December 2010 Archives

from EBSCO:

We are pleased to announce two significant EBSCOhost releases, the first of which is now available. The other release, coming soon, involves the expansion of multilanguage searching in EBSCO Discovery Service (EDS) and EBSCOhost® to include over forty-five (45) languages. This means that users will experience improved search results in both EBSCO Discovery Service (EDS) (including your non-English catalog records) and EBSCOhost databases. Learn more about these exciting developments from this top story.

Available now is the release covering several new features for EBSCOhost and EBSCO Discovery Service users, fully described on this page.

Please visit EBSCO's Support Site to learn about all of EBSCO's products, search among thousands of FAQs, download Flash tutorials, Help Sheets or User Guides, or communicate with Technical Support at any time, using the EBSCO Online Support Form.

from EBSCO:

Our development team has completed the research and development needed to correct the issues occurring with the "Hide on Reader" options within the Collection Editor and Upload features. All updates are currently in the testing phase. The expected resolution for these issues is scheduled for shortly after the holidays, and we will send a communication to all A-to-Z administrators upon completion of this maintenance.

Until the maintenance is completed, please continue to refrain from using the Collection Editor and Upload features; instead, contact Customer Satisfaction at support@ebsco.com to assist with your Collection Editor or Upload questions.

Once again, we apologize for the inconvenience caused by this maintenance and for the length of time needed to correct these issues. Thank you for your patience during this time.

Questions? Contact EBSCO Customer Satisfaction. Phone: (800) 758-5995, option 2 (U.S.A. and Canada), 00-800-3272-6000 (International Toll-Free), +1-978-356-6500, option 6 (International Toll). Support is available 24 hours a day, Monday through Friday. Email: support@ebsco.com.

Context-sensitive help pages are also available to assist you. For more in-depth training, classes are available via http://training.ebsco.com. To receive the EBSCO Training Update newsletter, sign up at http://support.ebsco.com/training/TNSignup.php.

from ProQuest:

As this year winds down, it's the perfect time to sign up for our popular training webinars on the all-new ProQuest platform.

Our training webinars have been filling up fast! So we encourage you to sign up for a session now--and hit the ground running in the New Year.

Here are just a few of the sessions available:

• Introduction to the New ProQuest Platform:
  Wednesday, December 22, Thursday, December 30, and Thursday, January 6


• New ProQuest Platform FAQ's (Frequently Asked Questions):
  Wednesday, December 15


• My Research: Monday, December 20 and Tuesday, December 28


• ProQuest Administrator Module (for librarians): Tuesday, December 21,
  Monday, December 27, and Wednesday, January 5


• K-12 Introduction to the New ProQuest Platform: Monday, January 10 and
  Friday, February 4


• Additional Sessions

These 60-minute webinars are a great way for you, your staff, and your users to become familiar with the all-new ProQuest platform--and to see just how easy it is to search, find, use, and share information--within and across resources from ProQuest. Once you attend these sessions, we think you'll agree that the ProQuest platform is simply the best search and discovery experience in the industry!

Sign up for a webinar today--and hit the ground running while you preview the new platform in the weeks ahead.

If you haven't done so already, check out our new demo too.

from Oxford:

Oxford is proud to unveil a dramatically new OED Online: a redesigned, reengineered site that contains not only new content, but a new look, new features and functionality, and a wealth of changes and updates that will improve the research experience.

OED Online is now comprised not only of the Oxford English Dictionary in full, but also 2009's acclaimed Historical Thesaurus of the OED. Forty years in the making, the Historical Thesaurus of the Oxford English Dictionary is the first historical thesaurus to include almost the entire vocabulary of English, from Old English to the present day. The new site also offers publicly available editorial features, providing guides to the OED content and regular commentaries on topical issues in the story of the English language.

In addition to new content, new features and functionality allow users to search and browse the OED by an expanded variety of criteria not possible before, including subject, region, usage, and language of origin; see detailed information about the major sources of content drawn upon to create the OED; view search results as a timeline; and personalize their research experience through saving searches and entries to their own customized profile.

From John Simpson, Editor in Chief: "The OED continues its tradition of innovation. Indeed, the dictionary is no longer only a resource you approach for information about a word. The interweaving of the Historical Thesaurus of the OED and other linking features ensure that readers can be taken on a journey through the language, from their first point of contact on through textual, visual, or graphical links which all help to illuminate our understanding of the language, culture, and history of English speakers around the world."

