Online catalog workshops

The UIUC Library is offering a series of workshops on using the online catalog. Workshop description, dates and times, and a link to register for workshops can be found here:
http://www.library.uiuc.edu/ugl/howdoi/PETworkshops.html

Difficulties with the on-line catalog

We have been experiencing performance problems with I-Share this week—slow response time, system timeouts, and problems with transactions not completing successfully under these conditions. We are taking a two pronged approach to the problem:

In the short term, and as a temporary ameliorative measure, we are going to do the following:

As of this evening, we will revert to a 5 minute session time out in WebVoyage. This setting was increased to 10 minutes recently, and we will return to that value, performance permitting, as soon as possible.

Also, as of this evening, we will temporarily be shutting off the “new books” feature that connects to the Universal Catalog. This service is not necessarily causing the performance problems, but it has the capability of creating additional sessions in WebVoyage as users investigate the availability status of the new materials they find in these lists, and additional sessions under these performance conditions simply aggravates the problem. Again, this service will be reinstated as soon as performance permits.

We know people really like the longer session timeouts and the new books service and will reinstate them both just as soon as it is prudent to do so.

In the second approach the problem, we are planning to make some configuration changes in the software infrastructure over the coming weekend. Please inform your colleagues that we will be taking Voyager offline at 5pm, this Friday, January 19 to do this work. We expect the system to be back online by 8am on Saturday. The new books service will remain disabled and the shorter timeout will remain in effect after this maintenance until further notice.

Please watch this list for further announcements, and as always, we appreciate your patience and support during this process.

--
Kristine Hammerstrand

New vendor for key databases, update your bookmarks

The UIUC Library has switched vendors for 3 key databases used by INHS Staff. We are now using Thomson-ISI's Web of Knowledge (WoK) for

• Biological Abstracts: http://www.library.uiuc.edu/orr/get.php?instid=517749
• CAB Abstracts: http://www.library.uiuc.edu/orr/get.php?instid=670820
• Zoological Record: http://www.library.uiuc.edu/orr/get.php?instid=670821

The switch was made because WoK was found to be superior in providing cross linking to cited references (via Web of Science), and in communicating complete metadata our "Discover" service to provide reliable linking to full text.

Although SilverPlatter versions of all 3 databases remain available, SilverPlatter data have not been updated since the vendor switch (one year ago for Biological Abstracts, and Jan 2007 for CAB and ZR). We recommend that you update your bookmarks to the WoK interfaces for these databases.

If you have questions about using the new interface to search these databases, we're happy to help. Please contact us (library@inhs.uiuc.edu, 333-6892).