Library survey - Winner of the €100 HMV Voucher

We are very pleased to announce that Ms. Elizabeth Mbanefo is this year winner of the draw for the Library Survey.
Thanks to all of you who answered this year survey: in participating in DBS Library user survey you are helping us provide library services which meet your needs. Indeed, your feedback and suggestions are very important to us to inform changes to Library policies and procedures. So thanks again to you all!

*Merry Christmas and happy new year 2010 from all the staff at DBS Library*

Christmas break closure

Aungier Street and Dame Street Libraries will be closed from Wednesday 23rd December 2009 until Sunday 3rd January 2010 inclusive.

Portobello Library will be closed from Saturday 19th December 2009 at 17.00 until Sunday 3rd January 2010 inclusive.

Normal opening hours will resume on Monday 4th January 2010.

*** Merry Christmas and happy New Year to you all! ***

Library class - change of location for Wednesday 16th Dec.

Tonight library class will take place from 5pm until 6pm in room AS1.1 and not AS3.1 as first advertised.

Sunday opening commences

Just a reminder that the library will be opening this and the following Sunday from 11am to 5pm.

Library Class Cancellation

Tonight's library class is unfortunately cancelled. Apologies for the inconvenience.

It's Trial Tuesday!

Crikey, database trials are like buses, you wait ages for one then several come along at once. In addition to the link resolver, we have, until 31st January, LISTA full text and SocINDEX. Shanelessly cribbing from EBSCO:
Library, Information Science & Technology Abstracts with Full Text indexes more than 500 core journals, more than 50 priority journals, and 125 selective journals; plus books, research reports and proceedings. This database also contains full text for more than 240 journals. Subject coverage includes librarianship, classification, cataloging, bibliometrics, online information retrieval, information management and more. Coverage in the database extends back as far as the mid-1960s.
SocINDEX with Full Text is the world's most comprehensive and highest quality sociology research database. The database features more than 2,066,400 records with subject headings from a 19,750+ term sociological thesaurus designed by subject experts and expert lexicographers. SocINDEX with Full Text contains full text for 777 journals dating back to 1908. This database also includes full text for more than 820 books and monographs, and full text for 13,947 conference papers.

Watch out for the LinkSource graphic, which may or may not indicate the presence of full-text elsewhere:



Available on and off-campus until 31st January. The more usage you make of these databases, the more likely we'll (make great attempts to) purchase them. Now I must go and make sure that these databases are available off-campus.

LinkSource trial now active

By pressing lots of buttons and clicking lots of links I've managed to get this up and running. We have three database providers connected - EBSCO, Emerald and JSTOR. As I said last week if you search a database and find only a citation for an article of interest, there'll now be a link you can click to see if full-text is available from another database. The trial will run for a couple of months and hopefully make it easier for you to find full-text articles

Library News and Recent Acquisitions - November

In the interests of disseminating library information through as many channels as possible, here's the library newsletter for November and here's a list of books and other materials purchased by the library in the month of November. Not much more needs to be said, but if there's any books or other materials you'd like to see appear on any future list of recent acquisitions, please contact the library.

Library survey 2009 - Win a €100 HMV voucher!

Don't forget to log on to http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/F38PJQF and fill in this year's library survey.
It's your chance to give us your feedback on the library services at DBS and maybe win a €100 HMV voucher!
Thanks a lot and see you at http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/F38PJQF!

Repost: Moodle and exam papers: A gentle reminder

It's good to recycle, so here's a blog post I republish every so often. It's merely coincidence I do so in the lead up to exams...

My spider sense is tingling. I'm not sure, but I think that there might be exams coming up. Ah, exam time and a young student's fancy turns to finding previous exam papers and pretty damn quickly too. If you're looking for previous exam papers, don't ask library staff, yet. Look on Moodle instead. Exams have a course category to themselves and are visible on the main page, the one that appears after you login. Scroll down and exams are at the bottom. Here's the link to the exams. You will have to login first, but once you do, you will go straight to the exams page. There are 7 different categories:

Law
Postgraduate Arts
Professional School
School of English
Postgraduate Business Studies
Undergraduate Arts
Undergraduate Business

To activate your Moodle account, you will need to activate your @mydbs.ie mail account. To do that, go to Hotmail, enter your student number and date of birth and follow the prompts. If you have any problems with Moodle, or setting up your mydbs.ie mail account, you'll need to contact our IT department.

Most but not all recent exams are up there and more are being added all the time.

Good luck, again

Coming soon: LinkSource demo

A common gripe of students, and one that is entirely fair and reasonable is "if I search database A and I find an article that I want to read, but the full-text isn't available, is there any easy way of finding the full-text without looking in databases B, C or D?" Now, hopefully we have an answer to that coming soon. EBSCO, who host a variety of databases that we subscribe to, have a product entitled LinkSource. LinkSource is what is a known as a link resolver. A link resolver is basically the answer to the gripe above. A more technical definition would be: software that takes a scholarly citation formatted as an OpenURL (don't ask, but if you must it's a metadata standard heavily used by libraries to mediate linking from information resources. Happy now?) and gives the user various things they can do with it, such as access full text, make an ILL request, get it from the library stacks, search Google Scholar and so on. The bit that you'll be interested in is "access full-text". As an example, suppose you are searching for material on hedge funds on Business Source Complete and find an article from the "Journal of Investment Compliance" you really want to read. No full-text is from this journal is available on Business Source Complete, but with the addition of LinkSource, you'll see a link that will take you to the the full text of this article (on Emerald, for what it's worth). If I can get it set it up correctly, I'll let you know when it's working

Referencing resources

Students sometimes, understandably, struggle with referencing their sources. The referencing aspect of our library classes is very popular and basically we could run entirely classes on this subject. This post will look at some resources available to assist you with referencing:
Books: The library contains a fair number of books on referencing, most of which can be found starting with Dewey number 808. Clicking this will find most of them
Guides: There are a number of guides - on the library website - and elsewhere on referencing conventions. Here's the library guide to referencing, and here's a couple of podcasts on Harvard and APA referencing we created ourselves. Externally, most academic library sites have referencing guides, but we have long recommended those of Curtin University, Australia for their completeness. We also recommend the referencing section of The APA cribsheet for APA referencing guidelines.
Reference Generators: You can do pretty much anything online these days, so why not generate your references online too? Bibme is an automated reference generator for APA, MLA, Chicago and Turabian formats. Free registration allows you to create and save entire bibliographies online. Harvard format reference generated has been promised for a while now but has not yet appeared. A similar service is provided by Easybib, which only offers free trials to students. Similar to Easybib is Noodlebib which allows you to create a couple of citations for free. None of these support Harvard referencing, but you can create Harvard citations using Neil's Toolbox Harvard Reference Generator The Neil's Toolbox site looks quite interesting, including as it does a Plagiarism Tester and something called a "Lazy Researcher"
The library also recommends Zotero a fantastic add-on for the Firefox web browser. What do you mean you don't use Firefox? Zotero is a web-based reference management system akin to EndNote and Reference Manager (except that it's free). On similar lines to Zotero, except that it's not a Firebox add-on is Connotea
No matter what you do and what you use. Note the following:
1. Always cite your sources
2. Don't get bogged down in trivialities pertaining to punctuation or font styles. The bottom line, and the rationale for referencing, is: can the reader easily retrieve material that you reference?
3. Be consistent - adopt a style and stick with it; you may lose marks if your referencing jumps between formats.

