Author: Head of Discovery and Digital Futures

Athens authentication to electronic resources – service problems

Head of Discovery and Digital Futures

Eduserv are reporting technical problems with one of the servers used to manage Athens authentication to electronic resources. As a result, for many (if not all) staff and students it is currently not possible to login to resources which require an Athens username and password.

Various error messages may be reported by customers, such as:

“Authentication failed.
ATHENS Check token failed – code was 15”

“Authentication failed due to a system error. Please close the browser and try again.”

“You are not entitled to access this resource. Contact your Athens administrator.”

They are all cause by this same service difficulty.

We will update as soon as we have received confirmation from Eduserv that normal service has been restored.

In the meantime, if you’ve any specific queries, please contact eServices.

New resource: NewsFilm Online

Head of Discovery and Digital Futures

Access to the NewsFilm Online service has been enabled in eSearch. Access is direct on-campus and by university username and password (using Shibboleth) from off-campus. The resource is described as follows:

NewsFilm Online comprises a selection of news stories and programme scripts from the ITN/Reuters archives, with some 3,000 hours of footage and around 60,000 stories. The archive is searchable by keywords, and can also be browsed by broad subject categories or decade, going back to the 1920s.

Video content may be streamed (or downloaded) in Windows Media Player or QuickTime formats.

The ‘My Favourites’ facility allows you to set up and organise folders to store video and other NewsFilm records.

The following Terms of Use guidance has also been added:

Under the terms of the license, NTU staff and students may “include parts of the Licensed Work in printed or electronic form in assignments and portfolios, theses and in dissertations” provided that “each item shall carry appropriate acknowledgement of the source, listing title and copyright owner.”

A guide to Shibboleth authentication to the NewsFilm Online service has been added to the eServices support materials wiki.

New resource: OSH-UPDATE

Head of Discovery and Digital Futures

Access to the OSH-UPDATE service has been set-up in eSearch. Access is direct on-campus, and by university username and password from off-campus (using the Shibbolized eZproxy service). The resource is described as follows:

OSH-UPDATE offers more than 500,000 records in the fields of occupational health, safety, hygiene, road safety, water safety and environment trends, drawn from a range of authoritative database sources including the UK legislation database; the UK Health and Safety Executive HSELINE; and the UK Royal Society for the Prevention of Accidents (RoSPA), and a number of other European and worldwide sources.

OSH-UPDATE provides full bibliographic citation and abstracts for all journal articles, conference reports and other materials in its index; and offers links to selected full-text services where these are available.

As only a single simultaneous user is permitted under the terms of LLR’s licence, the following note has also been added:

Please note: under the terms of LLR’s subscription to OSH-UPDATE only one person may access the resource at a time. To free up the service for the next visitor, always remember to Logoff at the end of your session. If you see the following error message, “You have reached your licences limit on the number of concurrent sessions”, please try again later.

For LLR, OSH-UPDATE serves as a replacement for the OSH-ROM service which will shortly cease to be available from Silverplatter-OVID. A further update will confirm when OSH-ROM has been withdrawn from eSearch.

Academia Portal – changes in access and content

Head of Discovery and Digital Futures

The resource previously described in eSearch as ‘Academia Portal – Einstein Network’ service has been updated. The access URL has been revised to resolve to a new interface – although authentication is still by Athens username and password on-campus and off-campus, as before. The resource name has been shortened to ‘Academia Portal’ (although eSearch ‘Find a database’ title searches for ‘Einstein’ will still retrieve the resource).

The Einstein Network has ceased operations, and eServices are in liaison with providers NBS and in2itive to identify which video materials that were previously available to NTU staff and students are no longer being provided. In the meantime, some multimedia content listed as available within the Academia Portal may be inaccessible. A further update will be provided once the new content situation has been clarified.

Mergent Online – temporary increase in number of simultaneous accesses

Head of Discovery and Digital Futures

The Mergent Online business database service has agreed to a request from LLR to temporarily extend the number of simultaneous user licences permitted under our subscription to 20 (up from LLR’s usual allocation of seven simultaneous accesses) to support a seminar training programme. This extension will remain in place until the end of our current subscription on 31 December 2008. Information in eSearch has been updated accordingly.

FORS (Forensic Science Service): temporary access arrangements

Head of Discovery and Digital Futures

Access to the FORS database is normally direct on-campus and by university domain, username and password off-campus. Following a recent upgrade to the FORS web site, this method of access is temporarily unavailable. FORS’ technicians hope to be able to reinstate normal access arrangements shortly, but in the meantime the following update has been added to the FORS access page in eSearch:

24 October 2008: The FORS service is experiencing temporary authentication problems following an update to their website. If you are challenged to enter a Login to WebSPIRS username and password, please contact Liaison Librarian Ian Rogers to request the temporary username and password details.

Spon’s Price book collection updated

Head of Discovery and Digital Futures

The collection of Spon’s Price books available in electronic format through eSearch has been updated as follows:

  • Architects’ and Builders’ Price Book (2009, 134th edition)
  • Civil Engineering and Highway Works Price Book (2009, 23rd edition)
  • External Works and Landscape Price Book (2009, 28th edition)
  • Mechanical and Electrical Services Price Book (2009, 40th edition)

Access remains by university domain, username and password on-campus. Access off-campus is not available, due to licencing restrictions.

IRep records now being indexed by Google

Head of Discovery and Digital Futures

Following the completion of some additional technical configuration, records in the IRep (the university’s institutional respository) are now beginning to be retrievable through searches in Google. This sample URL returns a set of records from the IRep containing a reference to ‘biology’.

eSearch to RefWorks export – now possible to export multiple records

Head of Discovery and Digital Futures

An enhancement to the way that the export of records from eSearch to RefWorks is handled has now gone live. It is now possible to export multiple records from eSearch into RefWorks at the same time (rather than simply exporting individual records), using the functionality of the eSearch eShelf. The wiki guide to using the eSearch to RefWorks export has been updated to include the new feature.

New resource: Child Welfare Information Gateway

Head of Discovery and Digital Futures

The Child Welfare Information Gateway has been added as a new resource in eSearch. Access in unrestricted on-campus and off-campus. The resource is described as follows:

A US government gateway which provides access to information and resources related to child safety, welfare and adoption.