USF Polytechnic Library

The OpenOffice suite has been installed on the Public Access machine. What is OpenOffice? It is a free, open source software suite containing a word processor, a spreadsheet editor, database software, presentation software, a picture editor and a graph editor. It stores all your data in an international open standard format and can also read and write files from other common office software packages. The interface is very similar to Office. You can learn more here.

In case you were wondering, we could not install the Office suite because of the licensing agreements. Viewers for Word, Excel and PowerPoint are otherwise installed. Printing is possible.

You now have a new option in the catalog when looking at a particular item. Among the little icons underneath the location (the ones saying “Add”, “Print”, “Email”, etc), you will find a new one showing a cell phone and the wording “Text”. This can be used to text yourself the call number of a book as well as it title and location - no need for scrap paper and pencil. Be careful if you don’t have a text messaging plan for your phone - carrier charges may apply.

The USF Libraries catalog now sports the new name of the USFP Library as a location for items.

That means that if you do an advanced search and use the pull down menu for the Location field, you will see “USF LIBRARY - Polytechnic” as an option. As well, when search results are pulled up in a basic search, you will see that location in the “Library/Collection” facet, on the left, for you to filter your results by location.

The long-awaited EBSCOhost 2.0 interface is now fully implemented. This is the first redesign of the EBSCOhost interface since 2002, and its functionality incorporates the latest technological advances.

You can find a wide range of tools and information to streamline your transition to the new design:

• An overview of EBSCOhost 2.0 is provided in a Flash demonstration here.
• The EBSCOhost 2.0 Support Center is available here with lots of info and tip sheets.

PsycInfo, Academic Search Premier, EconLit are some of the databases the USF Libraries subscribe to through EBSCOhost. For these databases and other library resources visit http://www.lakeland.usf.edu/library. Click on “Search the databases” to begin.

The USF Libraries are currently experiencing problems connecting to subscribed full-text resources (in the fields of physical and health sciences mostly) through IngentaConnect. We are working on getting the situation corrected. Thank you for your patience.

UPDATE: the problem now seems fixed. Please let the librarian know if you are still experimenting problems.

Facebook has a new application called Blog Networks. People can look up their favorite blogs, read them and rate them. Blog authors can list their blogs on the Blog Network and that is what I did with the USF Poly Library blog. If you are a Facebook member,please add this blog to your list by clicking “Join Blog Network” on the right.

P.S. the Library also has a Page and a Group on Facebook.

Several improvements have recently been added to the WilsonWeb interface. They include:

• “My WilsonWeb” profiles. Using their email address as their password, library users can create their own sub-account within WilsonWeb, where they can create and manage saved searches, search histories, email alerts, and RSS feeds.
• RSS feed for new search results. Configure RSS updates via links on the Search Results or Search History pages.
• “Content Discovery Keys” on Search Results page. Convenient links launch related searches, allow users to narrow results by author, subject, publication year, document type, and database (for multiple-database searches), or select previous searches from the Recent Searches listing.
• Select the language of WilsonWeb navigation buttons. New dropdown menu converts the main buttons from English (the default setting) into Spanish, French, German, Italian, or Portuguese.
• Change the default setting of the Database Selection area to open or closed.
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• New “non-peer reviewed” search limiter in periodicals databases lets you retrieve just articles from easy-reading consumer, trade, technical, and scholarly journals, while skipping rigorous peer reviewed articles and journals. Select “non-peer reviewed,” “peer-reviewed,” or retrieve all relevant articles.
• More interface colors. Make the WilsonWeb interface your own, with blue (the default), red, green or orange themes.
• Article records (single record view) now include the full text of the article (if available). Article records are now an “all-in-one” information source, with complete bibliographic information, links to other relevant articles, links to page images (if available), plus the full text of the article (if available).

Specific WilsonWeb databases have also been improved:

• Preview images in Wilson Biographies Plus Illustrated. New thumbnails at the bottom of profiles let you preview all available photos. Click on any to enlarge.
• Essay and General Literature Index now includes “Library Owns?” holdings links in records for individual book parts (chapters). Click the link (connected to the library’s OPAC) to see where you can find the essay collection on the bookshelves.
• View results by component databases in OmniFile’s subject thesaurus. OmniFile, a wide-ranging periodicals database made up of diverse Wilson specialty databases, can be searched all-in-one or by any of the component databases. Now searches of the OmniFile subject thesaurus lists subjects all-in-one or by individual component databases, for quick access to more specialized “broader and narrower” topic links.

For this database and other library resources visit http://www.lakeland.usf.edu/library. Click on “Search the databases” to begin.

A short period of downtime is scheduled on Informaworld on Tuesday July 15th 2008, from midnight through 2:00 a.m. July 15th to allow some essential maintenance completion. This replaces the downtime on July 12th.

The Informaworld site is all of the Taylor & Francis titles.

Some users may experience impaired performance for a short time after the downtime has been completed. The informaworld team would like to apologize to our customers for any inconvenience this might cause.

The Library, along with the rest of this USF campus, changed names on July 1st. The Library will now be known as the University of South Florida Polytechnic Library. Unofficial, shorter, names for everyday use will be USF Poly Library or USFP Library.

To learn more on what’s a Polytechnic or how we got there, please visit the USF Polytechnic website.