Library Classes: Reminder

Just a reminder that there are no library classes this week. Normal service will be resumed next week

Repost: Emerald and Full-Text

Another popular query that comes up time and again goes something like this: "When I search on Emerald I always get lots of articles coming up that are abstract only. Why can't I see the full-text?" Here's the answer:

Emerald is not a single database; it's a collection of different products all gathered together and searchable via the Emerald website. We have a subscription to Emerald Management Xtra. If you clicked the link above, you'd see it's one of many Emerald products. One of these, Emerald Backfiles, appears at the top of your search results. Being there, the Backfiles articles are likely to be the first articles that you click on...leading to some frustration and irritation when you see that it's abstract only, because DBS do not have a subscription to it.
Before you contact the library, consider the fact that these articles all date from at the most recent, the early to mid 1990s. It is entirely possible that there are more recent articles on your subject that appear further down the list of your search results.

Alternatively, you can remove all articles from Emerald Backfiles, and indeed removed all non-DBS subscribed content from your searches by amending some search options. On the quick or advanced search options page, make the sure the options below are checked thus:



This should remove any articles you can't see the full-text of from your search results.

Win a €100 HMV Voucher!

Or to be more strictly accurate, enter a draw to win a €100 HMV voucher. How do you enter the draw. Simply take 10 minutes to participate in this year's library survey. This is your chance to let us know what you think of the library. Click here to participate

Circulation Rule Changes

I forgot to say that we have a made a couple of wee changes to our rules about borrowing books which may please you:
The maximum number of standard loan renewals has been increased to 12
Week Loan books can be now renewed (up to 12 times)
Week Loan books are now reservable.

A small caveat - these rules only apply on our Library Management System to books borrowed or reserved after we made the change. Thus, if you borrowed a book four weeks ago and have renewed twice already, you won't be able to renew it again because the old rules were in operation when you first borrowed the book.

New content on Business Source Complete

Business Source Complete now includes a business video collection with 55 videos from the Harvard Business School Faculty Seminar Series,
The series features engaging (or so it says here) video lectures from renowned professors and experts at the Harvard Business School. All lectures are captured from executive education programs, and offer ideas, research, and practical advice on management issues.
The videos contain a table of content allowing the selection of a specific topic. Most lectures provide a transcript in PDF format.

The mobile EBSCO

EBSCOHost databases (which include Academic Search & Business Source Complete, PEP Archive, PsycArticles and PsycInfo) are now available on your mobile phone. Point your phone at
http://m.ebscohost.com or
http://search.ebscohost.mobi/
You will need a user name and password which can be obtained from library staff.
EBSCO Mobile includes basic and advanced searching, html and pdf full-text and search limiting. You can also email both articles and results. Javascript must be enabled on your phone for all this to work.
EBSCOhost Mobile has been tested on several devices and also underwent a Beta period that solicited customer feedback on many unique devices. Although, it has not been tested on all mobile devices available in the market it has been quality certified on the most popular smartphones including:

* BlackBerry
* Dell Axiom
* iPhone
* Palm 750

Dissertations Online

As part of a pilot project we're doing. A small number of student dissertations are now available to read online via the online library catalogue. This link will show you what is currently available. Told you it was a very small number, didn't I? More will be put online as they become available, after gaining consent and such like.

FirstLaw (Ireland)

I'm also pleased to say that FirstLaw (Ireland) is now available to be searched in EBSCOHost Integrated Search (EHIS). Don't forget EHIS is going to be our new 'Search All Resources' once we have a few more databases ready. You can find EHIS at the bottom of the 'Search All Resources' page after you login.

WebFeat ("Search All Resources") logins

I'm pleased to say that all students registered up until the 25th October should now be able to login to WebFeat ("Search All Resources") with their student number and date of birth. If your date of birth doesn't work, try your student number as your password. If your student number begins 00... only enter non-zero digits. Thanks for your patience.

Coming soon: ft.com off-campus

One of the reasons we are switching from WebFeat ("Search All Resources") to EBSCOHost Integrated Search (EHIS), is that more databases can be searched through EHIS. A beneficial side effect of this is that it means more databases are accessible off-campus. Encyclopaedia Britannica is now available off-campus (via EHIS) and I'm very pleased to say that very soon you'll be able to read the Financial Times off-campus too, again via EHIS. We'll let you know when it's available. Still waiting on a few other databases though, which is why EHIS is buried deep in the bowels of WebFeat

Exam Period Sunday Opening

During winter exams, Aungier Street and Dame Street Libraries will be opened on the following Sundays:

13th December 2009
20th December 2009
10th January 2010


The Christmas break is scheduled from December 21st 2009 until January 3rd 2010 inclusive

Database trials old and new

Friday sees the end of our Safari Online ebooks trial, so today and tomorrow are your last chances to access any material from this resource. Monday Today sees the start of another database trial however, and this one is so cool as my son would say. It's Euromonitor Passport GMID (link only works on campus) and if I were a business student, I'd be excited about this, and even though I'm not, I still like this. Here's a description I've just been sent:

Passport GMID is an award-winning database allowing for in-depth research on established, emerging and developing global markets. Research is available on 80 countries for FMCG Consumer and Service industries plus granular macro and micro economic Countries and Consumers data for 205 countries.

Key features and benefits include:

∙ 9+ million statistics on Industries, Countries and Consumers
∙ 15,000 industry, company, country and consumer reports
∙ 12,000 company profiles and 8500 sector briefings
∙ 25,000 sources of further research information.
∙ Future Demographic reports illustrating which consumer groups will expand, decline or disappear in the future and indicating which countries offer the best prospects for business.
∙ Timely Comment from our own industry and country analysts on global events making the news.
∙ Consumer Lifestyle reports examining how people live their lives and factors influencing lifestyle choices. Topics include population segmentation, eating and drinking habits, income and expenditure.
∙ Strategy Briefings revealing major and emerging trends in consumer behaviour which will have an impact on sales and marketing of all consumer products.
∙ Global Risks and Vulnerabilities analyse opportunities and threats across 84 countries
∙ Students have improved employability prospects as this is the same data used by their prospective employers.
∙ International students have invaluable access to data on their home country and region
∙ Users have access to data on 95% of global consumer spending, making for unrivalled comparisons of business economies and consumer cultures

If you're interested in for example forecasting the pet food market in Finland or the retail sector in Hong Kong, then this is the database for you. Even if you're not, if you're doing a business or marketing course you should be able to find something of interest. This trial runs all next week, and I'll add a link as soon as it's active. Again, any feedback gratefully received.

Edit: Trial active.

