Viewing PDFs in Firefox

We seem to be having a number of issues with Adobe Reader/Acrobat and I've got a few tickets in to ITS about them. There's one though that could potentially cause some issues with our databases. It seems that many, if not all, computers are downloading PDF files instead of allowing them to be viewed in the browser when using Firefox.

I've found a temporary workaround for this but it will be on a user by user basis.

Go to Options in Firefox. This will either be located under the rectangular Firefox button in the upper left of the screen or under the Tools menu in Firefox.

When the window pops up, go to the Applications tab.

Look for either Adobe Acrobat Document and/or Adobe Acrobat 7.0 Document.

Make sure it is set to "Use Adobe Acrobat (in Firefox)".

You can try this fix on your own login as well, if you'd like to try it out before you need to help a student with it.

If this doesn't fix the problem please let Heidi or myself know so we can either try to identify if it's one of the other known problems or something new that needs to be reported.

Aimee

Wall Street Journal/SFX issue

Rosemary has been planning a class that will likely require students to access some articles from the Wall Street Journal. She discovered that there's a "metadata mismatch" happening between SFX and the Wall Street Journal (WSJ) on Proquest. This means that whenever someone finds a WSJ article in Academic Search Premier, clicks the Get Article button, and then clicks on Go to get to the article from the SFX menu, the search will fail every single time. The ProQuest Newspapers database will open, but it will tell you that no documents were found. If you remove the phrase "- Eastern Edition" from the ProQuest search box and click on Search, you will actually be able to read the article you were looking for.

This problem has been reported to both CARLI (our SFX tech support) and ProQuest (which Paige at CARLI suggested might be able to move a bit faster than the folks at Ex Libris). In the meantime, this workaround will get students to the info they need.

Accessing E-Resources

It's come up several times lately that people are having a hard time getting into some of our e-resources from VuFind. I believe that the problem is the way VuFind displays URLs. When you view a record that includes ANY link to online access, it can be very confusing.

When you look at the results list, you'll see a link that says "Get it online." This link may or may not work. If you look at the individual item's record, you'll see "Online Access" in two places. The "Online Access" link near the top of the results screen (with the info about the book in general) may or may not work. This is because VuFind pulls that information from a place in the catalog record that, historically, was not individualized for each library.

If you click on the "Online Access" link under the Location & Availability tab of the screen (where it also says "Access for North Central College"), you'll be able to access the needed resource.

I'm not sure why this has come up so often lately, but it's becoming clear that it's a big problem. I'll be working on finding a report that will show us all of our catalog records with non-NCC URLs and attempting to prioritize a clean-up project.

Emily

Update: EBSCO Problems

Emily haven't heard back from EBSCO, but PsycInfo and ATLA appear to be working at this point. Please contact her if you experience any further difficulties.

PsychInfo Problems

Oesterle Library has unexpectedly lost access to PsycInfo. Emily is working with EBSCO to resolve this problem ASAP and will provide more information when it's available.

EBSCO problems

Right now ATLA-religion and PsychInfo are down. The have been notified. They are working as quickly as they can to fix it but that is the situation right now. We will keep you up to date. If you notice any other databases down please let Emily know.

Bowker Update

Dear Bowker® Customers,

We are pleased to announce Bowker services are back on line following power outages due to a snow storm. Please be aware access may initially be patchy.

We apologize for any inconvenience this may have caused you or your customers, and appreciate your patience.

Please be sure to let Emily know if you continue to have any problems with this.

More technical issues

According to JSTOR: Service alert: We are experiencing problems with multiple servers causing slowness and access issues. Our technical staff are working on the issues. We apologize for these problems and will update you as we know more.

Please let Emily know if you have questions.

Service Interuptions Due to Weather Out East

We have received a notice from ProQuest/Bowker that several of their services have been affected by the power outages in the Northeast. You may notice problems with Books in Print, Syndetic Solutions (the book cover images and additional info that's normally found in the catalog), and RCL/Resources for College Libraries. Bowker staff hope to have generator power running by the end of business today, but they predict that access will be patchy until full power has been restored to their area. If you have any questions, please let Emily know.

Documentation and Lexis Nexis Linking

A new section has been added to the ISD Google Site. It's called "Documentation" and can be found in the left-side Navigation menu. The types of things you will find there (and please let me know if you have something that you would like to have added) are documentation related to library procedures.

Also, Jennie was able to determine a way to link directly and persistently to journals and articles in the Lexis Nexis database, something that we had been unable to do in the past. It's slightly complex if you're not familiar with certain aspects of library databases, so we're just telling faculty who wish to link to Lexis Nexis articles to contact the library. Feel free to refer them to Jennie, Emily or myself if you receive a question like this. If you feel like you want to familiarize yourself with the process, however, the step-by-step instructions Jennie created are on the ISD Site under "Documentation." Please let Jennie know if you have questions about the instructions.

~Aimee