the week it's going to have to disappear for a while.

Please carry on sending your enquiries to onlinelibrarian@liverpool.ac.uk (or olib@liv.ac.uk) and they will be answered by a member of the Library team at the University.

Thanks to everyone who's taken the time to get in contact and ask questions. Wishing everyone all the best in their studies and for the future :-)

Stephanie

Online Librarian & Computing Helpdesk: Normal Service Resumed

The Online Librarian enquiry service and the University Computing Services Helpdesk are back to normal service hours after the Bank Holiday in the UK.

The Online Librarian enquiry service is normally available Monday - Friday 0900 - 1700 hours UK time: Email: onlinelibrarian@liverpool.ac.uk; Telephone: + 44 (0) 151 794 4345

The University Computing Services Helpdesk is normally available Monday - Friday 0830 - 1730 hours UK time: Email: helpdesk@liverpool.ac.uk; Telephone: + 44 (0) 151 794 4567

No Librarian Service or Computing Services Helpdesk: Monday 25th August 2008

Monday 25th August is a Bank Holiday in the UK so although all Online Library resources should be available as normal, the Library enquiry service and the University Computing Services Helpdesk will not be available. Normal service will resume the following day. If you have an enquiry please email as normal and your enquiry will be dealt with on Tuesday 26th August.

If you have an enquiry you may find the Library FAQs helpful.

Scopus Working Again

Just to let you all know that the Library database Scopus is working again after a short break in the service. Scopus is a multidisciplinary database covering a range of subject areas, including business, management, public health, computing and clinical research administration - so it will be of interest to all students and staff. A direct link to Scopus is here. Add your MWS username and password if you're not already logged into EZproxy.

Set Scholar Preferences in Google Scholar

A few weeks ago I advised anyone using Google Scholar to make sure that you use the University of Liverpool EZproxy version at: http://scholar.google.co.uk.ezproxy.liv.ac.uk/
Using this will ensure that you are logged in via EZproxy with your MWS username and password and will be authenticated to access resources included in Google Scholar that the Library subscribe to.

Another tip is to make sure that in the 'Scholar Preferences' you set the 'Library Links' to search the University of Liverpool Library and also change the 'Bibliography Manager' to 'Show links to import citations into' and select RefWorks. Don't forget to then save your preferences. Once you've done this your search results in Google Scholar will include RefWorks links that can then be easily imported to RefWorks. If you're not using RefWorks for managing your references you might be interested in looking at the instructions for using it here - it's easy to use and free to all University users :-)

Easier Access to E-resources Off-campus - LibX Toolbar

Much as the Library likes to encourage online students and staff to start your off-campus searches from the University portal page and the Online Library home page, especially since Athens was withdrawn, we know that lots of you like to start from places like Google Scholar, PubMed or ScienceDirect. The problem is that these sites lead you to full-text articles that you cannot access because the sites don't know that you are a member of the University of Liverpool.

However, to get round this problem, the Library Electronic Resources Manager has created a new LibX toolbar for Firefox. At any point you can right-click on a web page and choose to reload it via EZproxy. You'll be taken to our EZproxy login page and then back to the page you were at, but now as an authenticated University of Liverpool user with access to full-text. Alternatively, you can right-click on a link and choose to access the link via EZproxy.

The LibX toolbar offers many other features. It gives you a toolbar to search the library catalogue and the key databases in your subject; it adds ‘find it @ liverpool’ links to Google Scholar; it turns every PMID in PubMed into a ‘find it @ liverpool link’; and you can select text on a page and search for it in the library catalogue or in Google Scholar. It also includes easy links to many useful resources such as RefWorks and the Harvard Referencing Guide, the University portal, the Information Literacy Resource, MyOHEcampus, Blackboard, and more.

To install LibX and to find out more about its features, see

http://www.liv.ac.uk/library/electron/libx.html

Select the second option that says: Install the Liverpool Online (Laureate) LibX toolbar (v1.5.2 for Firefox) – this LibX toolbar includes links to resources of specific relevance to online students and staff.

If you do not currently use Firefox you can install it for free from http://www.mozilla-europe.org/en/firefox/.

NewsFilm Online (NFO) Available

We now have access to NewsFilm Online (NFO), a new JISC-funded resource.

NewsFilm Online offers access to over 3,000 hours of downloadable television news and cinema newsreels, selected from the huge ITN/Reuters Television archives. It contains material in the following subjects: Economy, Business & Finance; Arts, Culture & Entertainment; Crime, Law & Justice; Disaster & Accident; Education.

You can access it direct from here (add your MWS username and password when prompted).

The resource is also included in the MetaLib Management category, Multimedia resources.

12,000 E-books Purchased on SpringerLink

We have purchased all of the English-language Springer e-books published between 2005 and 2008 (including books not yet published) - some 12,000 in total. This includes collections in:

Architecture and Design
Behavioral Science
Biomedical and Life Sciences
Business and Economics
Chemistry and Materials Science
Computer Science (including Lecture Notes in Computer Science)
Earth & Environmental Science
Engineering
Humanities, Social Science and Law
Mathematics and Statistics (including Lecture Notes in Mathematics)
Medicine
Physics and Astronomy (including Lecture Notes in Physics)
Professional and Applied Computing

Springer are the world's largest publisher of STM books and are at the forefront of e-book provision. They publish every title simultaneously in print and online on their SpringerLink platform, and provide e-books in PDF format with each chapter in a separate file. This means that viewing and printing from Springer e-books is the same as from Springer e-journals.

Each e-book will appear in the library catalogue soon, but in the meantime you can see the e-books that we have purchased from here (Unfortunately the 'access indicators' in SpringerLink do not appear when accessed via EZproxy).

1,500 E-books Purchased on Oxford Scholarship Online

The Library have purchased about 1,500 e-books from Oxford University Press in Oxford Scholarship Online. They are all of the available titles in:

Biology
Business and Management
Classical Studies
Economics and Finance
History
Linguistics
Literature
Mathematics
Music
Philosophy
Physics
Political Science

Each e-book will appear in the catalogue soon, but in the meantime you can access them directly from here.

You can print up to a single chapter from each Oxford Scholarship Online title or up to 5% of the pages of any title, whichever is the greater. Content is printed by HTML page unit – each is the equivalent of five print pages. To print any page from the Oxford Scholarship Online site, simply use the Printer Friendly link in the left-hand navigation area. A preview window will appear with the correctly formatted pages, minus the site navigation components.

find it @ liverpool links appear in Oxford Scholarship Online. These allow you to quickly find out if we also have the title in print, and particularly for the OSO titles that we have not purchased, find out whether we have online access to them elsewhere, for example in ebrary Academic Complete.

588 Additional Taylor and Francis E-books Purchased

This time last year we purchased over 6,000 e-books from Taylor and Francis. We were also granted trial online access to the remaining T and F e-books, and we have now purchased 588 of those titles - the ones that were used 5 times or more. We will also continue to have trial access to the other T and F e-books for another 12 months.

You can go direct to the Taylor and Francis e-book collection (purchased titles) from here.

How to Access Library Resources - Please Read

Although Athens authentication has not been needed to access most Library resources for some time, it is clear that many people have still been using that access route.

The recommended route for online students and staff to access the Library resources is via the University portal - just login to EZproxy with your Managed Windows Service (MWS) username and password when prompted. This gives you access to nearly all Library e-resources and from here you can access e-journals, e-books and databases, and also cross-search databases.

There are a few resources that we can't route through EZproxy and if you try to access one of those you will be taken automatically to the new UK Federation login screen where you login with your MWS username and password and gain access.

Please do get in contact if you have any questions.