Library Class Cancellations

Mark this in your diary: there will be no library classes the week beginning 30th November (St. Andrew's Day!) - thus the classes on the 2nd and 3rd of December are cancelled.

Electronic Reading Lists

On the library website, there is a page titled Electronic Reading Lists. You can find it under Library Resources. This page contains a list of all the module reading lists that have been given to us and a link to the library catalogue showing what books on those reading lists we have in the library. To illustrate, at the time of writing the first module is AC161 Introduction to Accounting. Clicking on that link, or indeed the link in the previous sentence, takes you to the library catalogue and searches the catalogue for books on the reading list AC161. Here's a wee screenshot:


Note that the library catalogue is searching the field "reading list" for the module code "ac161". We have added "reading list" to the list of fields that you can search in the library catalogue and moved it to the top of the list of fields in the advanced search option. You can search by module code or module title (module code is better as it will unique).
If you read this blog, or use the library catalogue online, you know that we have had some ...problems with the catalogue in the recent past. A side-effect of these problems is the "reading list" field a) being renamed "group" and b) being removed the top of the advanced search field list. Hence if you don't see "reading list" at the top, you will know that we had some problems with catalogue and have had to reinstall the software or something.
Two other observations: these are the reading that have been given to us. If we don't have any of the books on your reading list, it's 99.999% certain that your lecturer has not provided us with the reading list for this module (there is, at the time of writing a small backlog of 20 or so reading lists to add to the library website, but you should be able find your modules by searching the catalogue directly). Finally these are not the reading lists themselves, these are the books on the reading lists that we have in the library. If we don't have the book (yet), it's almost certainly due to the book being out of print, but we do leave no stone unturned in our efforts to find second-hand copies, no, honestly, we do.

Bank Holiday Closure

You will probably see elsewhere, but I'll say it here anyway: all DBS libraries are closed on Bank Holiday Monday 26th October.

School of Arts Library Day

People giving me content to add to the blog makes my life so much easier...





Library Day Workshops AS1.1:

Psychology 5.00-5.30
film studies 4.00-4.30
Journalism 3.00-3.30
Media & Culture Studies 2.30-3.30
Literature 2.00-2.30
Social Science & Social Studies 3.30-4.00
General Arts 5.30-6.00

1st Arts Activities

Another cut n'paste job, I love cutting and pasting. I don't however recommend it for assignments and dissertations though (think about it: if you can find something on Google, then so can your lecturer!). This time step up ....Orna Farrell: Take it away Orna, but first, what's a gumball rally?

Week 3 12th-16th October
Study skills & learning styles Wednesday 5-6 BSB 2.2
Basic IT Thursday 5-6 SWS1.3
Gumball Rally Friday 16th meet 2pm Aungier St. Reception

Week 4 19th- 23rd October
Basic IT Monday 5-6 & Wednesday 5-6 SWS1.3
Communications Tuesday 5-6 SWS3.3
Yoga Thursday 5-6 BSA3.2
Basic IT Friday 12-1 SWS1.3
Study skills & learning styles Friday 1-2 SWS3.3
Arts Library Day Wednesday 21st
1st Arts Night Out in Bojangles Wednesday 21st

Week 5 26th-30th
Communications Tuesday 5-6 SWS3.3
Yoga Thursday 5-6 BSA 3.2

All events are free to 1st Arts students but places are limited
Contact: orna.farrell@dbs.ie to sign up for the activities

More library classes...

It seems all I write about these days is about library classes and the library catalogue. I have managed to review this for the library newsletter though. Anyway I digress: trumpets please - due to popular demand, there will be two library classes per week. On Wednesdays, there will be a class for non-business students at 5pm in Aungier St. 3.1 and on Thursdays there is a class aimed at business students also at 5pm in Aungier St. 3.1. That is all.

Revenge of the Library Catalogue

In ongoing attempts to solve the problems with the online library catalogue (for instance, there were NOT 214 people using the library catalogue at 2.30am this morning), we have rolled back to the previous version of the catalogue for now to see if that improves matters. This has slightly different menu options; if you want to see your library account, click on 'Reader Info' to login.

Addendum: You can login and click 'Reader Info' to view your library account.
You may experience some problems with the advanced search option in Firefox.

A brief guide to resource access at DBS part 1

This post is long and dull, but will give some insight into how and why you access electronic resources at DBS the way that you do.
The A to Z journal list, incredibly enough, is an A to Z listing of all the journals, magazines and reports accessible through the library. Some, a very small number are subscribed to directly by the library and hard copies are available to browse or photocopy in Aungier St or Portobello. The A to Z entry for such a journal will say something along the lines of "Print copies available in Aungier St". The vast majority of journals however are only available electronically. Again, the vast majority of journals available electronically are via electronic resources to which the library subscribes. Because we pay money for them, we have a licence to use them. One of the conditions of the licence is that we grant access only to current students and staff. At DBS there are two ways of doing this:

• IP authentication: every computer linked to the Internet has an IP address - which allows the computer to communicate with the Internet. The library registers with the electronic resource provider a list of IP addresses which are allowed to access a particular resource. The only IP addresses that we know are the colleges own, so IP authentication is used to grant access to resources on campus
• Referring URL: when you click on a link to visit a web page, there's a lot going on behind the scenes; as well as the IP address of the computer, the URL of the page from which the link was clicked is also sent. This can be used to record information about visitors, but it can also be used to restrict access to websites. Access to DBS resources off-campus is by referring URL. The URL in question is the link embedded in the 'Search All Resources' image on the library home page. This page cannot be accessed off-campus without having first logged in with your username and password, hence it's reasonably secure. A small minority of users may have problems with I'll detail in part 2.

Consequently, when you access the A to Z journal list off-campus and click on a link to a specific journal, access will be denied because the referring URL, the A to Z journal list URL, is not recognised as one which grants access to those resources. If you're on-campus, your IP address is registered and so you get access.
I know what you're thinking right now: "Why don't you make the A to Z journal list a referring URL?" We couldn't do that unless we restricted access to the A to Z journal list. "So why don't you do that?" We don't so this because we firmly believe that the library, and library resources are marketing tools; we want potential students to see what we have available in the library, because we think that we have a very good selection of resources (your opinion of course, may differ) Making the list of electronic resources and the A to Z journal list publically available facilitates this.
Hence on-campus, you can use the A to Z to gain direct access to journals, off-campus you can use it to identify electronic resources where you can access the journal via 'Search All Resources'

Another (short) miscellany

A couple of things to pass on
1) Our JSTOR journals have been added to our A to Z Journal collection.
2) Last week, or sometime in the recent past anyway, I mentioned that we're replacing WebFeat with new federated search software from EBSCO (EHIS). Anyway, we're still waiting for all our databases to be connected up to it, which is why there's been no formal announcement and indeed why WebFeat is still working, but in the interim, you can look at EHIS off-campus through WebFeat - scroll down to the very bottom and you'll see it. I think the interface is a vast improvement on WebFeat (sorry WebFeat), though perhaps the only change EHIS makes at the moment is that you can now access Encyclopaedia Britannica off-campus if you so wish.