Those interested in a live tour of the new site may join one of the interactive demonstrations: OED Online Demo Schedule

from EBSCO:

EBSCO A-to-Z® will be unavailable on Tuesday, 21 December 2010 from 8:00 AM to 9:30 AM Eastern Time (13:00 - 14:30 GMT) to allow for necessary maintenance.

Questions? Contact EBSCO Customer Satisfaction. Phone: (800) 758-5995, option 2 (U.S.A. and Canada), 00-800-3272-6000 (International Toll-Free), +1-978-356-6500, option 6 (International Toll). Support is available 24 hours a day, Monday through Friday. Email: support@ebsco.com.

from EBSCO:

The maintenance to the Collection Editor and the Upload feature is nearing completion and we expect that they will be fully functional no later than 10 December, 2010.

Until the maintenance is completed, please contact Customer Satisfaction at support@ebsco.com to assist with your Collection Editor or Upload questions. We apologize for the inconvenience caused by this maintenance, and appreciate your patience during this time.

Questions? Contact EBSCO Customer Satisfaction. Phone: (800) 758-5995, option 2 (U.S.A. and Canada), 00-800-3272-6000 (International Toll-Free), +1-978-356-6500, option 6 (International Toll). Support is available 24 hours a day, Monday through Friday. Email: support@ebsco.com.

Currently, Minitex works with Solinet to place orders and renewals for LexisNexis products. As of today, Solinet has not released any information about how 2011 orders and renewals will be handled. Customer support will remain the same for now: academicsupport@lexisnexis.com or 800-897-3419; additionally, libraries can contact Minitex CPERS. Minitex will continue to handle invoicing for all orders and renewals. We will post more information as we receive it.

LexisNexis emailed customers the following announcement:

To sharpen our focus on our core news, business, and legal research products, we at LexisNexis Academic & Library Solutions decided to divest several specialized research products, primarily covering government documents and historical collections. As a result, on November 30, 2010, the ProQuest company purchased print and microform publications bearing the Congressional Information Service (CIS) and University Publications of America (UPA) imprints, as well as related online products from Reed Elsevier, the parent company of LexisNexis.

LexisNexis will continue to serve academic institutions and public libraries with our LexisNexis Academic, Scholastic, and Library Express online database solutions, and we will continue to support the administrative functions of academic institutions and public libraries with our professional research solutions.

Enclosed are frequently asked questions that we anticipate our customers may have regarding this sale. While we have attempted to anticipate all of the questions our customers may have, there will no doubt be a few that we have missed. If you would like any further information or have any additional questions, please call 1-800-227-9597 x57645 to be connected to your Account Manager. In addition, you can review the list of Account Managers for each state on our wiki at http://wiki.lexisnexis.com/academic/index.php?title=Academic.

FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS AROUND SALE OF CIS AND UPA PRODUCT LINES FROM LEXISNEXIS TO PROQUEST

Which products has LexisNexis sold to ProQuest?
LexisNexis has sold the following products to ProQuest:

• All CIS microform and print collections, including CIS Index, SRI, and IIS


• All UPA microform and print collections


• LexisNexis Congressional online database, including Statutes at Large, Congressional Hearings Digital Collection, Congressional Record Permanent Digital Collection, Congressional Research Digital Collection, US Serial Set Digital Collection, and US Serial Set Maps Collection


• LexisNexis Statistical Insight online database, including Statistical DataSets


• LexisNexis Government Periodical Index online database


• LexisNexis Primary Sources in US History online database

from Oxford University Press. Note that OUP has already emailed notification to OED Online subscribers.

The new OED Online has now relaunched, and is available at www.oed.com. Read the letter from the Chief Editor of the OED to find out more about the new features, design, functionality, and content.

You were sent details of what the relaunch means for you as an administrator by email last week. Full details are available here.

Links that were pointing to dictionary.oed.com, and any similar pages, should be immediately updated so that your users seamlessly access the new site. Please read through the full details, and take any action that you need to, as soon as you can.

If you would like any new publicity material, please contact us quoting the quantities you require.
Further information for librarians, including frequently asked questions and tips for promoting the site can be found at www.oed.com/public/libraries/for-librarians. We would particularly like to draw your attention to the regular training webinars we will be running for the next few months. These are open to everyone. The first live session is on December 2, 2010 – sign up here.

If you have any technical queries or questions please do not hesitate to contact us.

We hope you and your users enjoy the intuitive new ways of exploring the English language through the OED.

Best wishes,
Oxford University Press