Updates on electronic resources from the library of Nottingham Trent University
The library catalogue search widget on the homepage of the LLR web site has recently been updated to reinstate a link to the ‘My Library Card’ functionality in ALEPH. This offers a ‘deep-link’ to the login screen which provides a customer with direct access to their online library account, including the ability to renew items on loan. Further refinements to the presentation of this widget are under consideration, so its appearance may alter slightly in the coming weeks.
LLR’s subscription to the Knovel collection of electronic books concluded at the end of January 2010. All listings of the resource have been withdrawn from eSearch, along with all entries for Knovel eBooks in SFX. All of the individual eBook catalogue records for Knovel titles will be withdrawn shortly.
Following the previously announced changes to LLR’s subscription to eBook content on the eBrary platform, all of the individual eBook records for all titles in the eBrary Academic Complete collection have now been withdrawn from the Library Catalogue. The remaining eBrary eBook records in the OPAC are for the titles within the new eBrary Custom Collection (which LLR is building in preference to the Academic Complete collection).
Inter-Library Loan requests sent from the SFX (Find it @ NTU) service (see illustration below) are now submitted through the My Library Card section of the Library Catalogue.
When a customer clicks on this service in the SFX menu, they will be resolved to the Log in to My Library Card page of the Library Catalogue (unless they already have an active catalogue session running). Once their login has been accepted, the customer can select the My Library Card and then the Inter-Library Loans options to complete their request using the online form.
At present, SFX does not auto-populate the online form with the bibliographic data (as was the case previously with the ILLOS service). A refinement to SFX being released by Ex Libris in February is expected to reinstate this functionality.
eBrary’s technical team report that the issue affecting access to eBook content on the platform (25 January) has now been resolved, and all relevant content should now be accessible once again. Please contact eServices it you encounter any further problems with access.
eBrary’s technical team is working to resolve a problem which is causing access problems to eBook titles on the eBrary platform.
Some customers clicking on links to eBrary eBook titles in the Library Catalogue will see their browser resolve to the eBrary site with the following error message:
The URL entered or pasted is not one we recognize. If you copied and pasted the URL to get here, please double check the format. Make sure all the terms are there and that the URL contains no spaces or return characters.
Not all requests result in the error, and eBrary’s technicians currently believe that the Internet Explorer browser in more susceptible to the problem than Firefox – and recommend trying the Firefox browser in preference (though this will not guarantee successful access).
A further update will follow once eBrary’s technical team has confirmed that the problem has been resolved.
Libraries and Learning Resources’ subscription to the Academic Complete collection of eBooks on the eBrary platform concludes at the end of January.
Rather than subscribing to this package of 30K+ titles (not all of which were well used by staff and students) the Academic Liaison Team has identified a sub-set of several hundred key titles from within the collection which LLR wishes to offer continuing access to.
Access to these titles, from 1 Feburary 2010, have now been arranged with eBrary through a new Custom Collection put together for LLR. Titles in the eBrary Custom collection are grouped into three types:
* Multi-user access – perpetual: LLR has bought these titles outright, in perpetuity. There is no limit to the number of customers who may access these titles at any one time.
* Single-user access – perpetual: LLR has bought these titles outright, in perpetuity. Only one customer may access these titles at any one time.
* Multi-user access – rental: LLR has subscribed to these titles. There is no limit to the number of customers who may access these titles at any one time. Continuing access to these titles is dependent on LLR maintaining a subscription.
New records have been added to ALEPH for all of the eBrary Custom Collection titles. Before the end of the next week (when LLR’s subscription to the eBrary Academic Complete collection expires) all of the eBrary Academic Complete catalogue records will be removed from ALEPH. Until then, duplicate catalogue records will appear for those eBrary titles which are in both the Academic Complete and Custom collections.
When reviewing an individual eBrary catalogue record within the OPAC, LLR staff can identify the type of eBrary eBook they are looking at, as follows:
In the Full View of Record, click on the MARC tags option (see illustration below):
In the 900 field of the MARC record, a description of the eBrary collection to which the title belongs is provided:
All eBrary catalogue records containing the description ‘This eBook is part of the eBrary Academic Complete subscription‘ will be withdrawn (see illustration below):
All eBrary catalogue records containing one of the three descriptions below will be retained:
If you’ve any questions about the changes to eBrary content, please contact Acquisitions Manager Paul Tomlinson. If you’ve any technical questions about the transition to the new collection, please contact Lib eServices.
A further update will be provided next week when all of the eBrary Academic Complete collection records have been withdrawn from ALEPH.
LLR’s subscription to 150+ titles on the Taylor and Francis eBook platform concludes at the end of December. The entry for T&F eBooks in eSearch will be withdrawn and all the individual eBook records will be removed from the Library Catalogue and SFX.
IS has confirmed that the network problems affecting on-campus access to external web resources (reported on 3 December and 10 December) have been resolved, following the implementation of several network management changes. Please report to Lib eServices details of any instances where remote access problems continue or reoccur.
eServices have been able to agree with IS new configuration arrangements which will re-enable IP authentication from PCs in the newly re-opened Newton building. The solution requires LLR to register additional IP information with all providers offering IP-based authentication. While this work is being urgently undertaken, it is likely that the re-registration process will not be fully completed until the new year. The advice to NTU staff and students attempting to access electronic resources from locations within Newton continue to be to use the eSearch, SFX and Library Catalogue access routes to these resources (rather than using any previously stored bookmarks). This will ensure that such requests are automatically routed to the appropriate off-campus login screens (wherever necessary) on which staff can login in exactly the same ways as if they were off-site.
LLR is working with IS to resolve issues affecting on-campus access to electronic resources from the first staff offices to be occupied in the newly re-opened Newton building. Because of the way that Newton PCs have been registered on the NTU network, external web connections from these PCs are not recognised as coming from Nottingham Trent University locations. This is because the IPs of these PCs are outside the normal IP-range of the university. This means that academic staff accessing electronic library subscription services which use IP authentication are not automatically logged in, and are effectively treated as being ‘off-campus’.
While LLR works to secure a resolution to this problem, the advice to NTU staff attempting to access electronic resources from locations within Newton is to use the eSearch, SFX and Library Catalogue access routes to these resources (rather than using any previously stored bookmarks). This will ensure that such requests are automatically routed to the appropriate off-campus login screens (wherever possible) on which staff can login in exactly the same ways as if they were off-site.
Further updates will follow as a resolution to this issue is progressed.
Technical issues affecting on-campus access to external web resources, previously reported on 3 December, are continuing to cause significant intermittent problems. As IS’s attempts to isolate the cause of the technical difficulties continue, the advice from eServices remains unchanged:
“If you encounter problems with accessing external web sites, please report details of the issue to the eServices team for us to investigate. We may be able to suggest an alternative means of access to the resource, and will also need to confirm that the problem you are reporting is not caused by an unrelated service issue.”
eResource updates 
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