Library Class - tonight

Tonight's library class - on essay writing, searching, referencing and a myriad of other exciting topics, is happening in AS 3.1.

Catalogue problems

Our catalogue works most of the time, but it's apparent that it's still falling over far too often. I've contacted Heritage technical support (AGAIN!) to see if a long-term fixed can be applied

JSTOR: update

I'm pleased to say that JSTOR is now available off-campus. Access is via 'Search All Resources'. Click the link and away you go.
New students who have been inquiring about logins to 'Search All Resources', we're in the process of tidying up the user database and we'll get you sorted out next week.

Library Catalogue and WebFeat

Yes, it's our seemingly demonically possessed catalogue again. This time it's been noticed that the library catalogue is not working in WebFeat. I suspect it's not been working since we upgraded the catalogue, but I don't imagine that WebFeat is often used as the gateway to the catalogue, either on or off campus. The good people of WebFeat have been informed and we'll let you know if they get it working.

Coming soon

If you are a new student and have been using Ask-A-Librarian to ask about accessing 'Search All Resources', you may have had this reply:

Hi, for now you can use xxxxxx and xxxxxx to access search all resources. We're making some changes to this service and so we're not handing out individual logins at the moment

If you're not a new student and haven't used Ask-A-Librarian to ask about accessing 'Search All Resources', well let me tell you that we're making some changes to this facility.
The big change and the one from which other changes flow, is that we are changing suppliers. We have been using WebFeat, supplied by Serial Solutions. Shortly, we will be switching over to EBSCOHost Integrated Search (EHIS). We like WebFeat, and it has functionality that EHIS lacks, but we like EHIS even more, particularly since one can search more databases through EHIS. With the change in supplier comes a change in user interface: individual or multiple databases are searched using the EBSCOHost database interface that you should be familiar with using databases such as Business Source Complete or PEP Archive, and results are presented in the same EBSCO interface. The other change relates to the way resources are accessed off-campus: we have been using WebFeat as a gateway for off-campus access, in that even if the database couldn't be searched by WebFeat, the link was still there for you to access the database off-campus. This isn't the case with EHIS: access to all databases off-campus will be through EHIS and if a database isn't searchable through EHIS it won't appear on that list. Offhand I can think of only one database where this will be problematic, but we'll address that down the line.

If you're on campus, then here's a preview of what EHIS looks like. It's still missing (more than) a few databases, but it'll give you an idea of what to expect. We'll keep WebFeat going for a while yet.

Any and all feedback gratefully received

Edit: Also available through "Search All Resources" itself (scroll to bottom)

Edit: Firstlaw now searchable in EHIS

A miscellany

Instead of playing solitaire during my tea break, I browsed some library-related blogs and saw the following links, which I thought are worth passing on:

Free access to SAGE journals online for the entire month of October. As it says on the tin - free access to SAGE journals online. You will have to register of course and give them an email address and a few other pieces of data - 3rd letter of middle name, inside-leg measurement, that kind of thing, but it'll be worth it. Quoting from the link:

SAGE Journals Online contains more than 260,000 articles from more than 500 SAGE journals* with content available from 1999-current.

Quick Search and Advanced Search interfaces are available. You can also browse by journal title.

* Some of the many disciplines include:

+ Communication & Media Studies
+ Engineering & Computing
+ Geography
+ Information Science
+ Management & Organization Studies
+ Pharmacology & Toxicology
+ Politics & International Relations
+ Research Methods & Evaluation
+ Sociology

2) Jinni - Film and Television recommendation database Self explanatory again. Search on plots, moods, people, keywords etc. You can even limit your search to free online content. More on Jinni here. It didn't find anything when I searched for "mutant space goats and zombies". Though it did find me 200 titles it thinks is similar to The Wire so I might have a look at some of those when I get a chance.

3) Online glossary of economic terms from the Economist Unsure of the meaning of Pareto Efficiency or Velocity of Circulation? Wonder no more by consulting this handy glossary of economics and economics related terms adapted from the book Essential Economics by Matthew Bishop from Profile Books.

4) Free e-books directory An ever growing list of freely available ebooks. Further comment superfluous.

New Database - JSTOR

I'm very pleased to welcome JSTOR to the list of electronic resources to which DBS Library subscribes. I shall shamelessly plagiarise* from wikipedia the following paragraph:

JSTOR (short for Journal Storage) is a United States-based online system for archiving academic journals, founded in 1995. It provides full-text searches of digitized back issues of several hundred well-known journals, dating back to 1665 in the case of the Philosophical Transactions.

JSTOR is slightly different from other electronic resources that we have; it's a not-for profit service and more pertinently for our students, access to journals is embargoed, which means there's a significant time delay on access to full-text of nearly all JSTOR journals, agreed upon with individual publishers, but normally 3-5 years. Most journals have a "moving-wall" embargo, which is a delay between what's on JSTOR and the current issue of the journal, but 3 publishers operate a fixed-wall, with no new content being added to JSTOR after a certain date.
JSTOR has an arts-based bias, with arts here being a catch-all term for social sciences, humanties and law. It has a good reputation and provides some social cachet. We might be, thus far, the only private college in Ireland, if not the world with a subscription to JSTOR.

For now access is restricted to on-campus only until we sort out off-campus authentication issues. When that happens we'll inform you.


* Actually since I'm quoting the source and linking to it, this doesn't qualify as plagiarism, but I digress...

Library Class change of venue - again

Stop me if you've heard this one before...

To keep you all on your toes, we've moved Wednesday's (that Wednesday 07/10/09) library class to Aungier St. classroom 3.1 Sadly it looks like the location of the class might change from week to week depending upon classroom availability, so keep a lookout for updates, here, the library website, our twitter account, the library tv screen and the noticeboards. If we have the money we''ll take out TV and radio ads too.

Library Class - change of venue

To keep you all on your toes, we've moved Wednesday's (that Wednesday 07/10/09) library class to Aungier St. classroom 1.5. Sadly it looks like the location of the class might change from week to week depending upon classroom availability, so keep a lookout for updates, here, the library website, our twitter account, the library tv screen and the noticeboards. If we have the money we''ll take out TV and radio ads too.

Freud Online

Here's a tip from Marie, our Acquistions librarian, on finding Freud standard editions in EBSCO online:

When I was looking for a volume of Freud’s standard edition on EBSCO recently I found a way to find all the chapters for a particular volume of Freud’s complete works together in one search. Just select the PEP Archive database on EBSCO and in the search box type the following:

BR “SE.***”
The BR stands for book records, the SE stands for standard edition, and then the number "***" is for the volume number so 002 for volume 2 and 010 for volume 10 and so on.

