Updates on electronic resources from the library of Nottingham Trent University
Further to the 9 March update about the reinstatement of access to the Linguistics Abstracts Online service, the Abstract view of each record in the database now displays the full SFX (Find it @ NTU) button rather than the previous ‘SFX OpenURL’ text link (see illustration below).
Following a major expansion of the SFX (Find it @ NTU) Knowledge Base earlier this month, a total of 16,734 new free-to-access electronic journals have been activated in SFX in the ‘Free e-journals’ target. There is some overlap of titles between this collection and some of the other free-to-access collections (such as DOAJ, Scielo and others), but the full list of 23,971 titles in the collection can be accessed here. Individual catalogue records for the new additions to the collection will be added to the Library Catalogue during the next electronic journal record update.
An enhancement to the way in which the SFX (Find it @ NTU) service checks the library catalogue for print journal holdings has now gone live. Previously, when SFX found a matching ISSN in the library catalogue, a link to the catalogue record was offered in the SFX menu.
Now, SFX is able to pull back from ALEPH the ‘summary holdings’ statement in the catalogue record and display that information in the SFX menu alongside the link (see illustrations below).
Feedback on this new functionality is welcomed, and can be shared with ALT members of the ‘SFX and eSearch Development Group’ Jon Fletcher and Rachel Campbell.
Five new collections of Hein Online ejournal and eBook content have been activated in SFX. These materials have been previously accessible through the HeinOnline interface, but not discoverable as individual items through SFX.
A range of new free ejournal and eBook content has been activated in SFX. These collections are either Open Access materiial; or are subscription materials for which embargoed archival access is free. The list and count of titles, and a sample SFX link are provided below. (Catalogue records for the ejournal content will be added to the Library Catalogue in December).
Access to 166 free-to-view ejournals from the Bentham Open Access collection has been enabled in SFX. Titles in the collection cover the disciplines of science, technology and medicine. Individual catalogue records for these titles will be added the Library Catalogue during the next round of e-record loading.
Microsoft has withdrawn the Windows Live Academic search engine, which LLR had configured to work with SFX (allowing customers to connect from Windows Live Academic search results to SFX services). LLR’s SFX support material for this service will be withdrawn shortly.
Shortly after the last eServices update, all links in SFX for UK legal journals in the Westlaw database were updated to direct customers to the new Westlaw platform. Rather than resolving to the individual title level, these links direct customers to the homepage of the Westlaw interface. It is hoped to be able to reinstate title level access once Westlaw confirm the details of the persistent linking syntax required by SFX.
The restart of the ALEPH server has cleared the problem that SFX was experiencing in querying the Library Catalogue – so links in SFX to ALEPH have been reinstated and confirmed as working.
Please let eServices know if you experience any further problems.
A technical problem with a ‘look-up’ service on the ALEPH server started to cause problems with SFX requests at around 15:45 this afternoon.
ALEPH stopped responding to ‘look-up’ requests from SFX, based on ISSN and ISBN. The result was first a delay and then a time-out of the SFX service.
To enable the immediate recovery of the SFX service, requests to ALEPH from SFX have been temporarily disabled. A message has been added to the SFX menu indicating that ‘SFX is currently unable to check the library catalogue for this item’ (see screengrab below). This has been done for both the existing and new installations of SFX.
Searches of the Library Catalogue from RefWorks are also affected.
However searches carried out within the Library Catalogue, or via eSearch are working normally.
An update will be provided once a resolution for this technical problem is in place and remote search services restored.
The SFX service at Nottingham Trent University has, since its launch in September 2004, been delivered through the original Tolstoy server and its successor.
To support the development of the service over the next three years, SFX has been installed on the new replacement Rimbaud server. The SFX A-Z list for this new installation can be accessed here:
http://sfx.ntu.ac.uk/sfxlcl3/az
As well as the upgrade to a superior server specification, the migration of SFX will also make possible three important service enhancements:
To ensure that there is no interruption in customer service, both the existing and the new SFX servers will run as parallel live ‘instances’. Only when all links pointing to the SFX service have been migrated to the new SFX service will the previous service be withdrawn from customer use.
The Tolstoy BaseURL of SFX is registered with several dozen online service providers. A list of the current source services of SFX can be reviewed here. Links from each of these services will be updated as part of the migration process.
All other web based links to SFX services (including ‘Find it @ NTU’, Find a Journal, Citation Linker) on library and university web pages will need to be updated to reflect the change of server. The eServices team will be happy to provide technical support and advice in updating any links.
A further update will be provided once the migration of SFX to the new Rimbaud server has been completed. In the meantime, please report any access difficulties to SFX services to the eServices team.
The SFX Knowledge Base has been updated to ensure that all newspapers and electronic journals that were previously individually listed on the Lexis Nexis Executive platform now redirect to Nexis UK. As all of the European Lexis platforms are still not yet OpenURL compliant, all of the title links only resolve the customer to the ‘homepage’ of the platform.
eResource updates 
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