Single Sign-On Update

We now have most of our resources set up in Athens, our single sign-on system. There are one or two still missing, but we are trying to address that. If you are a DBS student reading this and want stand alone access to (very nearly) all our resources anytime and anywhere then contact me. We will of course be announcing this with more fanfare in the near future.

Single sign on is coming to DBS library

We'll shortly be starting a trial of OpenAthens, which, to go all technical for a minute, is a framework for managing users' identity information and enabling secure access to an institution's electronic resources through a single username and password (single sign-on). I'll repeat that last bit. A single username and password for accessing all electronic resources. Now it may be that there are one or two resources that don't support this, but won't it be great to have if not all, then the vast majority of resources accessible in the one place via one username and password?

As we're starting with a trial, we can probably only make a few resources available this way initially. We'll get this set up for the new year, and more information will be forthcoming then.

Online survey feedback

Many thanks to everyone who filled in our online survey and gave us their feedback on the new look library website and our range of online features and resources.

Congratualtions to Louise Byrne who was the winner of the €50 HMV voucher.


The survey responses gave us some positive feedback on the new look library site, for example; 62.3% of respondents are able to easily find the information they need from the site. 43% of respondents are able to easily identify the section of the site in which the information they need is located. Your preferred online library features are; the Library catalogue, electronic resources (databases), Webfeat (search all resources) and the AZ journal list.

We also got some good (as well as some strange and some utterly incomprehensible) suggestions for online features you'd like the library to provide. Here are just some of them with details of whether they are feasible or not, in some cases the suggested feature is already in place;

• Exam papers online - Exam papers are now available on Moodle (at least the last 2 years should be up for each module). Just log in to Moodle and go to the exams section then select the approproate department (Arts, Business or professional)
• Book reviews - Members of library staff write reviews of recently acquired material and add these to the library's monthly newsletter which you can find under 'library information/library news'.
  
• Booking study rooms & computers online - We hope to add timetabling software to the website in the new year.
• Ask a librarian instant messaging - We aim to set up instant messaging enquiries in the new year
  

And the two best suggestions...

• Access to JSTOR - We have been working to arrange access to JSTOR for some time and it is added to our budget for next year so (fingers crossed) we should have it in place early next year
• One password to access all resources - We have been busy battling with all our electronic resource providers lately to grant access to all our resources off campus via the 'search all resources' function using your student number and date of birth. Handy as this is, our long term aim is to have 'one ring to rule them all ' and enable student access to ALL our resources (PC's, databases, ebooks, library catalogue) using a single login. We are making steps towards bringing in institutional access to all resources using Shibboleth. This is a long term project involving the IT department and the library and we hope to roll this out as soon as logistically possible.