Library Refurbishment - 2010

The Library refurbishment is schedule to kick off in the summer of 2010. This phase of the refurbishment will include a new look and feel ground floor, a new staircase and passenger lift facing Aston Street, and new toilets on all four floors of the building. If you are a member of staff you can keep up-to-date with construction progress and other news via Aspects. Our refurbishment blog goes live shortly, we'll let you know when.

Now, have your say! View the architect's presentation. Login to Library Matters - Info for staff, via Blackboard or via the Staff Intranet, then complete this short survey by January 15, 2010, to let us know what you think.

Library - Christmas Vacation Opening Hours

Please see the library web site for Christmas Vacation Opening Hours

Off-campus access to Medicines Complete

Off-campus access to Medicines Complete is currently unavailable. We are in contact with the supplier and hope to have it resolved as soon as possible. In the meantime you can access Medicines Complete either on-campus or by using the proxy server if you are off-campus.

If you have you have any queries or comments about this issue please add your comments to this post.

Library Refurbishment Summer 2010 - Have Your Say!

During the summer of 2010, the University will be spending over £4M to completely refurbish the ground floor of the library, provide a new staircase and passenger lift facing Aston Street, and install new toilets on all four floors of the building. The remaining floors will be refurbished in subsequent years.

We would like your input to the planning process and will be seeking your feedback in two ways:

• On the morning of Thursday 10 December, we will be asking students in the library what they think about the proposals and what they would like to see included in the project. If you’re asked for your views, but you’d prefer not to participate because you have coursework deadlines, are revising and so on, please inform the team and they will move on to someone else. The team will not be visiting the third floor, which will remain silent study.

• Also on Thursday 10 December, between 1.00pm and 1.45pm in the Sumpner Lecture Theatre on 6^th floor of the Main Building, the architects will give a presentation on the options under consideration. All students are welcome (subject to the capacity limit of the room), so please come along and give us your views.

Nick Smith

Dr NR Smith

Director

Library & Information Services

If you have any queries or comments about this, please add your comments below.

24/6 hour opening starts on Sunday 29th November

During the following examination period, the Library will be open for 24 hours, 6 days a week.
Sunday, 29 November 2009 to 10:00pm on Friday, 18 December 2009
The Library will close at 6:00pm on Saturdays and reopen at 11:00am on Sundays

For full details of the 24 hour opening times, please see our opening hours pages.

If you have any queries or comments about this, please add your comments below.

New Resource: Oxford Handbooks Online

The Library has just subscribed to two new sets of e-books from Oxford Handbooks Online:

The Business and Management package contains e-books on topics such as Organizational Theory, Human Resource Management and International Business.

The Political Science package contains e-books on topics such as International Relations, Public Policy and Political Economy.

Containing specially-commissioned essays with extensive referencing to further reading, the handbooks offer both thorough introductions to topics in the discipline, and a useful reference resource for scholars and students.

For off-campus access, select 'login' in the top-right hand corner, and then choose the option to 'Login via your home institution.' Scroll down the list to choose Aston University and click 'Proceed.' You should then see the Aston University login page where you should enter your network username and password (the same ones you use to access MAP, email etc.).

If you have any comments or questions about this resource, please add your comments to this post.

Access to British Pharmacopoeia Online

Access is now available online for the 2009 and 2010 versions of British Pharmacopoeia http://www.pharmacopoeia.co.uk/.

A unique username and password is required to access this resource online. Please see Library Matters on Blackboard for details. The username and password is listed in the Logging in to Electronic Resources folder in the E-resources section.

Assignment drop-in sessions

Need help finding information for your assignment?

Having trouble accessing journal articles?

Confused by all the information out there, and don't know where to start?

Don't panic!! Just drop-in to one of our sessions on the ground floor of the Library next week, and a friendly Information Specialist will be on hand to answer all your questions.

Monday 30th November to Friday 4th December 12-2, see you there :-)

If you have any queries or comments about this, please add your comments below

Problems linking to journals in PsycArticles

There is currently a problem with the links between Find it @ Aston and journal titles in PsycArticles leading to following error message:

Unauthorized Identity Provider
The identity provider supplying your login credentials is not authorized for use with this service.
You should inquire with your identity provider as to whether this service is intended to be enabled for your use.

We are looking into this problem as a matter of urgency, but in the meantime please go to Find Resource within the e-Library and link to PsycArticles directly then go to the journal you need once you are in the database itself.

