Tuesday 23 August 2016

DawsonEra maintenance 25 August 2016

DawsonEra is one of our ebook suppliers. Between 07.30 and 08.00 on Thursday 25th August the DawsonEra service will be unavailable (because the company is understaking essential work on the platform).

However, if you download and open ebooks before the outage, they will still be available. Normal services will resume after 08.00 on Thursday. Please contact library.technical@beds.ac.uk with any questions.

Thursday 18 August 2016

New database - Routledge Performance Archive

We have access to a new performing arts database, Routledge Performance Archive:
The Routledge Performance Archive is a developing resource providing access to a range of audio-visual material from past and present practitioners of performance. The archive consists of a regularly updated collection of streamed video and audio footage with relevant critical commentary.

Included here are interviews with key figures in theatre history and contemporary practice; masterclasses with specialist actor trainers from around the world; unique footage direct from the legendary practitioners themselves; excerpted and full-length contemporary productions; and documentaries previously unavailable to global audiences. The video material spans more than fifty years of documented work direct from renowned practitioners and specialists, and ranges across the entire spectrum of theatre topics.

The fully searchable and cross-referenced content is updated and added to every three months. It includes unique material from the Victoria & Albert Museum’s National Video Archive of Performance Recordings, and specially commissioned essays by leading experts to accompany each video. 


Wednesday 17 August 2016

Finding full-text articles on Google Scholar



Google Scholar is a more academic version of Google because it can be used to search for journal articles and other scholarly publications. If it is something you use regularly, you could be interested in adding quick links to UoB-owned resources to your results list.
  1. Go to Google Scholar and click on the Settings link (near the top)
  2. Click through to Library Links and type “Bedfordshire” in the search box
  3. When the results appear, tick the box next to the result “University of Bedfordshire – UoB access”.  (You can uncheck any other libraries, if you have previously set them up)
  4. Then click on the Save button (at the bottom of the page)
Now when you search Google Scholar, you will see “UOB Access” to the right of some results. When you click on this link, you can navigate to the full-text of articles from journals UoB subscribes to.

(If you are prompted to sign in with a choice between Shibboleth or Open Athens, pick Shibboleth and use your usual login. Or you can authenticate via a UoB library resource before you start and that should work for the duration of your search session.)

You can also use Google Scholar to export references into RefWorks or other reference management tools.

This Just a Minute video summarises some of the other ways you can get the most out of Google Scholar. But remember it is probably easier and quicker to use the DISCOVER search platform - which lets you pinpoint full-text resources quickly - on the  Learning Resources website

Thursday 11 August 2016

Frontline students - registration problems

We have discovered that there has been a problem with registration for students on the Frontline course, which runs to a different academic year pattern to the rest of our courses. This problem is causing the accounts management system to disable student accounts when it should not - hence the high number of problems we've been seeing this week with students unable to access library resources.

The university is working to resolve this as soon as possible, and we hope to have some progress tomorrow.

Popular searches on DISCOVER, July 2016

This is what people have been searching for recently

Taylor & Francis journals - new website now live

This latest redesign focuses on our key users and how they want -- and need – to use online research. Building on user feedback and analytics data, the needs of our users were put at the centre of every design decision.
Some of the key improvements include:

  • Intuitive and readable article layout:A new article display organises figures & data, references, citations and article statistics into tabs, plus highlights reader’s access options and the article PDF.
  • Enhanced discoverability:The multi-faceted search makes finding articles and journals simpler and faster, with options to filter by subject, publication date, and access options.
  • Prominent journal branding: Making it easy for readers to identify and access key journals. Journal titles and covers are elevated and Journal pages display related and key content using a streamlined and easy to read new “card” design.
  • A fully responsive design: No matter where in the world the reader is, whether they’re on a mobile device, tablet or computer, they can get straight to the research they need, read it, bookmark it, and download it to their library.

"Your login has been disabled due to intruder detection"

We're still getting a lot of reports of this problem












This happens when your account has tried to login too many times with the wrong password. We think this is happening particularly when you change your password, but don't update saved passwords in your browser or device. We can reset your password temporarily for you at a library helpdesk or if you email us, but you will then need to go to our password reset site to set it to something secure (make sure you have 8 digits with 3 different characters, upper case, lowers case and numbers). And then remember to change any stored passwords in your browser or on your phone or tablet, otherwise the problem will just happen again!

Tuesday 9 August 2016

New design for Taylor & Francis online journals

Today (9th August), Taylor & Francis are updating their ejournal site. Some site functionality will be unavailable until 1pm, when the new version is due to go live. There is more information about the changes here.



ProQuest downtime Sunday, 21 August

All ProQuest resources will be unavailable Sunday, 21 Aug., 3:00 a.m. through Sunday, 21 Aug., 11:00 p.m. to upgrade infrastructure, enhance security, and maintain reliability.
During this time access to all ProQuest platform databases and RefWorks will not be available.

Databases affected:

Applied social sciences index and abstracts
British nursing database 

British periodicals
Film index international 
International bibliography of the social sciences 
Linguistics and language behavior abstracts
Periodicals archive online 
Physical education index
ProQuest dissertations and theses
Vogue archive 
Literature Online
RefWorks 



Wednesday 3 August 2016

Online services restored

Access to DawsonEra (ebooks service), RefWorks and the personalisation services on readinglists has now been restored. Student systems like Student Mail, SITS E-vision and pwd.beds.ac.uk should also now be working.

The issue wa that some authentication services went unexpectedly offline during a planned storage upgrade.ICT worked on the problems as a priorioty but the fix took longer than expected.

Please contact library.technical@beds.ac.uk or call the Reader Services team at Luton on 01582 743488 if you have any further problems logging in to the digital library resources.