Happy reading

And now for something completely different: DBS Freshers Week

No, not this. This; A word or 27 from our Student Services supremo:

Freshers week will be running next week starting Tuesday 6th Oct – Thursday 8th Oct. Freshers week is a great way for new and continuing students to get involved in sports & societies, and these events are designed to maximise student participation and help students to really enjoy their time at DBS. I can’t stress enough how important extracurricular activity is to students, so any support you can offer in helping to spread the word, and encourage students to get involved, would be greatly appreciated on my part. One of the most important events is the Sports & Societies sign-up day. Details of Freshers week are listed below for your information:

Tuesday 6th October:
11am – 2.30pm Sports & Societies sign-up day
DBS Reception & Portobello Canteen
2.30pm Comedy Show.
The lower deck, Portobello.

Wednesday 7th October:
2pm Sports Day
Buses collect from DBS @ 2pm
Buses collect from Portobello at 2.15pm
5pm Barbeque
Diceys garden, Harcourt St.

Thursday 8th October:
10pm Freshers Ball
Break for the border
Tickets FREE from Student Services.

I’d like to thank you all in advance for your support in promoting this important week.


Rob Finney

Library Classes - reduction in number (boo!)

Due to demand for classrooms, we are temporarily forced to reduce the number of library classes from two per week down to one. The next library class will be held in AS 3.5 on Wednesday 7th October at 5pm, and every Wednesday after that at the same time and same place until further notice (which will probably come tomorrow). Come along to get an insight into essay writing, finding and assessing information sources, avoiding plagiarism and referencing. Oh and macramé. Mustn't forget the macramé. It's probably worth your while booking beforehand to ensure a place. Contact the library directly or use the form on the library website

Important - Ebook passwords

Do I contradict myself?
Very well then I contradict myself,
(I am large, I contain multitudes.)
Song of Myself - Walt Whitman

Having written a brief guide to username and passwords yesterday, I'm now forced to contradict what I said about Dawsonera - Ebook logins. First, let me explain. Rather than wait for you all to contact the library asking for Dawsonera username and passwords, we are able to bulk create new users. This means we can create hundreds of accounts at the same time rather than one at a time. This is really handy for us, and for you as well as you don't have to bother contacting the library to ask for a login. Sadly Dawsonera recently "enhanced" their bulk user creation software. One of the "enhancements" turned out to be their software now recognising the first slash in dd/mm/yyyy as some kind of end of line or end of field symbol, so instead of seeing dd/mm/yyyy as the password, Dawsonera sees dd as the password. Two character passwords are not allowed by Dawsonera. Epic fail.

So, if you are a new student, having registered since July, and have not previously logged into Dawsonera, or have contacted the library to be set up with a username and password, then your username is your student number and your password is your date of birth in the format ddmmyyy - no slashes involved (except for the one I want to make to the flesh of Dawsonera programmers).

Summarising Dawsonera logins:
If you were here before January 2009 your username is probably firstnamesurname or firstinitialsurename e.g. clarkkent or ckent and your password is your student number.
If you registered after January 2009 and before July 2009, your username is your student number and your password is your date of birth in the format dd/mm/yyyy
If you have registered in July 2009 or after, your username is your student number and your password is your date of birth in the format ddmmyyyy. If this doesn't work try using your student number as your password. If you are unable to login, please contact me.

I apologise for having to make this more complicated that it really should be, but I suppose I have to thank Dawsonera for making this post possible. Thanks Dawsonera! (To be said in the same tone as said here)

A very brief guide to resources, logins and passwords

Around this time of year, I and other library staff spend a lot of time passing on details on how to login to various resources on and off-campus. Here follows a very terse guide to what you can login to and how in no particular order:
Library Catalogue Here you can browse and search the library catalogue. You don't have to login to be able to do that, but if you want to manage your account - see your current and previous loans and charges and renew and reserve books, you will need to login. You login with your student number and a 4 digit PIN. To get a PIN you need to contact library: in person, by phone, by e-mail or using the all-new Ask A Librarian service.
DBS Computers: To login to a computer (on the student network!) at DBS, you need a username and password. Your username is your student number and when you first login, your student number is also your password, but you will be asked to change your password before you can proceed. Try to choose something memorable. The same combination also controls access to the print management system.
Moodle: is what's known as a virtual learning environment, which can supplement what you see and hear in your lectures. If nothing else, Moodle is very useful because its the online repository for most DBS exam papers. I'm very happy (honestly, I am) to say that Moodle is nothing to do with the library, and the following information is provided as a public service only. If you have any problems with Moodle, contact our IT department. You are responsible for your Moodle login and password. To set up a Moodle account, you need to activate your mydbs.ie email account. Do this by going to Windows Live and entering your student number@mydbs.ie as the username and your date of birth as your password. Follow on-screen instructions. A handy wee tutorial is available to assist here.
Search All Resources: The library subscribes to a number of elecrtonic resources that provide bibliographic and full-text access to newspapers journals and books. These can be accessed off-campus by clicking the graphic on the library website home page. You login again with your student number and date of birth. If you are a new student you may have to contact the library to gain access to this resource off-campus.
E-books: many (well, some) of the textbooks available in the library also come in pdf format that can be read online or downloaded (terms and conditions apply). If you started before January 2009, try using your name as your username and your student number as your password. If your name is Clark Kent and you started before January 2009, your user name is probably clarkkent or ckent and your password is your student number. If you started January 2009, your username is your student number and your password is your date of birth. If you can't login, contact the library.

I'm off for a cup of tea now.

Database trial - Safari Books Online

Gosh, is it that time of year already? Welcome to Dublin Business School, or if you're unfortunate enough to have been here before, welcome back! The library starts off the academic year in style with a month long trial of Safari Books Online. Safari, to steal from the content description in the html of their home page (huh?) is " is an on-demand, digital library that provides access to thousands of technology, creative and business books, training videos and expert reference and learning materials from leading publishers, like O'Reilly Media, Addison-Wesley, Peachpit Press, InformIT, Sams, Microsoft Press, Apress, Manning, Talented Pixie and many more". In simpler language: we have a month's trial of full text ebooks. I suppose of relevance to DBS students (and staff) are the IT and business books. Have a look at them by pointing your browser here. I suspect that it will only work on-campus, but I'll verify that later. Take a look, because if you don't, then we can't really justify trying to purchase a full subscription next year.

Library Catalogue Up and Running

Students of the Dublin Business School rejoice! Your online library catalogue is back up and running. In the end the problem turned out to be having two self-issue stations run at the same time as the library catalogue. Hopefully, the problem has been resolved, with a big thank you to Rob Perkins of Heritage Technical Support merited for his patience. I think if it falls over again, you'll see me in the foetal position.

For you newbies, the online catalogue (OPAC) allows you to access your library account - see the books you have on loan, your lending history, your fine history, reserve and renew books and create reviews of books available in DBS. You will need a PIN, which can be gotten from Information Desk staff (or indeed through Ask A Librarian)

Setting up personal EBSCO logins

We don't get many comments, and even fewer that are publishable (most being along the lines of ("boo! you stink!"). A comment was left asking about saving articles to folders on EBSCO databases, so material can searched for at one location and marked for retrieval at another location - so you don't have to perform the same search twice. Your wish is our command.
When you access an EBSCO database you see a screen like this. On the top right, there is a 'Sign into MyEBSCOHOST' link.