Please comment on this post if you have any queries about this.

Access EIU.com resources, from the publishers of The Economist

The publishers of The Economist have provided a free trial of their analysis resource, EIU.com, to Aston University students and staff.

EIU.com provides country, business and management analysis.

This trial runs until the 31st January 2010 and is accessible via campus PCs.

Please access EIU.com via this link:

Free trial of EIU.com
Please have a look at the resources and if you find them valuable, let us know by emailing library@aston.ac.uk

(Remember Aston University already have a subscription to The Economist, which is available via http://www.eiu.com/aston or follow the link in the library catalogue.)

Assignment drop-in sessions

Need help finding information for your assignment?

Having trouble accessing journal articles?

Confused by all the information out there, and don't know where to start?

Don't panic!! Just drop-in to one of our sessions on the ground floor of the Library next week, and a friendly Information Specialist will be on hand to answer all your questions.

Monday 2nd November to Friday 6th November 12-2, see you there :-)

Library Matters Live Success!

was the title of our Library Introduction Sessions for all new Aston students. This year Aston welcomed 3,692 new University students, and staff in the Library met 2,313 of you during Welcome Weeks one, two and the first week of term!

Many of you were introduced in person to your Information Specialist and the majority of you were able to see at first hand Library Catalogue, self service machine and printing demonstrations. At the end of each Library Matters Live session those present were asked to fill out an evaluation form with entry to win £100 Bullring shopping centre voucher; a winner has now been chosen and notified.

From analysis of the forms filled in 72% were happy with the content of these sessions. We had hundreds of positive comments about the practical demonstrations that we gave for the first time this year and many comments regarding wanting to know more about Library facilities and resources.

Now that we are settling into Term 1 we hope that this introduction has given you a good starting point in the use you can make of the entire Library. Don’t forget to look out for future Library sessions that appear on your timetable and remember we are here to help you make the best use of all the resources available so don’t hesitate to get in touch with us if you need any further help.

Web of Knowledge web tools, gadgets and widgets

The Web of Knowledge (or ISI Web of Knowledge) is a search interface that allows you to search databases of journal articles across a wide range of subject areas simultaneously. The databases/subjects included are:

* Science Citation Index Expanded (1970-present)
* Social Sciences Citation Index (1970-present)
* Arts & Humanities Citation Index (1975-present)
* MEDLINE for biomedicine and life sciences, bioengineering, public health, clinical care, and plant and animal science (1950-present)
* Conference Proceedings Citation Index - Science (1990-present)
* Conference Proceedings Citation Index - Social Science & Humanities (1990-present)

The Web of Knowledge have just released a number of web tools, gadgets and widgets to allow you to search the Web of Knowledge from a toolbar in your browser, a search box in your web page, your iGoogle page, or your desktop via Yahoo! widgets. Visit this information page to find out more.

Safari Tech Books Online Logging in problems update

The login to Safari has now been fixed. All access is via this URL http://proquest.safaribooksonline.com/?uicode=UKFederation-member@aston.ac.uk. Select UK Federation Users Login at the bottom of the screen, select Aston University (Shibboleth v2) from the drop-down list and then login with your usual Aston University network username and password.

When linking through to indivudal e-books from the Library catalogue, you will initially see a "preview" screen. You should click on UKFederation Users Login and enter your Aston University network username and password to access the full e-book.

Access to e-Library from student residences

There has been a problem getting on to the e-Library from student residences since the beginning of this term. ISA have informed us that this has now been resolved. If you continue to have problems, please comment on this post, stating which residence you are trying to access the e-Library from.

Safari Tech Books Online: Logging in problems

We are experiencing problems logging in to Safari Tech Books Online. You may see this error message when you attempt to log in:

Invalid Account

Your account is currently not valid. Please contact customer service for assistance.


We are in contact with the suppliers about this and hope to have it resolved soon. This post will be updated (check the comments underneath) when the problem has been fixed.

Problems logging in to online resources

We are currently having technical problems with logging in to online resources. Many people are seeing the following error message when they attempt to log in to many of our electronic resources:

The Authentication Point was unable to process this SAML assertion. This may be due to a temporary network problem, server failure, or invalid request.

We are looking into this problem as a matter of urgency and hope to have it resolved soon.

Browsing APA Journals within PsycARTICLES

We have recently received comments that not all issues are properly displayed for each journal title within the PsycARTICLES database, accessed via CSA Illumina. This affects all journals published by the APA.

