ProQuest Will Be Unaccessible for 12 Hours Saturday Night

The next ProQuest platform maintenance window will be on June 27, 2009. A twelve (12) hour maintenance window will take place to install these exciting new enhancements. The window will take place from Saturday, June 27, 2009, at 19:00 (7:00 PM) PST to Sunday, June 28, 2009 at 07:00 (AM) PST.

We are pleased to announce the following enhancements:

• MLA Citation Format Change—The citation generator is being updated to reflect the MLA documentation style found in the seventh edition.
• Full Text linking with Google Scholar—Institutions with both Google Scholar accounts and ProQuest platform subscriptions can now see links to ProQuest full text content when searching Google Scholar. To begin seeing these links, use LAD (Local Administrator) to enable Google Scholar linking.
• Author Naming Adjustments—In the citation generator area, author names will be presented in Last Name, First Name format. This is only for content that captures the author meta-data in a more granular format. This change reflects content from 2007 moving forward and will be added to archival content over time. Instances such as “staff writer” will not fit this format.
• New Browse Functionality—During our maintenance window on June 27th, a new “browse” tab will be added to ABI/INFORM to help users quickly find and zero in on highly sought information such as market research reports and articles, industry reports, company information and annual reports, country reports, commodity reports, dissertations, and working papers. The browse tab will also include quick links, which help users quickly drill down to results based on a variety of content types, such as SWOT analyses, market share, industry trends and forecasts, and CEO profiles and interviews.

COUNTER 3 Reporting—Project COUNTER released version 3 of its Code of Practice with a due date for adoption of the end of August 2009. On July 1st,we will switch from version 2 to version 3 for the ProQuest platform. COUNTER 3 compliance will now identify federated search usage and allow reporting via the SUSHI protocol

Small Changes on Research Tools Pages

Throughout the month of July, you will notice edits to our Research Tools pages.  We are working to simplify the resource layout for our patrons as well as optimize the use of the 360 Search federated search tool that we subscribe to.  Changes will begin in July 1st so that our statistical reporting for June will be complete and comparisons easier.  We hope to see that the increased presence of targeted 360 Search tools will increase both the relevance of results and the use of our subscription databases.  Posts will be made here as each change is implemented.

Goodbye to AccessScience & WA State Newsstand

Our subscription and access to AccessScience ended on June 15th.  The link with referral information has been edited on our website and will be completely removed on 8/15/09.

Our subscription to WA State Newsstand ends on 6/30/09 to be replaced by more complete access to ProQuest Newsstand per our Statewide Database negotiations to make up the loss of The Seattle Times .  Links and descriptions on our website will be edited to reflect this change on 7/1/09.

NoveList Interface Updates

From an EBSCO email:

• A series search using the Series Title radio button will now bring up either a series master record, which contains the full information for a series including the series title list in reading order, or a list of all series that match your search terms.
• What We’re Reading columns are now sorted by Date Descending, to bring the newest listings for each contributor to the top of the list.  ng
  * e
  Hple list in reading order, or a list of all series that match your search terms.
• Popularity stars and links to First Chapters and Tables of Content are now available on the right side of the title record (under the book jacket image, if available).
• When you log in to your My NoveList account, you will now find your custom folders listed in alphabetical order.  When you add a new custom folder, it will also be placed in the list alphabetically.

Gale Directory Library Enhancements

When searching for businesses and associations, please don’t forget this resource:

Gale Directory Library

It’s one of our newer subscriptions and usage of it remains low.  Is is “undiscovered” or not the best resource for our needs?  Gale has just announced enhancements to the search function.  You can read more online:

http://www.gale.cengage.com/email/GDL2009/GIN57909.htm

2009 Directory of Washington Libraries

The 2009 Directory of Washington Libraries is now available at: www.secstate.wa.gov/quicklinks/directory.

This year marks the first year that the publication will only be available online. The Directory has been designed so that users may print the entire file or just a particular section that they wish to have at their desk. Individual names or branch locations can be searched using the query box on the toolbar of the file.

 For quick library location lookups, users are reminded that they may also access the same data base through a different website: libraries.wa.gov.

Top 10 Ebooks in May

The most heavily used titles in our Gale Virtual Reference Library were:

New Encyclopedia of Africa  2nd ed. 5v 2008

The Gale Encyclopedia of Senior Health: A Guide for Seniors and Their Caregivers 5v 2009

West’s Encyclopedia of American Law  2nd ed. 13v 2005

Encyclopedia of Latin American History and Culture  2nd ed. 6v 2008

Arts and Humanities Through the Eras  5v 2005

Encyclopaedia Judaica  2nd ed. 22v 2007

Environmental Science: In Context  2v 2009

Encyclopedia of the Supreme Court of the United States  5v 2008

The Gale Encyclopedia of Alternative Medicine

The College Blue Book  35th ed. 6v 2008

Our GVRL titles really got a workout last month–over 2,600 uses!

Trial of Ferguson Career Guidance Center

Trial Information

We are in the process of writing a grant proposal that could fund the subscription of this database.  Please check it out and let us know what you think! 

Start Date: 6/3/2009

Expiration Date: 7/3/2009

 

Terms: Unlimited Usage; Onsite and Remote Access

 

Access

http://www.fofweb.com/Demo

 

Username: sirl

Password: trial

Recommended Website Editing

This summer, the Reference Services Committee will be reviewing and editing our current collection of Recommended Websites.  Though we are not making any immediate changes, we have been challenged to choose ten top websites for each main category we currently use in our subject pages.  We are also basing our choices on the top-used sites from our statistical gathering.  There are hundreds, so this will be a challenge, but an exciting opportunity to focus our resources for our users.  Here’s who is working on what:

• Jennifer Forman (SNO):   Arts & Humanities, History
• Mark Barnett (MAR): Automotive, Do-It-Yourself, Explore the World, Science & Technology
• Rob Branigin (STA):  Biographies, Geneaology, Law & Government
• Darren Nelson (MUK): Careers & Education, Society & Culture
• Betsy Arand (OAK): Consumer, Fast Facts & Reference, Health & Medicine
• Christa Werle (SRV): Magazines & Journals, NewsStand
• LYN: Business & Fianance

New Trainers for New Hires

Members of the Reference Services Committee are taking Nate Cushman’s place and will be helping us present the content of the “Reference for New Hires” training:

• July 18th, 9-noon – Rob Branigin & Christa Werle
• October 14th, 9-noon – Jennifer Forman & Christa Werle
• January 13th, 2010, 9-noon – Darren Nelson & Christa Werle