Accessing GPC Electronic Resources from the Workplace

This is an ongoing problem with no attractive solutions, but I thought it might be good to have it documented as questions come up about it every now and again.

If a patron cannot access databases from off-campus, for whatever reason, you can just refer them to me. However, if it's after hours, or you'd like to do a little preliminary troubleshooting, the very first question you should ask them is if they are at their home or their office. If they "can't pull up" GPC electronic resources, i.e. they just see a blank screen or some sort of screen saying that their browser was unable to access the site, donuts to dollars they are in their office. And here's why I'm so sure of this.

If they can't pull up any GPC-provided electronic resources, but they can still get into the GALILEO-provided stuff, it’s highly likely that this is an issue with their company's firewall. As previously mentioned, we're running off-campus access to our electronic resources through EZproxy for authentication purposes. Ezproxy runs on a non-standard port, and corporate firewalls usually block the traffic on this port. If the patron can speak to their IT department about it, tell them that they need to be able to do web logins on 2443. (Understandably, most people don't want to talk to their IT department about not being able to do homework from the office.) There's not really anything else we can do on our end, but they should be able to access the electronic resources from home with no problems.

Of course, if they are pressed for time and can't wait until they get home, you can always offer to email them the articles they need. Our vendors might be a little iffy about this kind of usage, but if the patron has logged into EZproxy, which they must have to discover that they couldn't access the resources, it seems obvious that they're an authorized user.

Now, we can configure EZproxy to run on a more standard port, but I suspect it wasn't done in the beginning because it was felt that this would cause more trouble than it would solve. If we have it configured on the standard port, I can't add resources to EZproxy without getting the network folks at OIT involved, which means putting in a ticket. As great as those guys are, they couldn't do what they needed to on their end nearly as fast as I can handle things on my end with the current configuration. Basically, the current configuration gives me a lot more freedom to work with EZproxy independently, and the other configuration would add extra steps and layers every time we add or remove a resource.

However, if you all feel strongly that the corporate firewall thing is a more serious problem than I'm seeing on my end, please let me know. I'm certainly open to trying a new configuration if everyone thinks it is best for our patrons.

Accessing Permalinks from Off-Campus

Hi all! Hope everyone had a good T-Day. I've gotten an excellent question from Amy B. and I thought that you all might be interested in the answer.

One of her students was having trouble accessing EBSCOhost permalinks from off-campus and emailed asking for the EBSCOhost password.

We don't have an individual student login for EBSCOhost, or any of our other databases. We use proxy software called EZproxy to authenticate our students from off-campus, and GALILEO has proxy software as well.

Some GALILEO databases will automatically append a proxy referral URL to permalinks. (EBSCO is one of them, so I still haven't figured out how this student got an unproxied permalink.) This proxy referral URL will allow the user to be authenticated when clicking on the link. (It might ask them for the GALILEO password. I'm on-campus right now, so I can't test that.)

Here's what a proxied permalink from Academic Search Complete looks like. The section in bold is the proxy referral URL. That "dek1" represents GPC.

http://proxygsu-dek1.galileo.usg.edu/login?url=http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=a9h&AN=5507063&site=ehost-live

If the URL just said something like this ...

http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=a9h&AN=5507063&site=ehost-live

... then it isn't proxied, and patrons wouldn't be able to use it smoothly from off-campus.

Databases that we subscribe to outside of GALILEO are still proxied, but the proxy referral URL looks a little different.

http://ezproxy.gpc.edu:2048/login?url=http://www.artstor.org

But how does it all actually work, you say? Well, that's a great question. Here it is in a nutshell.

When you are off-campus, you are outside of our IP range. The IP range is how the databases recognize you as an authorized user, e.g. paying customer. If you're using a permalink without a proxy referral URL, the databases don't know that you are an authorized user and they don't let you in. The good news is, this is very easy to remedy.

If you open a permalink and get some message about not being logged in, open another browser window and log into EZproxy. You can do this by going to our list of databases (http://www.gpc.edu/library/articles.htm), clicking on any one of them, and entering your GPC login and password on the screen provided. Then, open your permalink and it should work just fine.

Remember, that EZproxy operates by placing a cookie on your PC. So, if you have your browser set to delete cookies when you close the browser window, you'll need to leave a window open at all times or you'll be logged out of EZproxy. If this happens, you can always log back in.