We have contacted the provider and they have said:

"There is a known issue in the Browse tab where not all the years are being displayed for every journal in PsycARTICLES. We are currently working on a solution and I will send you an update once it’s been fixed. I do apologize for any inconvenience this has caused.

In the meantime, you can still find the article by searching for it instead."

If you are trying to access a particular journal article and the issue you require is not listed, scroll down to the bottom of the page to "Search Within" your journal title. A couple of keywords from the title (use AND between them) should be enough to locate the information you need.

Please don't hesitate to get in touch with us if you have any problems.

Printing and photocopying

Please note that printing and photocopying in the Library has now changed.
To add or transfer any existing credit on your card to the new system, bring your uniCARD to the library counter 9-6 Mon-Fri; (10am Wed) 10-1 Sat.
EMOS cards can no longer be used.
If you have any queries or concerns about this, please contact library@aston.ac.uk or comment on this post.

Ebsco Business Source Premier titles

There is currently a problem with information being stored in our SFX (Find it @ Aston) listings regarding the Ebsco database, Business Source Premier. You may find that the Find it @ Aston service says there is fulltext, but when you link through to Ebsco, fulltext isn't actually available. The Library is in contact with the suppliers and we hope to get this resolved as soon as possible.

Logging in to Safari e-books

Safari has slightly changed their interface. If you access a Safari e-book from the catalogue, you should first see a "preview" of the book. To access the fulltext, you should click on "Athens Users Login" next to the preview message or at the bottom of the page. This will take you to an Athens login page where you should enter your Aston University network username and password (the same one you use to log in to your emails/Blackboard etc.).

Reclassification of Library books

Library & Information Services (LIS) is currently reclassifying a portion of its book stock. The reclassification project will ensure that in the future there will only be one system (the Dewey Decimal Classification scheme) used to classify all the book stock.

The outcome of this project will enable the Library to take full advantage of books arriving from our suppliers fully processed and ready for the shelf. The benefits will include improved supply times and releasing staff to work in strategically important areas, such as training and helping students. It will also reduce the overheads of manual intervention on every book we purchase (date and spine labels etc)

During this time there will inevitably be some inconvenience to our users. In particular, there will be inconsistencies between the book location/class number shown on the catalogue and that of the actual location and class number in the library. All books will still be on the Catalogue and in alphanumeric order on the shelves.

Please contact a member of the library staff if you have difficulty in finding a book on the shelf or email library@aston.ac.uk

Wiley service interruption

Due to essential site maintenance, access to Wiley Interscience will be unavailable on Saturday 18th July at 10 am for approximately 2 hours and Monday 20th July at 9am for approximately 1 hour.

Swetswise downtime: Saturday June 20th

The journals database SwetsWise will be undergoing some maintenance this coming Saturday (June 20th). There may be a small period during which access will be interrupted between the hours of 8am to 11.30am.

Apologies for the inconvenience.

Wiley service interruption

Due to essential site maintenance, access to Wiley Interscience Online will be unavailable on Saturday June 13th from 2pm for up to 1 hour.
Apologies for the inconvenience.

Changes to Ebrary authentication: Bookshelf information

Please note that the Ebrary e-books supplier will be moving to Shibboleth authentication on June 22nd. You should then use your Aston University username and password to access the database, as Athens passwords will no longer be recognised after this date.

If you have saved items to your personal bookshelf and wish to transfer them to your new log-in account please follow the instructions below:

1. Make sure that you save your Athens login in a safe place before the Shibboleth migration. This can be found by copying your login name as displayed in the banner. An example would be athens_1c5sdfghbhesd6.
2. After the Shibboleth migration date, log into ebrary again with your Shibboleth credentials. You will see a different login name.
3. Contact ebrary Customer Support via email with both login names support@ebrary.com
4. If you have any additional questions, please contact support@ebrary.com

These instructions can also be found under the Bookshelf Migration Button in the top right hand of the ebrary homepage screen.

If you have any concerns about this, please comment on this post or contact lis-enquiries@aston.ac.uk

Final year students-clear your library record!

Attention all final year students!
Please remember to return all your Library books and pay off any outstanding fines by June 16th 2009.
Your co-operation is appreciated, as failure to do so may unfortunately result in your degree certificate being withheld. If you have any questions about this please contact library@aston.ac.uk

Problems logging in to electronic resources off-campus?

