A couple of points to mention about WebFeat. WebFeat is a federated search engine which allows you to search multiple databases at the same time, thus saving time and effort. We are also trying to use WebFeat to cut down on the number of passwords that students need to remember. Thus, having logged into WebFeat off-campus, you can choose to search multiple databases, or search your favourite database individually without having to enter a user name and password. For example, you could login to WebFeat and choose to search Emerald and Business Source Complete together, or you could decide to search one then the other. Before WebFeat, you would have to enter a username and password for Emerald and then a different username and password for Business Source Complete. Thus WebFeat has cut down on the number of passwords required. Ultimately, our aim is to have one username and password for everything you do in the library and hopefully we'll have some news on that during the summer.
If you were a registered student before Thursday 22nd January 2009, you should have a WebFeat username and password. Your username and password should be your student number and date of birth. Because of the way registration works, it's entirely possible (particularly if you are a Portobello student) that you don't have a login. If you don't please contact me or the Issue Desk. We aim to update user lists every Monday. Also, please note that a few students get registered with a few personal details missing. These details sometimes include the date of birth. If, for whatever reason, we don't have your date of birth, then it's not possible for your date of birth to be your password. In this case you have been given a default password, which you can get from the Issue Desk or myself.
So what's on WebFeat and what can you search? On WebFeat, you can search all of the following at the same time though if you need to do so, you must have a very interesting search lined up ;-) There is a check box beside these that you click in order to search in WebFeat:
DBS Library Catalogue
Portobello Library Catalogue
Academic Source Complete
Butterworths Lexis Nexis
The Economist
Emerald
Film and Television Literature Index With Full-Text
FT.com
Hospitality and Tourism Complete
Lexis Nexis News and Business
Mintel
Psychoanalytic Electronic Publishing Archive
PsycARTICLES
PsycINFO
WARC
Also in WebFeat, there are links to the following databases that you can only search individually. In these instances, the check box is greyed out and there's a note in the database description field to this effect:
A to Z journal list
Dawsonera
Encyclopaedia Britannica (not available off-campus)
Firstlaw
Justis
mad.co.uk (not available off-campus)
Westlaw
In time, some of these databases may become searchable in WebFeat. We have left in a link, with is non functional at this juncture, for Computer and Applied Sciences Complete. We had that database on trial, which has subsequently expired, however we hope to purchase it (fingers crossed)very soon. We hope to purchase a couple more databases too, in which case we'll tell you about them here and elsewhere.
Finally, if there is a link to that database, it is searchable by itself. Firstlaw requires a username and password, which should be visible to you. If you want to search Butterworths or Lexis Nexis News, you will need a user name and password that you can request at the issue desk OR you can search these databases through Webfeat and click to view one of your search results. This opens your search result in the appropriate database. You can then search that database by clocking on the search tab, which if memory serves appears on the top left of the screen.
I think this is enough for now!
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