Magrath Reference

Procedures for Reporting Aleph, SFX, and Metalib (OneSearch) Problems

Definitions of Critical Problems

Aleph: Critical Aleph problems are those that
prevent all searching and/or display of results in the catalog.

SFX: Critical SFX problems are those that
prevent display of the SFX menu or linking to
all SFX-enabled resources.

Metalib: Critical Metalib problems are those
that prevent connection to any Metalib resource.

Procedures for Reporting Critical Problems

During Autosys hours: Autosys hours are 8:00
a.m.-7:00 p.m. Monday through Thursday and 8:00
a.m.-5:00 p.m. Friday. Call autosys at 612
624-9094 to report critical problems. Provide as
many details about the problem as possible. The
text of error messages is especially
helpful. Autosys staff will contact LEO staff.

Outside Autosys hours: Call the Wilson
Circulation staff at 612 624-3321 to report
critical problems. Provide as many details as
possible. The text of error messages is
especially helpful. Circulation staff will
contact OIT staff, who resolve the problem and
keep library staff informed via e-mail.

Procedures for Reporting All Other Problems

Open a Help Desk ticket by going to: http://helpdesk.lib.umn.edu
OR
Call autosys at 612 624-9094; speak to a person or leave a voicemail.

1. To open a help desk ticket:

· Connect to: http://helpdesk.lib.umn.edu

Enter your Internet ID and password.

· Click the New Ticket link.

· Fill in the following fields:

Summary (Required)

Begin the summary with name of the product, i.e.,
Aleph, SFX, or Metalib followed by a very brief
description of the problem or request.

Description (Required)

Provide a more detailed description of the problem or request.

For problems, include

· Date and time the problem occurred.
· Steps you took that led to the problem.
· The error message you got if there was one.
· Any other pertinent details.

For requests, include a clear description of what you need.

Due Date (Optional)

· Click on the Submit button. The ticket will be created.

2. To view the status of your own open
tickets, logon to http://helpdesk.lib.umn.edu,
and click the Ticket History link on the menu bar.

You may also click the Knowledge Base link on the
menu bar to search for solutions to common
problems. LEO staff will be adding to the Knowledge Base over time.

3. LEO staff will review problem reports and
requests each day, and will send you an answer,
fill your request, or refer your problem or request to Ex Libris.

Procedure for Making All Requests

Open a Help Desk ticket by going to: http://helpdesk.lib.umn.edu

Christina Perkins Meyer Phone: (612) 625-0107
Director, Library Enterprise Operations Fax: (612) 626-9353
University of Minnesota Libraries mailto:c-meye@tc.umn.edu

Change in PubMed Limits for Animal and Human Studies

NLM put out this bulletin regarding some changes in MeSH's handling of the taxonomy of the Homonidae. The MeSH changes affect the limits in PubMed for limiting a search to "human" or "animal" studies.

The bulletin is at: http://www.nlm.nih.gov/pubs/techbull/nd04/nd04_human.html

PubMed Bookmarklet and Toolbar Search Plugin Enhanced with U of M Find It Service

Post below is copied from my Molecular Biosciences Virtual Library blog.
-Kevin

Frequent PubMed users may be interested in exploring two browser enhancements which allow users to initiate PubMed searches directly from a web browser window, and which are customized for University of Minnesota users.

Bookmarklets are short JavaScript applications contained in a web browser bookmark. They are often used to initiate a search in a web site database (e.g., in Google or Amazon.com). For frequently searched sites, they are quicker to use than first loading the web site home page and then entering the search on that page.

Several bookmarklets have been written for PubMed. This U Minn PubMed search bookmarklet has the additional advantage of activating the U. Libraries' Find It service in PubMed. Find It helps users link from PubMed to full text articles available through the Libraries. (For more information on Find It, see the Find It FAQ or http://blog.lib.umn.edu/archives/messn006/molbiolibrary/012029.html).

You can add the bookmarklet to your list of bookmarks/favorites or to your bookmark toolbar as you would for any bookmark (e.g., right-click the link above and "Bookmark this link"). The bookmarklet works on current versions of Internet Explorer and Mozilla products, on both PC and Mac platforms.

For Mozilla Firefox users, Chad Fennell at the Bio-Med Library has also whipped up a PubMed toolbar search plugin with similar utility. This tool creates a Find It-enabled toolbar search box, for direct searching PubMed from the browser. (Firefox comes with toolbar searches for Google and several other databases pre-installed. See Firefox Central for more on toolbar search engines.)

Enabling the U. Minnesota PubMed toolbar search is a two-step process. First, go to http://mycroft.mozdev.org/download.html and search for "NCBI PubMed" in the "Install search plugins" section. Follow the instructions to install. This will add the PubMed toolbar search to your browser.

Next, to enable the U Minn Find It function in your toolbar search, replace the file pubmed.src in Program Files/Mozilla Firefox/searchplugins/ with this version of the file.

Note that both the bookmarklet and toolbar search plugin tell PubMed to activate a web cookie (indicating you want U. Minnesota resources), so cookies must be enabled on your browser to use these tools.

Chad and I hope that one or both of these tools proves useful for you!

Ovid full text limit function

Yesterday (9/14/04) the Ovid search engine did away with its "OvidFullText" limit functionality, and replaced it with what it calls simply a "Full Text" limit. The distinction is that previously applying the limit would only yield electronic full text articles available through Journals@Ovid, whereas now the intention is that limiting to "Full Text" will yield any articles we have available in electronic full text, from any provider.

The trick is that for this to work, we have to provide to Ovid the list of all the electronic journals we have available at U of M, including date thresholds/embargo periods/moving walls, etc., for each journal. We now have this information gathered together in the SFX database, and we are approaching Ovid with that dataset to find out if they can use it to make the Full Text limit function accurately. We'll see.

For now, though, this limit DOES NOT WORK AT ALL WELL. Because we haven't told Ovid what we have available online, it assumes we have nothing online -- except what we get through Journals@Ovid. So users will do a search, get say 165 items, and then limit the search to full text, and get only 1 item. Almost certainly we have more full text that is suggested by this!!!

So, if/when you get questions about this from Current Contents, Biosis, or MEDLINE users, that's what's going on. More info to come as we discuss things with Ovid and hopefully find a way to make this thing work right.

- Kevin

Clothing and Textiles Database

Clothing and Textiles Db (CD) back up. Useful subject headings/kw: body marking – Africa ; ecoregions

ERIC

Is there any way other way to download directly from the index? Many questions about this tonight

FAOSTAT

emailed autosys and EF – access not working on CD-ROM (northernmost one)

Index Help – Output Guide

Check in the Big Red Notebook under “Index Help” for a Wilson handout called “Output Guide” which lists software (First Search, OVID, etc.) whether or not it does full text, how to mark records, print, download, and email.

- Terry

PubMed

Is there a secret password for PubMed? Patron in BioSci couldn’t download an article – asked for “special password” – I told her to ask Bio-Med

- Terry