The link is circled in red. Clicking on the link takes you to this screen:

If you are a new user click on the link on the top left of this page (again circled in red) to set up your EBSCO account. You will need to provide:
your first name
your last name
an email address
a username name (to log into MyEBSCOHost)
a password (a minimum of five characters)
a secret question and
a secret answer.

Your username and password are between you and EBSCO, so it's they you have to contact if you forget your password (hence the need for an email address and secret question). There's other stuff you can do with an EBSCO profile: if you're logged in you can save and view your search history, set up em-mail alerts and share your folders with other EBSCO users.

I'd put links to the EBSCOHost pages into the images themselves, but each page comes with its own session ID - which of course expires after a certain amount of time.

More information available here.

Library Classes

Our ever-popular library classes return next week. Come along if you want to learn about essay writing, avoiding plagiarism, searching databases, referencing and macramé. I may be mistaken about the macramé though. The first class will be help on Wednesday 30th September. Ask at the Information Desk for its location (which is yet to be decided).
In following weeks, there will be two weekly classes held, (both starting at 5pm) one on a Monday aimed at non-business students and the other on a Wednesday is aimed at business students. Location yet to be decided. If they're being held in a classroom, I'll post the details here and the library website, else present yourselves at the information desk on the day.

Library Catalogue Still Down

Yes, we still don't have the library catalogue working. To give some background: the initial error that deactivated the catalogue has only ever been seen once before by our vendor technical support team and related to how catalogue information was copied onto the web. To solve (hah!) this, they came up with a piece of software whose only function was to copy data. Before it was run, vendor technical support deleted all catalogue data. However when we run the sofware, we get an error message saying that we don't have permission to access the directories where catalogue data is stored. But we do (how else could we delete the data in the first instance?). Unfortunately the problem can't be solved by retrieving catalogue data from the recycle bin, so vendor techical support are currently scratching their heads. Stay tuned.

Library Catalogue Down

It looks like the library catalogue will be taking the weekend off. There's a problem with the underlying database engine. Before anything can be down to address this I need to speak to one of our IT staff - who's not around of course. Hence no catalogue. Bah.

Computer classes

Computer Services is holding a series of IT workshops designed to familiarise new students with the IT systems they will be using here in Dublin Business School, such as Email, Moodle, and the printing systems. All students are invited to attend. Workshops will be taking place in the Open Access lab (SWS2.2)on the second floor in South William street at the following times:

Monday 28^th September 10 -11 am & 5-6pm

Wednesday 30^th September 3 -4 pm & 5-6pm

Friday 2^nd October 10.30-11.30 am

(Book) Relocation Relocation Relocation

In the immediate future, we are going to reorganise some of our Aungier St collection. Obviously we're not doing this to Mess With Your Head(s), but to use the space more efficiently and effectively. The upshot of the changes is that all books that can be borrowed will be on your right as you enter the library. Here are the changes in nicely digestible bullet point form:

• There will be no more Restricted Access\Desk Reserve books. Instead these will be made reference only
• Short Loan and 7-Day Loan books will be integrated into the main lending area.
• The short-loan section will now house a beefed up reference collection

Thus, when you enter the library turn left for:
Computers
Self-Check stations
Bound Journals
Newspapers
Printing and Photocopying
Reference Books

Turn right for:
Standard short and 7 day loan material
(More) Computers
Current Journals

Thank you.

Self-Service x2

After a difficult period, where we thought we'd ended up with a very expensive paperweight, we're pleased to say our 2nd RFID self-check machine ("Louis Mathieu") is now functional.

There's also added functionality now - you can now do unseen renewals - that's technical jargon for renewing books that you don't have with you. Touch 'Renew Items' or 'Account Info', scan your card and touch 'Renew Items' on the bottom right of the screen. A list of your loans will appear. You can renew books by touching the check box next to the book.

Ask a Librarian II

To see how the instant messaging Ask a Librarian service works we've activated the service on the current website. There should be a chatbox on each webpage and somebody should be at other end if you want to say hello or ask a hopefully meaningful question.

Also, give us time to respond before logging off please!

Disruption to Library Services 08/09 and 09/09/09

There may be some disruption to library services on the evening of the 08/09 and morning to early afternoon 09/09/09 (when's the next time you'll see that date?) as we will be installing our second RFID machine. This one is a bit more complicated as it involves digging up some floor. We may indeed have to close the library for a short while in the morning. Watch out for notices on the stairwell. We will try to keep disruption to a minimum, and the Dame St. library is open if you need some peace and quiet. If it's merely a PC that you want you can also try the computer labs in South William St.

Ask a Librarian

As you may or may not have noticed, the 'Ask a Librarian' box has disappeared. That's not because we don't want you to ask us anything, but because we're moving it to the library website. What do you mean it's not there? I mean the new improved library website which will be appearing very soon, honest. We were basically testing proof of concept here, and though we love this blog, we realise that the library website gets more traffic - there's little point in having instant chat on a site that doesn't get much traffic (unless of course, you don't want people to chat to you...). Stay tuned all you loyal readers (me, my Auntie Mary and a three-legged dog in Copenhagen)!

New print system: Important

Don't shoot the messenger here, but when the upgraded print management system was installed, the default print mode was set to colour. Yes, colour printing is default. Colour printing costs 25c per sheet as opposed to 7c per sheet for black and white. Hence you may want to change the print mode back to black and white before you print anything. Select 'Print' and 'Preferences' and under the 'Quality' tab, select 'Greyscale' to save money. You will need to do this each time you want to print. We'll see if we can get this amended soon. Wish us luck on this great endeavour.

New print system = New log in details to PCs

The PCs in DBS Libraries are all being upgraded to allow you using our brand new print machines that can print, photocopy and scan.
When you log in on a PC, you will need to enter your student number both as your username AND password.
You will then be asked to change your password: you can enter whatever password you wish, with letter and/or numbers.
Enjoy our upgraded print/photocopy/scan system!

Renewing Online part deux

The problem with renewing books online has been solved, just in time for the weekend. Hooray! Software developers should live by the maxim "if it ain't broke don't fix it", but don't. Bah

Renewing online

Our new library catalogue upgrade is being very naughty and not allowing renewals online. This s a bit of an inconvenience for everyone and we are in contact with vendor technical support concerning the problem. If you want to renew books without visiting the library please call the issue desks on 01 417 7572 or 01 417 8745. You could email the library as well (but ask for a reply).