I have a webpage set up that offers some more details about off-campus database access, if you'd like to take a look. (http://www.gpc.edu/library/ezproxy.html)

That's the basic gist of it, but if you have any further questions, please let me know. Also, please feel free to copy and paste this post into an email, cannibalize it for a LibGuide, whatever you need to do with it.

Yep. Another OPAC Bug.

This is rapidly becoming the Bug Blog, isn't it? (Say that five times fast. Bug Blog. Bug Blog. Blug Blog. D'oh!)

Anyway, just wanted to let you all know that I've confirmed that the odd OPAC behavior that some of you have been reporting is, in fact, a known bug.

After doing a Quick Search in the OPAC, you can sort your results by Title, Author, or Pub Date. However, if you use one of these sorts, you will be taken to the Exact Search screen when you click on a hit, not to the full record for your hit.

This shouldn’t happen when you're using the Exact or Keyword Searches. If you do a Keyword Search and use the index "Keyword Anywhere", this should give you the same results you'd get with the Quick Search, only you'll be able to sort them.

Of course, saying that this a known bug doesn’t mean that I, or the server site, can fix it, sadly. But, it's nice to know it's known, right? :)

It may be something that is fixed in later versions of the OPAC software, but last I heard we were not upgrading WebVoyage (the software behind the OPAC), since we're moving to GIL-Find. GIL-Find, knock on wood, should not have these sorting problems.

Please let me know if you have any questions.

OPAC Call Slip Bug w/ Newton Faculty DVDs

Eagle Eye Amy B. alerted me to a problem one of her patrons had in requesting something in the OPAC, and, as a result, I've uncovered an odd bug that everyone should be aware of.

If a patron is trying to request a DVD for intercampus loan, through the OPAC, and there is a Newton Faculty DVD holding on the record, there is a small chance that the request will be denied and they'll get that "Your Patron Initiated Request failed" message.

As best as I can tell, here's what's happening. The Newton Faculty DVD location is not available for intercampus loan. (It's Call Slip that's running this.) If Call Slip latches onto the Newton Faculty DVD holding first, instead of seeing that it's unavailable and just rolling over to the next available holding, it's just denying the request.

So, if you encounter a patron having this problem, go into Circulation and place the request for them on the exact item record that they want. That will work just fine. Then, drop me a line with the title you're having problems with and the barcode of the item you placed the request on. I won't bore you with the details, but I believe that part of this problem is caused by the MFHD ID numbers, and I may be apply a little manual fix to make sure that it doesn't happen in the future on that bib record.

I'm going to report this to Ex Libris, but there's no telling when or if they'll fix it. So, just be on the lookout for it and tell me whenever you find an instance of this behavior. Just let me know if you have any questions!

Database assesment tools

JISC Academic Database Assessment Tool -site provides access to detailed information and title lists for major bibliographic and full text databases, and key service information for database and eBook content platforms. Allows to compare title lists, interface features, etc.
E-Reference Ratings - Library Journal rating of electronic resources in 16 subject areas. Rating criteria include scope, writing, design, ease of use, etc.

Library of Congress Subject Heading Change

Thought that you all might be interested in a recent LCSH change that I came across while doing authority control. Alien labor has become the far nicer-sounding Foreign workers. You could subdivide the earlier heading geographically, and that hasn't changed, so you'll see headings like, Foreign workers, Guatemalan -- Nebraska, and so on.

Just let me know if you have any questions.

GSU Copyright Case Development

A very intriguing protective order was granted in the GSU copyright infringement case. The Scholarly Communications @ Duke blog has a glaring typo, but a great summary.

New Systems LibGuide

Hi all. Just wanted to let you know that I've made a LibGuide for systems documents.

http://guides.gpc.edu/systems

You will also be able access the page through the Library Technical Services Department pages, by clicking on any of the "Systems" links. (As soon as I can get them up there.)

The page includes procedures documents and archived reports that were previously on a password-protected page. They contain no personally-identifiable data, so we thought that you all might like to have a peek at them. These reports are updated each semester, the first of the 2009s will be up there soon.

If there's anything else that you'd like to see on this page, please feel free to let me know. Hope you enjoy it!

