Thursday, June 29, 2006

Exciting database changes for July 1, 2006

Miami University Libraries, through its collaboration with OhioLINK, will greatly increase your access to periodical databases and full text periodical articles on July 1. Starting in July, 21 new databases will be available and eight current databases will have their contents significantly enhanced.

In order to accomplish these additions and enhancements, OhioLINK will be cancelling 14 current databases. A full list of the databases involved in these moves is available at http://olc7.ohiolink.edu/whatsnew/archives/000150.html#more. I encourage you to especially view the table at the bottom of that document, which explains the cancellations and list the new or current databases which will replace the functions of those cancelled.

In this time of tight higher education and library budgets, OhioLINK has been able to work creatively with our vendors to achieve this feat and remain within budget. If you have any questions about the database changeover or its impact on your research, please do not hesitate to contact us.

Thursday, June 01, 2006

Requesting items from our collection

Need a book, video/DVD, or periodical article from the Gardner-Harvey Library? Figure that you're out of luck with the library being closed to the public? Fear not!

The library's collection is accessed twice every day (Monday through Friday) by library staff members: at 10:30am and 2:30pm. We use these times to shelve returned and new items (thanks for using our external book drop or stopping by Room 3 downstairs!) and retrieving requested items for MU students, faculty, and staff, as well as patrons of OhioLINK libraries.

How do you request something?
If you'd like a book or video/DVD from our collection, just look it up in the catalog and click the "Request Item" button. The instructions will say that you cannot request that an item from one library be sent to the same library (please ignore this! - we have always been happy to have you request that items from our collection be brought to the circulation desk). After requesting the item, you will see a "Your request is successful" message. You can then expect the item to be available in Room 3 of the Computer Center shortly after the next time period we are able to go into the collection.

If you'd like an article from a periodical we own, use the Interlibrary loan form. This is the same form that you use to request an article that we do not have electronic access to. Log into the form using your UniqueID and password. Enter the citation for the article (author, article title, periodical title, issue number, volume number, date, pages numbers) and submit the request. Our staff will retrieve the article at the next possible entry time and mail it to you via campus or regular mail.

We hope these methods will help us connect you with the items from our collection that you need. Keep in mind that you are still able to request items from other Miami and OhioLINK libraries (as well as articles from around the world). Be sure to let us know if we can assist you in any way.