Wednesday 29 September 2010

New Library Website - subject portals

We recently redesigned our library website and we think it's much better that what we had. One of the enhancements that we like is our redesigned subject portals. They're web pages, as opposed to PDFs, and for each subject they contain:

A description of DBS subscribed databases for that subject (and a link to search them)
A link to relevant journals on that subject, from our A to Z
A link to our delicious site where subject-relevant web resources are bookmarked
A link to the database search page
A link to the library guides page
A customised search engine that searches web resources relevant to the specific subject. As an example check out the Anthropology search engine on the right of this page. A few of these may still be under construction, so be patient. If you can think of any websites/web resources that should be included in these search engines, do let us know

Thursday 23 September 2010

Dawsonera

Dawsonera, for the benefit of our three new readers (hello!) is our electronic book platform. You can read a book online, or download it to be read. Anyway until now, in order to access Dawsonera you had to login. On-campus or off-campus, made no difference; you had to login. That has changed slightly. On-campus, you no longer need to login if you want to read an ebook in the DBS collection, just click this link. If you want to avail yourself of personalised features on campus, such as print, copy, notes, add to favourites etc., you will need to login and will be prompted to do so. If you want to access Dawsonera off-campus, you will need to login at this link.

Another enhancement to Dawsonera is that you can now save citations into your Zotero library. Zotero is a citation management add-on to the Firefox browser and is strongly recommended by library. Select 'Export to Endnote' and if you have Zotero installed, the citation will be saved automatically.

Term-time opening hours


This is it, the new academic year kicks in and the two libraries will be open again 4 evenings a week until 10pm to accomodate you all with your studies.
Full details of the opening hours are available on the library website, under the 'About the Library' section.

All the best with your study and research!

Thursday 16 September 2010

A period of transition

We think the new library website is much better than the old one. There's various changes that we have made, including a search box on the main page and a new 'Search All Resources'. As a consequence of this, we've had to change how a few databases are accessed off-campus. For the moment, access to Warc, Justis, Mintel and Westlaw will be through Moodle (Westlaw can also be searched off-campus via the new search interface). If you are asked for a password for Justis or Westlaw, please contact library staff.

Tuesday 7 September 2010

Self-Service has come to Dame Street

Today we have finished installation of a self-service station at the Dame Street library, making DBS library 100% RFID enabled. I believe we are the first library in Ireland to have achieved this. Probably everyone has used the Aungier St. self-service stations, but if not, they're very simple to use: aks your friendly neighbourhood library staff if you are unsure of what to do.

Monday 6 September 2010

Meet the new blog...

The new library website has a number of enhancements. One of which is an internally hosted blog. This blog is hosted by Google and is external to the library website. More people look at the library website than the blog, so as our American cousins would say "do the math"! We'll keep this around for a while, but for DBS library news and views start looking at http://library.dbs.ie/blog.htm, which we'll try to fill with unbeatable ways to get rich and tips on how to stay young and slim or perhaps, instead, how to get more out of your library.

Friday 3 September 2010

Justis

Another day, another database. Justis is available on-campus only at the moment. Please bear with us as we arrange off-campus access. We'll let know when that happens

Thursday 2 September 2010

WARC Access

In the lead up to the new academic year, we are very busy. You will have seen the new website and the new search interface. One small issue is WARC access. We are in the process of making alternative arrangements for on and off-campus access. WARC is now available on-campus from this link. Please bear with us while we find a home for off-campus access.