Enhancements to Cambridge Journals Online (CJO)

Cambridge University Press has added the following enhanced functionality to its online journals

• A Preview link for each article on the Table of Contents and Search Results pages, allowing readers to expand a box and see Abstract, HTML Article Structure, Figures and Tables, and References as separate tabs.
  

• Previous titles of journals are now included in brackets next to the current journal title in ‘By Title’ and ‘By Subject’ listings, as well as being included in the Cite Search.

Did you know you can view the full list of titles available in Cambridge Journals Online and the extent of coverage of each title by clicking on the Index tab in the eJournals page, scroll down to Cambridge Journals Online and click on the 'view titles' link.

To learn more about how to search and use the features available in Cambridge Journals Online, click here

Wiley Interscience Site Maintenance

The Wiley Interscience database will be unavailable during the following times:

DATE:

Saturday - July 18, 2009

TIME:

— beginning —
05:00 am New York
10:00 London / 09:00 GMT
17:00 Singapore


DURATION:

approximately 2 hours


DATE:

Monday - July 20, 2009

TIME:

— beginning —
04:00 am New York
09:00 London / 08:00 GMT
16:00 Singapore


DURATION:

up to 1 hour

New Search Features in JSTOR

JSTOR will introduce a new "faceted search" feature in early July.

The faceted search will offer a number of different options to expand and refine search results. Faceted searching and search results will allow you to easily visualize how the returned articles are distributed among categories, or "facets."

For instance, with faceted search you can see how many of your results are in each discipline, how many are book reviews or full-length articles, and how many articles contain images, among other options. You'll be able to modify your search results by choosing specific facets, and all search results pages will now incorporate the facets sidebar to make modifications easier.

This represents a major improvement in the search options within JSTOR, which currently lack the sophisticated features of some of the databases on subscription.

Library Website and Associated Services

As you may know the Library has been trialling a new look website.  

The trial ends this coming Friday the 19th June and the new website will become live this coming Monday 22nd June 2009.  As part of this we will be making some changes to the web site and some of the associated services.  These changes are listed below:

• The old website will now be decommissioned. To date users have been able to navigate to the old or the new version from an intermediary web page – this will be deleted on Monday 22nd June with the links of the University website titled ‘Library’ both leading to the new website.

• The Library Portal (which contains the library catalogue service) will be edited to limit the functions associated with searching the library catalogue. The additional information in the Portal (the tabs entitled Databases +, Reference and Support) will be removed because this information can now be found on the Library website.

• Subject guides for Business and Law to be added to the website. Preliminary versions of these subject guides will be added to the website from Monday.  We will be working at developing these over the Winter term and aim to have complete versions available to staff and students prior to the commencement of Semester 2/2009.

• The Library FAQs (Frequently Asked Questions) will now be visible from the central pane of the home page of the Library website. This service helps to resolve your questions and demystify some of the services on offer from the Library.  Directly above the FAQs is a feed from the Library Blog.  Both of these feeds are updated when the source service is updated.

• Library Catalogue, e-Journal search, SuperSearch and Library FAQs to be ‘embedded’ within the Library website. To date these services have been provided in parallel with the website and have had their own interfaces.  These services will now be ‘embedded’ within the website and have the interfaces modified slightly to standardise the look and feel of the service.  This is part of a long term strategy to integrate and simplify Library discovery services.  Embedding of the services also helps the Library to track usage of these services and to respond to usage patterns when we develop the services.

• Library Blog interface to be redesigned. In the near future we plan provide the blog with a new look which makes it more consistent with the look and feel of other Library online services.  We will then embed this service within the website (see previous item)

TopCited ?

TopCited is a service provided as an adjunct to the Scopus database.

TopCited provides a subject-specific overview of the top 20 cited articles in the past 3, 4 or 5 years of publication. You can also find them displayed on Google maps taking the first author’s affiliation as the point of reference.

Because we are a subscriber to Scopus you can click through to the abstract for each of the top 20 results and access the full text where we have access to the journal in question.

As an example you can track the top cited Nursing article from the last 5 years via Scopus to where we have access on the Science Direct platform by following the links as they appear in the browser windows.

Wiley Interscience down time Saturday June13th

The Wiley Interscience database will be unavailable from 9pm WST/ 11pm EST this coming Saturday for scheduled maintenance.

Results of Library WebSite Survey

As part of the trial of the new Library website, the Library conducted a survey of 100 Library customers.