In the majority of cases, you should only need your Aston University network username and password (the same one you use to log on to PCs on campus and your email) to log in to electronic databases and journals. Very few resources require a separate username and password and a list of these with login details can be found in the Electronic Resources section of Library Matters on Blackboard.

For instructions on logging in to each database, go to Aston e-Library, search for the database in the Find Resource section and follow the instructions given in the "i" information icon next to each resource. For example, the instructions for accessing Science Direct read "For off-campus access click on Athens/Other Institution login; select UK Access Management Federation; then Aston University; enter your Aston University network username and password." Each database follows a slightly different access route.

You can also find instructions for logging on to each e-journal using Find e-Journal, searching for the journal you need and clicking on its title. Alternatively, if you are having problems logging into any specific resources, please add a comment to this post and we’ll give you instructions.

Quiet study space

Need a quiet place to revise or make last minute alterations to your dissertation? No space in the Library? The Chaplaincy are offering a quiet, informal study space, plus the offer of tea or coffee. There is no need to book, but for further information please email chaplaincy@aston.ac.uk

New books for Library

At this time of year, the Library needs to spend any funds remaining in its resources budget. Our Information Specialists work hard with Academic staff to ensure that the right books are available on the shelves, but it is also useful to have suggestions from students. You may have come across useful books as part of your reading for your course or would like us to purchase extra copies of particular books, if so please let us know by either commenting on this post or by creating your own post.
We will only consider books that relate to courses studied at Aston as we are, unfortunately, unable to purchase books for recreational reading. Information Specialists reserve the right not to purchase any title recommended on the grounds of cost, relevance or availability.
We are particularly keen for your suggestions for books relating to Maths.
Please contact the Library as soon as possible.

Personal safety and security of belongings

Please do not leave any of your personal possessions in the Library whilst you go to an exam, even if you intend to return later. This restricts the number of study spaces available for other students who wish to revise.
Also, please do not leave anything valuable unattended in the Library as thefts do occur in the building.

24 hour opening and exam revision

The Library is open 24 hours a day, 6 days a week (closed Saturday 5:00pm - Sunday 11:00am) for you to revise for exams.
24 hour opening will continue until 26th June to allow for postgraduate examinations.
Please remember that even when you have finished all your exams, there will still be other students who are still revising and Library staff will continue to enforce silent study on floors 2 and 3.

SCONUL Access

Remember to register for your SCONUL Access card.
This will allow you to use a university library close to your placement or home address. If you are part time or on placement, this will also allow you to borrow a limited number of books. Full time undergraduates will only be able to use other libraries on a reference only basis.
Please visit http://www1.aston.ac.uk/lis/usingotherlibs/ for details and visit Enquiries to get your membership card.

OP1CVO Projects: Scientific reports of accuracy and reproducibility

In your project instructions, Dr Cubbidge said you need to use peer-reviewed academic journals to support your presentations. This tutorial will reinforce what you learnt about using Aston e-Library to do this.

Remember that your choice of keywords is really important for getting good results. Now that you know a little bit more about your project topic, you are better placed to choose specific and relevant keywords. If you're looking for articles about a particular instrument for example, you may wish to search using "instrumentname and accuracy" or "instrumentname and reproducibility".

Optical Coherence Tomography Books!

We are getting high levels of reservations on the following books in the library:

Title Atlas of optical coherence tomography of macular diseases.
Author Gupta, Vishali.
Class number 617.735 GUP
Imprint London : Martin Dunitz, 2004.


Title Optical coherence tomography of ocular diseases.
Edition 2nd ed. / Joel S. Schuman ... [et al.].
Imprint Thorofare, N.J. : Slack ; London : Eurospan, 2003.
Class number 617.735 OPT

If you are currently borrowing one of these titles, or you have placed a reservation, please be considerate to other students and return/collect the book promptly. I will continue to monitor the situation and will move them to the Short Loan collection if demand increases further. I'm afraid these are both expensive titles and Dr Cubbidge & I have decided it would not be cost effective to buy extra copies.

This is probably also a good time to remind you that you should be using a variety of sources to find information for your projects, and these books represent a small fraction of what is available. Dr Cubbidge will certainly frown upon projects where books have been used as the only source of information! Don't forget that peer-reviewed journal articles are the "gold standard" for information and the first place that research is published, as we discussed in the library sessions. Come to Enquiries on the ground floor of the library if you're having trouble finding journal articles relevant to your project.

Georgina.