A short note about using Mintel and Passport GMID on Athens

The short note is this: registration is required before use.  For Mintel it's a one-off, and merely entails entering name and email address, course and course end-date.  And that's it.  Here's an access guide  that says pretty much the same thing, but it's better written and has pictures.
For Passport GMID, you need to create an account, entering similar information.  However you'll need your email address to login to Passport each time you want to use this resource.  An added complication is that personal emails - from the likes of Yahoo, Hotmail and Gmail will be rejected.  Use either your @mydbs.ie or your business email address.  Personally, I'd use my mydbs.ie account.  

Accessing ebooks on Dawsonera

We use Dawsonera as our ebook platform.  We like Dawsonera.  We like Dawsonera so much that we have over 1500 titles available as ebooks on this platform.

Recently, Dawsonera did sometime that has caused us a little inconvenience; they changed their password criteria.  Previously, we were able to set up students with their student number and date of birth as username and password.  After changing password requirements, this is no longer possible, as all Dawsonera passwords now need upper & lower case (capital and small) letters and numbers.  The process of setting up students with library. EBSCO, and Dawsonera is semi-automated.  The "semi-" part means that it is not feasible to create passwords for Dawsonera, so we don't do that anymore.  If you don't have a Dawsonera login, you can skip the next paragraph.

In addition to changing the password criteria, Dawsonera seem to be invalidating existing passwords.  I say "seem" because it doesn't appear to be happening to everyone, yet  If your password still works, then hurrah!  However, that may change in the near future.

I welcome back readers who skipped the last paragraph and ask, then answer the question "how do I access ebooks on Dawsonera?"  Simple, through an Athens account.  Athens is an access management system used to manage access to electronic resources. If you have an Athens login, you can access all of the library's resources off-campus, including Dawsonera, with one login.

To access Dawsonera through Athens, either

1)            Login to MyAthens
               Click on the Resources Tab
               Click on Dawsonera
               You will be logged into Dawsonera automatically
Or

2)            Go to the Dawsonera website
               Go to the Athens/Shibboleth login
               Login with your Athens details

The next question then is "how do I get an Athens account?".  Contact the library - email is best for this purpose, and include your student number.  You should receive two emails, one will basically be an acknowledgement of your request sent by the library, the second will be sent by Athens and contain your account details.  If you don't receive the acknowledgement and/or the account details email, do contact the library again - and don't leave it too long before doing so. 

        

Updating your details on the library catalogue

We like our new catalogue, and hope that you do too.  One of the reasons it's better than the previous catalogue is that users - you ladies and gents can update your personal details.  When you login - with your student number and date of birth in format dd/mm/yyyy - there is a menu of the left of the page.  Click on "my personal details" and change any details that you want to change.  Simple!  It's especially useful to ensure that your email address is up-to-date to ensure that gentle reminders and overdue don't get lost.