EBSCO SmartText Searching - GALILEO response

I heard back from GALILEO regarding my previous post. Yes, the automatic switch to SmartText Searching is a new feature in the EBSCOHost databases. Some of us at Clarkston have concerns about this more Google-like search which may retrieve hundreds of thousands of results. The automatic switch occurs when a boolean search retrieves zero results. Our students have enough trouble selecting good articles without having the results multiplied and diluted. I've confirmed with Tessa that this feature can be turned off at individual institutions, so perhaps we should discuss this at our various libraries and then the Reference Committee can decide whether to turn the default off. I think we would still be able to use SmartText Searching (it's an option below the "boolean/phrase" default on the EBSCO search page) but it would not automatically switch.

Ebsco SmartText Searching

Has anyone else observed this "problem" which I blogged on the Clarkston Reference blog today? Here's a link to the post.

GALILEO Database Listings

A while back, someone asked me if there was a way to figure out if a specific institution had access to a specific GALILEO database. At the time, I couldn't find anything, and I still can't find anything that precise. However, I did just run across a page that lists databases and the consortia that have access to them. If you haven't seen it before, it's here.

http://www.usg.edu/galileo/about/inst/db_lists/

It doesn't drill down to the institution level, but it does give you something to go on.

Baker and Taylor and E-books

Baker and Taylor is now offering e-books from Gale. The press-realise is at http://www.ybp.com/newsarchive/0309_gale.html.

New Galileo video tutorials

New Galileo nice and short video tutorials are at http://www.usg.edu/galileo/help/searching/tutorials.phtml. We can link directly to specific tutorials or embed them into LibGuides pages.

Credo Reference Review

Good review of Credo Reference, one of our electronic resources trials, in February 15th's LJ.

ACRL Requests

Hi all,

I am going to ACRL Convention next week, and wanted to offer my "delivery services" (via my suitcase) if anyone needs me to visit any vendors, etc. to bring back information. Also if there are any particular sessions that you've heard about that you want me to try and get to, please let me know. LibGuides is one topic I will be bringing some info back on (at Eva's request), and I'm also planning on going to luncheons with EBSCO and Springer. I'm happy to try to get to anything, so please just email or call.

Let the Trials Begin!

The Electronic Resources selection pages are now finalized.

The official trial period is March 2 through March 31, but some of the trials are already up, and some are ending early. Anything like this has been noted in bold type under the name of the resource.

Please be aware that there are two different pages this year, one for resources with trials.

http://www.gpc.edu/library/technicalservices/db/databasetrials.htm

And one for resources we are considering without trials.

http://www.gpc.edu/library/technicalservices/db/nontrials.htm

There are also hyperlinks on each page, leading to the other one, and separate printer-friendly lists.

It was originally thought that the resources we weren't doing trials of were all ebooks, but some turned out to be databases, so I have noted in parenthesis what is what. (With Credo Reference, I had no idea what to call it.)

We've got a mix of pricing plans this year, subscription and perpetual access (purchase) models, so please pay careful attention to that column. With the addition of ebooks, there are a lot more caveats to consider, so be sure not to miss the "Special Considerations for Some E-Resources" document.

Please let me know if you have any questions, or encounter any problems, and happy evaluating!

GPC Libraries on Twitter and Facebook!

Just wanted to let you know that Clarkston's new Circulation Librarian, Ameet Doshi, has gotten us set up on Twitter and Facebook. If you'd like to check it out, I've put links on the Ask a Librarian page, under "Chat with a Librarian".

I don't know if Ameet needs any help managing these new web outposts of GPC Libraries, but I'm sure he wouldn't mind hearing from you.

Clarkston Water Leak

As you may have already heard, Clarkston has been visited by its now annual water leak. This time it got the circulating stacks, call numbers N through P.

Books that were in that area and not water damaged have been temporarily relocated to trucks on the right side of the aisle. Books that have been too damaged to circulate have been given the location "Clarkston Water Damaged" in the OPAC, which should prevent patrons from requesting them. Eventually, these records will be removed from the OPAC, but we need to leave them in there for the time being to run reports on the damage.

Note: This location will prevent students from requesting these items in the OPAC, but I have no way of preventing librarians and staff from requesting them in the Circulation Module, so please double check the location of any Clarkston book before putting a request on it in the back-end. If the location is Clarkston Water Damaged, please inform the patron that these books have been permanently damaged by a water leak and removed from circulation.

And please let me know if you have any trouble with the OPAC or the back-end not behaving as expected with these items.

Thanks, everyone!