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.