Christmas Holidays Closure

Just a reminder that the library, and indeed the college will be closed over the holiday period.
The library is closing at 1pm today, Thursday 23rd December, and will re-open at 9.00am on Tuesday 4th January 2011.
Don't forget that you can renew Library items online yourself via the online library catalogue (your login details are the same as for Moodle and college PCs)

Merry Christmas 2010 and a very Happy New Year 2011 to you all!

5pm closure Tuesday 21st Dec. - another snowy day!

Today as well the 2 libraries will close early, at 5pm, as the weather conditions are still inclement.
It is our intention however to open as normal tomorrow morning Wed. 22nd Dec. (9.00 in AS and 9.30 in DS)

Library loan due dates - the sequel

Due to the return of the inclement weather, we've extended the loan dates on all books due back this week until January 5th. I hope that we don't have to extend them again, but we'll review the situation in the new year

Monday 20th Dec. - Early closure

The 2 libraries will close at 7pm this evening Monday 20/12/10 due to the snow but it is our intention to open as normal tomorrow morning (9.00 in AS and 9.30 in DS).

Student entrepreneur of the year award

DBS in association with First Ireland, are proud to announce that they are sponsoring the Student Entrepreneur of the Year Award 2011. If you want to win:

• €1,500 in cash
• mentoring from industry specialists (7 days)
• Modern office and warehouse facilities (with no utility costs)
• Access to ICT infrastructure
• Use of board and meeting rooms

Then read on...

What you need to do is come with a business idea for a product or service aimed at the Irish market. Ideally though, your idea could be expanded to the UK and perhaps European markets. Your idea needs to be presented in the form of a business plan that doesn't exceed 5,000 words.

If you're interested, the closing date, by which all entries must be submitted, is 31st March. Further details can be found here.

Previous exam papers

During the exam period, we try to signpost where students can access previous years' exam papers. This semester has seen a change in the layout and indeed URLof Moodle so all previous postings on this subject are invalid. If you want to see previous years exam papers, click here. You will need to login however. Login with the same details that you use to login to college PCs or the online library catalogue. If you don't know those - contact our IT department.

Christmas Closure

As ever, the library, and indeed the college will be closed over the holiday period. The library will close at 1pm on Thursday 23rd December and re-open at 9.00am on Tuesday 4th January.
If you need to renew your books on or before Thursday 23rd, don't forget you can do so on the online library catalogue. Your login details are the same as for Moodle and college PCs.

Google Chrome and PDFs

Google, in their quest for galactic domination, have developed their own browser, Chrome. It's not bad, but I still prefer Firefox, particularly because of the range of add-ons available. Very recently, our attention has been drawn to the way that Chrome handles PDF requests. Not very well it seems. Chrome has a newly built plug-in for viewing PDFs which may confuse people. When you are searching EBSCO, and want to look at the full-text of an article, clicking the full-text link may bring up a grey, but otherwise blank screen. Don't panic! Instead, look at your browser window. Below the URL address box, there should be a blue menu bar. One of the options on this bar is "Download PDF".




If you click this, Chrome will open the PDF in a new browser tab.

If you don't have "Download PDF" as an option on the menu bar, perhaps you don't have the PDF viewer plugin installed or enabled. You can check by typing chrome://plugins/ in the address box and looking for "Chrome PDF viewer".

If you are still having problems, here are some suggestions from Google themselves

You can also disable the Chrome PDF viewer (and switch to Adobe reader, if you have Adobe reader, that is) by:

Click Wrench icon located next to address box and select "Options"

Click the "Under The Hood" tab

Click "Content Settings" button under "Privacy"

Select "Plug-ins" and click "Disable individual plug-ins" (a new browser window may appear - chrome://plugins/)

Disable "Chrome PDF Viewer" which should...

