Go Green Week - what the Library has done

There is a display of books on environmental and sustainability inside the Library on the ground floor along with a plasma screen presentation of some of our electronically accessible books. These books include subject areas such as social responsibility, business ethics, production and development.

Library staff have been recycling, re-using stationery, saving power wherever possible and encouraging library users to do the same.

 

E-books display in ebrary

Have you noticed that e-books haven't been loading fully when you've tried to access them on the ebrary platform?

In order to fix this, ebrary have suggested that you clear your browser cache and update Java: www.Java.com? You could also try a different web browser. 
If you continue to encounter problems, please contact us.

ebrary bookshelf items

The University has moved over to a new authentication system this term, and as a consequence of this, any items you may have saved in the bookshelf on the ebrary e-book platform have not been carried over to your new account.  The support team at ebrary are able to transfer these items over manually if you contact them at support@ebrary.com. They will need to know your Aston University network username as well as the username you see in the top right-hand corner of ebrary when you log in.

E-books - BizEd Premier: Problem now fixed

**This problem has now been fixed. The Biz/ed Premier e-book titles are now available via the MyiLibrary platform**

Dear Students,

Unfortunately, we are experiencing a problem with access to BizEd Premier at the moment.  BizEd Premier is one of our e-book databases that contains textbooks for business school students.  We have notified the fault with the company and we will let you know as soon as it has been resolved. 

In the meantime, please check the Library catalogue for print versions of the titles or search our other e-book services via the Aston e-Library.

Kind Regards
Nicola Dennis
Information Specialist (Business & Law)

Ebrary e-books now available to download to your iPhone, iPod or iPad

Ebrary is a leading provider of e-books and has developed a new app for the iPad^®, iPhone^®, and iPod touch^®! The app is available on the App Store.

The free app provides you with the ability to access content on the ebrary platform, including their institution’s e-books from leading publishers.  Additionally, researchers can import their own personal research—outside of the ebrary platform—through the app itself!

Key features and benefits include:

• Online and offline reading
• Seamless downloading of full titles
• Simple and advanced search
• Multiple navigation controls
• Table of contents with relevancy rankings
• Copy and paste with automatic citation for offline documents
• Import and use documents from other sources
• Sign in with Facebook email and password
• Available in English and Spanish

 For further support and details of how to download and use the App please view the Ebrary Support pages

MyiLibrary - Are you seeing a "Flow Control Warning" message?

The publisher Pearson has decided to set restrictions on access to their e-books on the MyiLibrary platform to no more than 3 simultaneous users. If you see a message on this platform that says: "Flow Control Warning: This book is currently being viewed by another patron. It will become available when the patron has finished viewing the selected book," you will need to exit the platform and try to access it again at a later time.

E-book access troubleshooting

Do you often have problems accessing e-books using the Internet Explorer browser?
Do you constantly get error messages, or keep trying to log in but never actually get to the e-book?

In order to get round this you can either use a different browser such as Mozilla Firefox or you can change your settings in Internet Explorer:

• click on Tools in your internet browser
• select Internet Options
• select the Privacy tab and move the settings down to "low"

However, if you don’t want to lower the security settings in your browser for all sites, you can do this on a case-by-case basis in the following way:

• click on Tools in your internet browser
• select Internet Options
• select the Privacy tab
• click on Sites and then enter the last part of the URL (see below) for each e-book platform you are having problems with and select Allow:
  
  dawsonera.com
  ebrary.com
  myilibrary.com
  safaribooksonline.com

If you continue to have problems with e-books, please comment on this post or email library@aston.ac.uk.

Safari Tech Books Online availability via Library Catalogue

Due to a problem with e-book records, there will be no Safari e-books listed in the catalogue until the beginning of next week (29th/30th November). You can still access the e-books by going to Safari directly and searching for the title you need.

**These e-books have now been restored on the library catalogue. Sorry for any inconvenience** 30/11/10

Enhancements to IEEE Xplore

The library has recently extended its subscription to IEEE Xplore to include the IEEE-Wiley eBooks Library. Previously Aston University staff and students had access to the journal, conferences and standards within this resource. This now represents a full subscription to all the content within IEEE Xplore – if you get an item in your IEEE Xplore search results, you should be able to access the full text.

Note that the IEEE-Wiley eBooks are also listed on the library catalogue, so a keyword search for your topic of interest on the library catalogue or via MARs will also find relevant IEEE-Wiley eBooks.

Aston University staff and students have online access to this comprehensive resource which can be accessed via Aston e-Library. There is no login required on-campus. However, alongside the extra content for IEEE Xplore, the login procedure for off-campus users has been improved – a separate username/password is not required and you can now login using your Aston University username and password.

User guides and online tutorials are available from the IEEE website and these give an overview of the key tasks, including advanced searching, refining your results, and saving your search. These cover the new interface and are worth looking at if you haven’t used IEEE Xplore since the switch-over.

If you have any feedback or comments to make about this resource, please add a comment to this post.

MyiLibrary launches new e-book viewer

MyiLibrary has launched an enhanced e-book viewer. Page navigation is now much smoother & less 'clicky'. More details here.

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.

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.

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.).

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