Changes to library catalogue

We have just installed a new version of the online library catalogue. We've switched to Heritage Online 3.3 from Heritage Online 3.2. Fascinating. Well actually, there are a few nifty new features in the latest version. Here's a quick summary of what's new (in no particular order):

• Favourite searches - Readers can now save their favourite searches so they are able to run them again by simply clicking a link. Readers must log in to access this feature.
• Search history - Readers can now view a list of their most recent searches, and re-run them by simply clicking a link. Readers must log in to access this feature.
• Star ratings - This feature allows readers to rate items using a star rating system. Readers must log in to access this feature.
• Reader reviews - This feature allows readers to submit reviews for books and other catalogue items. Readers must log in to access this feature. Reviews will be moderated, as we don't want reviews consisting of streams of bad language (unless it's otherwise well-written, and even then...).
• Reader preferences - Readers can now set their own default Enquiry settings such as the default display format, font size and whether Boolean icons are displayed.
• Google Preview - Catalogue records now contain links to Google Book Search previews (where these are available). The preview is then available when the catalogue record is viewed using the display format ‘Cover image with dynamically generated information’ (which we'll probably make the default display setting whenever I get round to it)
• Social bookmarking sites - The Heritage Online screens now contain links to the social bookmarking sites Delicious, Digg, Reddit, Facebook and StumbleUpon.

Any feedback on the new catalogue will be appreciated

Mintel 'Global Market Navigator' Trial access

The library has trial access to Mintel's 'Global Market Navigator' database from today until next Tuesday (August 11th).

Global Market Navigator provides comprehensive access to market research reports, market segmentation, forecast and economic data for 22 industries and 54 countries. Reports can be generated which compare industry and country data and all results can be exported as charts or spreadsheets.


So, if you want to compare Compound Annual Growth Rates (CAGR) for beer and wine in Ireland and the UK (we are not guzzling quite as much of the stuff as our national reputation might imply it seems) email laura.rooney@dbs.ie for access details.

The wait is over - RFID express check out has arrived

Well the wait is over. As of 3pm today DBS Aungier Street Library is now Ireland's 1st fully RFID enabled academic* library.

All issuing and returning of items is now to be done using the express Check-in/Check-out machines. Once you have scanned your student card items to be borrowed or returned should be placed on the express machine pad, the items' RFID tags will be read automatically issuing or returning them to your account and desenstitizing or resensitizing them as appropriate - no need to scan individual barcodes.

Staff are on hand to demonstrate how to use the system and we will be running some promotional events when the new term begins but already students are issuing and returning items unaided and have been impressed by how quick and easy the new system is.

Right now there is just one Check-in/Check-out machine in place but we will have a second express machine installed within 2 weeks. A new demo video on how to use the RFID systems is also in the works.

Library staff would like to say a big thanks to all the students and staff of the college for your patience while we made the transition to the new RFID system.

So come in and try it out!

*Anyone who's used South Dublin County Library in Tallaght will know they are also fully RFID self check

Reminder - RFID Systems Installation Thursday July 30th

Just a follow up on my earlier post ...

Work will begin on installation of the new RFID self check systems and gates tomorrow (Thursday July 30th)

Students requiring a quiet study area while the installation work is in progress are invited to use the Dame st library or can avail of classroom AS 3.4 which has been booked for the day.


We hope to have everything in place by early next week - thanks again for bearing with us through the change.

Irish Lifestyles Reports now available on Mintel

Mintel's 'Irish Lifestyles' report is now available via DBS Library's Mintel subscription.

Irish Lifestyles examines the consumer landscape and provides economic forecast and commentary. The theme for 2009 reports is 'Restoring confidence in the Irish consumer'.

To access, login to Mintel (access via the 'search all resources button' on the home page, you will be promoted to authenticate with your student number if off campus).



Under 'My Reports' click 'show all reports in my subscription'



Then click on 'Irish Lifestyles' in the report list for access to all reports in the 'Irish Lifestyles' series

Bank Holiday Weekend Closure August 3rd

Due to the Bank Holiday

The Aungier St & Dame St Libraries will be


CLOSED

on
Monday August 3rd

Both libraries will re-open at 9.30 on Tuesday August 4th

The Aungier St building will remain open Saturday, Sunday and Bank Holiday Monday from 8 am until 6 pm should any students wish to use classrooms for study.

Enjoy the Bank Holiday Weekend all!

RFID installation - Disruption Thursday 30th July

Further to the earlier post about the RFID conversion project...I'm happy to report that the Aungier St. main library is now fully converted and we are ready to move on to installing the RFID systems.

So far the library stock conversion process has (hopefully) been fairly low impact and non intrusive. However, it seems you can't pull off an RFID conversion project without making a little bit of an impact - and next week marks the slightly disruptive point of the project!

On Thursday July 30th technicians will install our RFID detection system and our new R series self check units. This is likely to impinge on the usual serenity of the library as our current detection gates need to be removed and the RFID gates and new self check systems installed - in short, there may be some drilling (!).

We realize that there are some students preparing for exams & noise in the library is not really conducive to a relaxing exam preparation environment. However we wish to remain open to students throughout the installation process.

So, we are advising students who require quiet study areas to use the newly extended Dame st library - which should be a noise free safe haven!
Dame st library will be open until 5.15 on Thursday - Aungier st remains open until 10 and should be noise free again after 5.15.

In addition classroom AS 3.4 will be available on Thursday until 10pm

The installation process should be completed by Friday July 31st but as we are having the library computers upgraded on that date, Dame st and classroom 1.6 will be available to any students who wish to study there.

Thanks again for bearing with us through the transition process - we're nearly there!

Repost: Free Books!

As summer is the season of repeats and as the last giveaway proved so popular:

Every year we weed our collection, to make room for all the new books acquired through the year and to remove old, out of date or damaged books. We do this both to make the most of library shelf space and to make sure that our collection remains as current and relevant as possible.

Most of these weeded books are earlier editions of core texts or supplementary titles on course reading lists for which we now have multiple copies of the most recent editions.

We dont have room for these books in our collections anymore but would like to give them a good home. So, we are giving them away for free to DBS students or staff. All you have to do to get your hands on some free books is come on up to the Aungier St. library, turn left this time, not right as this tranche of weeded books are on the desks near to the Short Loan Area issue desk and have a look at what's available and anything that takes your fancy, just stick it in you bag and take it home - simple as that.

Anything that remains unclaimed by the middle of August will be donated to charity or recycled.

Spread the word to classmates & colleagues - give a home to a poor unwanted library book!

WebFeat and off-campus access

There have been a couple of instances of users having problems off-campus with accessing WebFeat. They login with valid credentials and get a message saying "Access to this system from your IP address xx.xx.xx.xx has been denied". I've consulted WebFeat about this problem and received an unimpressive response:

After consulting with others in the Department, this appears to be a referring URL problem. The problem can be worked with by adjusting the security settings on the individual user's workstation (firewall/virus protection) or the institution changing to a different patron authentication method. The latter can be adjusted within the WebFeat Administration Console, Patron Authentication section.

I then asked them if they knew which settings were affected. Here's the (non)-response:

Unfortunately, I don't have that information. Internally, we have encountered this scenario in less than 1 percent of existing client cases. And we were not granted access to those settings in that 1 percent to maintain a log for other encounters. We have been unable to reproduce the problem internally.