...Enable "Adobe Reader 9" (Adobe PDF Plug-In For Firefox and Netscape "9.4.1")

Single sign on is coming to DBS library

We'll shortly be starting a trial of OpenAthens, which, to go all technical for a minute, is a framework for managing users' identity information and enabling secure access to an institution's electronic resources through a single username and password (single sign-on). I'll repeat that last bit. A single username and password for accessing all electronic resources. Now it may be that there are one or two resources that don't support this, but won't it be great to have if not all, then the vast majority of resources accessible in the one place via one username and password?

As we're starting with a trial, we can probably only make a few resources available this way initially. We'll get this set up for the new year, and more information will be forthcoming then.

Justis and Warc

Access to Justis off-campus has been restored, but only in EBSCOHost Integrated Search. To access Justis off-campus, go to the e-library page and open the EBSCOHost Integrated Search link. Login with your username and password (student number/date of birth), go to the A to Z database list and scroll down for Justis. You can search Justis on this platform though retrieving a search result will take you to the native Justis interface.

Warc is also available through the EBSCOHost Integrated Search platform in the same manner as above. Stand alone access continues through Moodle, for the moment.

In the new year, we hope to vastly simplify how you access databases off-campus. Stay tuned!

A gentle reminder about passwords

When you are first set up on the college's computer network, you have a standard password. While this password is unique to you, it's not going to take a Ph'D in cryptology to work out what it is. It is in your best interests to change your password as soon as possible, particularly if you use your college PC account to do any printing. An ideal password is long and has letters, punctuation, symbols, and numbers, but to be honest stick to something that you'll remember; use something that's memorable to you but not known by anyone else.

Friday 10th December 2010 - early closure

Dear students,
We are not forecasting another heavy snowfall over Ireland for next Friday, 10th Dec., but we will close the two libraries earlier than usual that day to facilitate staff attendance to DBS Christmas party.
So on Friday 10th, Library services will finish at 7pm but will resume as usual on Saturday, 9-5pm and the two libraries will also be open on Sunday 12th Dec., 11-5pm.

Friday early closure

The library will close at 5.30pm this evening Friday 03/12/10. It is our intention to open as normal both Saturday (9.30am to 5.00pm) and Sunday (11am to 5pm). Hopefully the weather will assent to this.

...And more closure notifications

The library will close at 5pm this evening but will open tomorrow as normal. All tomorrow's classes are cancelled however, except for ACCA Master Class (which will commence at 10.00 am rather than as originally scheduled at 9.00am) and the CBE exams scheduled to take place at 2.00 pm and 5.00 pm. All weekend classes are currently expected to run as scheduled. It is intended that all college buildings will be open as normal tomorrow.

Class cancellation

All evening classes today, Thursday 2nd December are cancelled.

Library Loan Due Dates

Due to the ongoing inclement weather, all loans that were due back today, tomorrow and Saturday have now been extended to Monday. If the weather hasn't improved by then, we'll think about extending due dates a little further.

Oh the weather outside is frightful ... part deux

Due to adverse weather conditions, please note that the library is closing at 5pm this evening and will reopen at 12pm tomorrow, Thursday. The due date on all books due back today will be changed so that they are due back tomorrow
All classes are cancelled for this evening and until 12.00 midday tomorrow, Thursday 2nd December. The College will be closed from 6.30pm this evening, but will be open as normal tomorrow morning.
Edit: it's Thursday morning and we're open as normal

Oh the weather outside is frightful...

I was going to say but the library is so delightful, but you all know that already. We're in a period of bad weather, so it's understandable if returning library books is not your top priority right now. Here are a couple of tips to avoid overdue books:

* double check the due date of your books and make sure to renew them online before they become overdue
* don't borrow 3-day loan items if you are not sure to be able to come back to the Library after three days (as 3-day loans are not renewable!)

You can renew books yourself online. Just click on the 'Access my library account' iconon the Library website homepage and login with the same login details as the ones you use for Moodle and for the College PCs (you can also find a detailed guide on how to renew online in print in the Library or on the Library website).

If you are having difficulties renewing your items online, email us at library@dbs.ie or call us at: AS Library: 01-4177572 / DS Library: 01-4178745

We will look sympathetically on students who can't make it into the library, but obviously the more notice you give us, the more sympathetic we'll be.