Library Catalogue – problem affecting ‘enhanced’ records returned

Head of Discovery and Digital Futures

A different problem affecting the Syndetics service has arisen this morning, which has been leading to very slow response times in building the ‘Full View of Record’ page in ALEPH (which was having a knock-on effect in the performance of the library catalogue as a whole).

Until we are certain of service stability from Syndetics, we have temporarily disabled the Syndetics service (so no book covers will display in the OPAC). Switching off the Syndetics service has had an immediate beneficial effect on the catalogue’s response times.

We will update again when we have more.

Library Catalogue – problem affecting ‘enhanced’ records resolved

Head of Discovery and Digital Futures

The problem affecting the Syndetics catalogue enhancement service within the Library OPAC was resolved later yesterday afternoon.

If you encounter any further instances of this issue, please send the eServices team some sample ISBNs for records for which problems are persisting and we’ll investigate further.

Library Catalogue – problem affecting ‘enhanced’ records

Head of Discovery and Digital Futures

An intermittent problem is currenly affecting the Syndetics catalogue enhancement service within the Library OPAC.

This means that in the ‘Full View of Record’ screen, book covers (where these are available from Syndetics) are not displaying consistently, and links from a book cover to the ‘Additional Information’ pop-up window are not always connecting correctly.

eServices is investigating the problem and will update as soon as we have more information to report.

SFX linking to EBSCOhost titles – resolution in place shortly

Head of Discovery and Digital Futures

A technical solution has now been identified which should correct the intermittent problems of failed links from SFX to some ejournal titles hosted on the EBSCOhost platform reported before the Xmas break. This should be live later this week – I will update when the fix is in place.

Le Monde: again available in full-text from Lexis Nexis Executive

Head of Discovery and Digital Futures

Following the withdrawal of the full-text of Le Monde from Lexis Nexis Executive, LLR sourced an alternative provider for this title on the CEDROM SNi platform. Lexis Nexis have now made Le Monde available again in full-text on LNE. An additional SFX link to Le Monde on LNE should be available shortly

Withdrawn resource: current issue access to New Scientist

Head of Discovery and Digital Futures

The offer of temporary free full-text access to the current issues of New Scientist (as they were published, between August and December of 2006) has now concluded on the Science Direct platform. This listing has therefore been withdrawn from SFX. Full-text access to all issues from 2002 onwards continues to be available via Academic Search Elite (but with a one-month publisher embargo).

Withdrawn resource: Future Drugs and Future Medicine ejournals

Head of Discovery and Digital Futures

The temporary free access offer to the ejournals titles published by Future Drugs and Future Medicine has now concluded, and full-text access is now only available by subscription. As a result, listings for all the titles in these collections have been withdrawn from SFX. The titles will disappear from the eSearch ejournals list at the next update.

British Library: Archival Sound Recordings

Head of Discovery and Digital Futures

Following a number of queries about establishing Athens authenticated access to the audio content in the BL: Archival Sound Recordings collection, we are currently awaiting receipt of the HE licence from the BL for our review. It is expected that we will be able to provide access to the audio content fairly early in the new year, and will set up access routes once this is available.

Silverplatter platform: back on-line on schedule

Head of Discovery and Digital Futures

Following the maintenance work over the weekend of 16-17 December, access to the Geography, OSH-ROM and ICONDA services was restored on Monday as scheduled.

New resource: Journal Citation Reports

Head of Discovery and Digital Futures

Access has now been set up to Journal Citation Reports on the ISI-Web of Knowledge platform. Access is direct on-campus; Athens username and password is required for off-campus access. Two collections are available: JCR Science Edition (2005); JCR Social Science Edition (2005). The resource is described as follows:

Journal Citation Reports allows you to evaluate and compare journals using citation data drawn from over 7,500 scholarly and technical journals from more than 3,300 publishers in over 60 countries. It is the only source of citation data on journals, and includes virtually all areas of science, technology, and social sciences. Journal Citation Reports can show you the: most frequently cited journals in a field; the highest impact journals in a field; and the largest journals in a field. Citation and article counts are important indicators of how frequently current researchers are using individual journals. By tabulating and aggregating citation and article counts, JCR offers a valuable tool for journal evaluation and comparison.

Two way linking between the Ulrich’s Periodical Directory and ISI-Web of Knowledge is also available. Where a listing for a journal exists in JCR, a record display in Ulrich’s will offer a link to the relevant record in JCR (see illustration below [click on thumbnail for full-size version]):

jcr-ulrichs.jpg

For each journal listing in JCR a direct link to the record for the title in Ulrich’s is provided (see illustration below [click on thumbnail for full-size version]).

ulrichs-jcr.jpg

JCR does not support outbound OpenURL linking, so no direct connection from a JCR record to an SFX menu is possible. However, it may be possible to to provide a link from a JCR record to the listing for the journal in the LLR library catalogue (where a record for the title is available). Negotiations with JCR’s technicians are continuing on this. (The existing JCR: Social Sciences 1997-2001 networked CD-ROM will continue to be listed separately in eSearch and the subject web portal.)

Posted in JCR