So there you have it: there's an issue with security settings, but Webfeat themselves don't know what needs to be changed. Perhaps if you switch off your firewall if you have one switched on? You could also try changing web browsers. Perhaps dance around a yew tree at midnight? We'll look into this, indeed we are looking into this, on a number of fronts. Stay tuned

Repost: Moodle and exam papers: A gentle reminder

It's summertime, so here's a relevant repost in light of examinations coming up:


My spider sense is tingling. I'm not sure, but I think that there might be exams coming up. Ah, spring, summer and a young student's fancy turns to finding previous exam papers and pretty damn quickly too. If you're looking for previous exam papers, don't ask library staff, yet. Look on Moodle instead. Exams have a course category to themselves and are visible on the main page, the one that appears after you login. Scroll down and exams are at the bottom. Here's a hopefully helpful image Here's the link to the exams. You will have to login first, but once you do, you will go straight to the exams page. There are 7 different categories:

Law
Postgraduate Arts
Professional School
School of English
Postgraduate Business Studies
Undergraduate Arts
Undergraduate Business

To activate your Moodle account, you will need to activate your @mydbs.ie mail account. To do that, go to Hotmail, enter your student number and date of birth and follow the prompts.

Most but not all recent exams are up there and more are being added all the time.

Good luck, again

Update on Summer projects -RFID countdown

As Dave's earlier post mentioned, all may be quiet on the student front but library staff are working hard behind the scenes to bring about some big changes before September.

To satisfy your curiosity as to what we are up to, here's a little update...

RFID Countdown

Our big switch to RFID self check technology is well under way in the Aungier St Library. Book tagging is in full swing with only about 25,000 items remaining! We have drafted in some extra work experience hands to help us get through the arduous process of RFID tagging our 30,000+ Aungier St collection. All things going to plan, we should be ready to install the new system by late July.
Once up and running, DBS will become the first fully RFID enabled academic library in Ireland and your days of queuing up at an issue desk just to issue or return a book are a thing of the past. We understand the new system might take a bit of re-adjustment for returning students so staff will be on hand in the first few weeks of the new term to demonstrate the self check stations, answer any queries and help ease the transition. Our aim is to make it quick and easy for you to do things like issuing and returning books independently so that (at the risk of sounding like a bank or insurance ad.) when you need help with the big things (searching the catalogue, using databases, referencing and research) we'll be able to give you the time you need.

Watch this space for further updates on the RFID conversion & some of the other things we've got in the pipeline for the next academic year.

Instant Library Chat - Pilot

As mentioned in a previous post, we'd like to get into the world of virtual reference services, which in layman's language means chatting to library staff via an instant messaging service. Obviously I mean chat in the sense of asking library-type questions as opposed to chatting in the sense of making small talk about the weather. In this day and age why should you be restricted to turning up at the Library Information Desk or even phoning the library? Why not use the power of the Internet to communicate? Hence the "Ask a Librarian" box that's sitting on the right hand side of the blog, for now. This is only at the experimental stage so the chat box may disappear or reappear seemingly at random, or even appear elsewhere. If there's a chat box, then someone should be listening. Stay tuned...

Postgraduates - Change in loan period

Dear Postgraduate students,
From June 19th onwards the loan period for main lending books switches from:
1 month renewable once, to 2 weeks renewable twice.

But you can now also borrow up to 10 items (instead of 8 previously)

This decision was taken conjointly between Library Staff Members, Students Representatives and Academic Staff Members during the last Library Committee Meeting held on March 20th 2009, to allow better access to resources.

Free Books!! - Part Deux - Law Books

The collection of weeded books needing new homes is shrinking fast here in Aungier st - our students know a good offer when they see one!

Following their stock check Portobello Library now have a large collection of weeded titles in urgent need of adoption.

Many of Portobello's weeded titles will be older editions of Law texts which cost a considerable amount to purchase new so its a great chance for students to pick up classic legal texts.

Weeded titles will be available in the Portobello Library until June 26th - so hurry on up to Portobello before they are gone!

Summer Late Opening - extended hours

Most of us may be taking advantage of the long summer evenings but there are some dedicated part time students who have expressed an interest in getting in some additional quality time with the library over the Summer months.

To accomodate students who want to squeeze in some extra library time, we will extend Summer opening hours to provide access until 10pm Monday - Thursday

Late opening will alternate between the Aungier st & Dame st sites as follows;

Monday	09:30 – 22:00 DAME ST
Tuesday	09:30 – 22:00 AUNGIER ST
Wednesday	09:30 – 22:00 DAME ST
Thursday	09:30 – 22:00 AUNGIER ST
Friday	09:30 – 17:15 AS & DS*
Saturday	09.30 -17:15 (AS- 09:30-14:00 DS)

These opening hours will come into effect on Monday June 15th

* Remember study room AS 1.6 is still available for students on Friday evenings until 21:00

Free Books!!

Anyone who has been in the Aungier St. library lately may have noticed the expanding pile of books stacked on the last rows of study desks in front of the library office.

Every year we weed our collection, to make room for all the new books acquired through the year and to remove old, out of date or damaged books. We do this both to make the most of library shelf space and to make sure that our collection remains as current and relevant as possible.

Most of these weeded books are earlier editions of core texts or supplementary titles on course reading lists for which we now have multiple copies of the most recent editions.

We dont have room for these books in our collections anymore but would like to give them a good home. So, we are giving them away for free to DBS students or staff. All you have to do to get your hands on some free books is come on up to the library, have a look at whats available and anything that takes your fancy, just stick it in you bag and take it home - simple as that.

Anything that remains unclaimed by the beginning of July will be donated to charity or recycled.

Spread the word to classmates & colleagues - give a home to a poor unwanted library book!

Disruption to Services - Friday and Saturday 5th/6th June

Those nice people in IT are planning some work this weekend that may interfere with the library catalogue and access to off-campus resources. Outage (outrage?) is scheduled for Friday 5pm to Sunday at 7am. I say scheduled, but in reality who knows?

Update: the work is now scheduled to start at 10pm on Friday, not 5pm

Classroom for study - room change

Please note that the powers-that-be have decided that they need the third floor for something or other, henceforth the Friday study classroom will be Room 1.6. I'll say that again, the classroom available for study is Room 1.6. Don't go to the third floor as you'll find all the rooms locked. Go to Room 1.6 instead.

Classroom available for study when library closed

Though the vast majority of DBS students have dispersed to Summer pastures, we are aware that some of our hardworking ACCA students still have exams in the pipeline.

Monday to Thursday the Aungier St and Dame St libraries alternate late opening until 8 PM as follows;

Monday - Dame St
Tuesday - Aungier St
Wednesday -Dame St
Thursday - Aungier St

Which brings us to Friday, when both AS & DS CLOSE AT 17:15

However, before you decry the possibility of studying on the street on Friday evenings...
to accomodate anyone requiring study space on Friday evenings we've arranged that a classroom be allocated for the duration of the summer.

Room AS 3.3
will be available from 17:15 until 21:00
every Friday evening until term time hours re-commence in Sept

The Aungier St building closes at 21:30 on Friday evenings so we would ask that students availing of this study space ensure they have vacated the building by this time so security staff can lock up.