Recent Changes to Library Online Systems

You may have noticed some changes to various Library systems over the last few months: our Quick Topic Search, interlibrary loan (ILL) form, and link resolver have all changed. But don’t worry! They still have the same functionality.

Quick Topic Search

The biggest change is to the Library’s Quick Topic Search, which is now provided by EBSCO, a library database vendor that also publishes many of our most popular article databases. The Quick Topic Search still searches the Library catalogue as well as many article databases, as it did before, but it also has several additional features not present in the previous version:

  • Predictive text (very helpful for spelling errors)
  • Book reviews and similar books links for book records
  • AskAway widget on results page
  • Citation feature for books and ebooks
  • “Search within” feature for e-journals that are found in EBSCO databases

Catalogue records now need to be loaded into the Quick Topic Search manually, so there may be a slight delay between when material appears in the Library catalogue versus the Quick Topic Search. We are aiming to minimize this delay as much as possible.

NOTE: If you had any links in your D2L courses to the Quick Topic Search, you will need to update those links before the end of October. Please contact your Subject Librarian for help, or if you have further questions.

Interlibrary Loan (ILL)

Our ILL form is also revamped, but it will continue to auto-populate with your article’s citation information if you click through from one of our library databases. You can also access the ILL form directly on the Library website: https://langara.ca/library/services/forms/ill-form.html

Link Resolver

The link resolver connects users from information about an article (citation and abstract) to the full text of an article. If you click on the “Get full article” link in any of our Library databases, you’re using the link resolver. The link resolver has a new look and feel but will still connect you to full text articles, or to our ILL form if we do not have full text access.

Questions?

Contact your subject librarian.

 

 

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