Most of the respondents were undergraduate students (73) with a smattering of postgraduate students (12), University staff (14) and one alumnus.  The Schools of Education (34), Law (17), Arts and Sciences (13) and Medicine (10) were most heavily represented.

Positive Feedback

The feedback was generally very positive, with most respondents make supportive statements about the site being easier to navigate (49), looking better (33), being more informative (12).  A number of respondents liked the new 'databases' page and the ability to quickly access a 'Style Guide'.

Negative Feedback

The negative comments were considerably fewer and few of them had more than one person making the comment. 

Responses

One that comment that did occur a few times was a request for easier access to the 'My Account' feature in the 'library portal'.  This seemed such a sensible suggestion that we added a link on the home page below the 'search' box (by the way you can launch a keyword search into the portal from this 'search' box).

Likewise a number of respondents asked where the Law and Business subject guides are.  These are currently being drafted and will be added to the site in the Winter break.  We apologise that these have not been available to date.

Some respondents stated that they found that there is too much information on the site and that it is 'confusing'.  In designing the site we tried to 'flatten' it down to reduce the number of clicks to get at individual services or 'bits' of information.  As you will appreciate Library service have become very complex in the age of the internet and we can only reduce the volume of information so far without leaving out vital services.  As always there is a balance between too much and not enough information.  If you can't find what you are looking for please ask at one of the libraries either in person or via email . You can also provide feedback about the site in this way.

Conclusion

Thanks to those who provided us with the feedback.

The two websites will continue in parallel until July 2009, when the old site will be decommissioned.

Research Repository Grows

The University's Research Repository (ResearchOnline@ND) continues to grow in volume and usage.

Library staff are actively collecting research outputs from academic staff (journal articles, books, book chapters, and conference papers) and have begun the process of describing these and uploading them.  As they are uploaded these outputs are harvested by internet search engines and become visible to the world via the web.

In the month of April there were 680 visits to the site and 1,597 'pageviews'.  42% of this traffic came direct to the site (i.e by using the URL or a bookmark), 37% came from search engines (primarily Google), and 21% from 'referring' sites (such as the Library home page).

Around two-thirds of the usage is from within Australia but a fifth was from the USA and there was traffic from the UK, Brazil, Malaysia, New Zealand, Canada, Trinidad and Tobago, India and Saudi Arabia. 

Already individual academics have been contacted by individuals overseas who have discovered their work via the Repository.

New Library Website Trial

The University Library has launched a trial of our new website.

The Library recognises that introducing a new website is a major change to make during during a semester. As a result the new website will be available in parallel with the existing website, allowing you to choose the one you prefer for the duration of the trial.

The links on the University website labeled ‘Library Portal' and ‘Libraries' will both now point to a new page allowing you to make a choice about which service you wish to use - the new website, the existing website or the Library Portal.

The new website contains access to our resource discovery tools such as the Portal, eJournal Search, SuperSearch, Subject Guides* and the Research Repository; as well as information about the six libraries and all of the information you require to use the services at these libraries (* The Subject Guides have to date been known as LibraryOnline - we have changed this name to Subject Guides in response to feedback from students and as part of the launch of the trial of the new website).

The trial will continue for the rest of Semester 1/2009 and during the trial we are asking staff and students to provide us with feedback about the new site. We would like to hear about elements of it you find difficult to navigate, gaps in the information presented or what you like about it. This information will be used to further refine the website ahead of a formal mid-year launch of the service. You will be advised of the final launch date once it is settled. At that time the existing website will be decommissioned and the links on the University website to the Library will point to the new website only.

You can provide feedback using a very simple online survey. Links to this survey are on the ‘Home' page of the new website. Please tell us what you think.

ANZAC Day Holiday 2009

Saturday 25th April is a national holiday for ANZAC day. Accordingly the libraries constituting the University Library are all closed.

Monday 27th is also a Public Holiday in WA. The library at the Broome Campus will be closed that day. The libraries at the Fremantle Campus will open as if Monday were a weekend day. that is the libraries will be open as follows

• Galvin Medical Library 10am to 1pm
• St Teresa's library 12.30pm to 3.30pm
  
• Craven Law Library 3pm to 6pm
• Students are encouraged to move between libraries during the 30 minute overlap if they require a study venue for longer than 3 hours.
  

Monday 27th is not a Public Holiday in NSW so both Sydney Campus libraries will be open according to their usual Opening Hours.

All Library opening hours can be viewed on the Library website.