We have a new subscription to IEEE Xplore, a collection of more than four-million articles from the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (and partners,) in electrical engineering, computer science, and electronics.

In November 2017 the Library undertook the difficult decision to cancel our subscription to IEEE Xplore. Since the subscription ceased we have been involved in constructive discussions with the publisher and their representatives, and we are pleased to report that we have now reached an agreement, which will see access to IEEE Xplore restored from February 2018.

We understand that this has caused considerable disruption for academic staff and students in some subject areas, so we would like to thank everyone for their patience while negotiations were taking place.

We are currently updating Enterprise, the library catalogue, Summon and the E-Journals Finder to show IEEE Xplore content, but access is available immediately via the IEEE Xplore database

Paul Johnson
Associate Director – Collections, Research and Space

We are currently experiencing intermittent problems when downloading PDF files from the Sage journals platform.

When attempting to download an article you may be presented with a ‘Failed to load PDF document error’.

Workaround

This problem is intermittent, so even if you use the Sage journals platform regularly you may not come across this error. However, if you do, please follow the below steps:

-If you are on-campus, please use the databases a-z on-campus link to Sage journals. Then make a search for the article you require, and you should be able to download it with no issues.

-If you are off-campus, please use this link to Sage journals then click ‘Institution’ then ‘Shibboleth’ in the top right corner.

Then select ‘United Kingdom – UK Federation’ and then ‘University of Reading’ from the list. You should then be prompted to login with your University username and password.

If you have any problems with the workaround above, or any other problems with electronic resources, please submit an e-resources problem report form for help.

Our apologies for any inconvenience caused.

Lucy Ardill, E-resources Team

We are currently experiencing access problems with Nature.

If you are trying to link to a Nature article via Summon, or to a journal on this platform you have found via the E-journals Finder, you may find that you are unable to gain access even after you have logged in.

Access is still available

This problem affects off-campus access only – on-campus access is unaffected. We are working to fix the problem as quickly as possible, but in the meantime you can still access the content you need on Nature from off-campus.

Please locate articles in the usual way, either by using Summon or the E-Journals Finder. You will see an option to subscribe to the journal you are accessing underneath the abstract of the article. Please click the ‘Login via Shibboleth’ link underneath this, and search for ‘University of Reading’. Once you have clicked on our institution, you should be able to login with your usual username and password and gain access.

We are working with our supplier to fix this, and will post an update once access is working normally.

If you have tried the method above and are still unable to gain access to content, please submit an E-resources problem report form and we will investigate the issue for you.

Apologies for any inconvenience caused.

Sophie Dorman, E-resources Team

A spam email has been sent to some University members asking users to renew their Library account. Please DON’T click on the link in this message. It is not from us, even though the login page it takes you to looks like our ‘Online Resources Single Sign On’ page.

This is the text of the message:

Protect your account

Always check the following before clicking on any link in an email purporting to be from the University, to avoid your University account being compromised:

• Check the email address of the sender – libraries@reading.co is not our address, it is library@reading.ac.uk
• Watch out for poor spelling and grammar, for example ‘base’ instead of ‘basis’, ‘inconveniences’ instead of ‘inconvenience’
• Hover over any link to see if it is actually going to the address stated

Jackie Skinner 
on behalf of Sam Tyler, Library Systems Manager

We now have access to a number of newly purchased online resources – available to use from on- and off-campus.

• Thesaurus Linguae Graecae -the Thesaurus Linguae Graecae (TLG) contains the majority of the surviving literary texts written in Greek from Homer to the fall of Constantinople.
• Worldwide Political Science Abstracts – references to publications covering political science and international relations, including international law and public administration/policy. Includes journal articles, books, book chapters, dissertations, and working papers, from 1975 to the present.
• Drama Online: Shakespeare & Early Modern Drama Videos – a new addition to our existing Drama Online collections, covering key plays and acting techniques, including Maxine Peake’s Hamlet, Stage on Screen, and a Shakespeare Acting Masterclass from Patsy Rodenburg.
• Oxford Handbooks Online – we now have access to the new 2017 Literature collection, 2016 and 2017 Linguistics collections, and the 2017 History collection.
• Oxford Scholarly Editions Online – access is now open to three more collections: Renaissance Drama, Renaissance Poetry, and Renaissance Prose.
• Routledge Historical Resources: History of Feminism – this resource provides access to materials on feminism (covering the period 1776-1928) published by Taylor & Francis. It includes primary and secondary sources, such as full books, selected chapters, and journal articles, as well as thematic essays.

The library provides access to many more online resources – you can find more information on our E-resources webpage.

Lucy Ardill, E-resources Team

We have recently purchased access to a number of online archives to give you full access to articles in older issues of these journals and newspapers:

• International Herald Tribune Historical Archive – covering the years 1887-2013
• Nature Archive – covering the years 1869-1949, we have access to the entire run of Nature now
• Nutrition Science Legacy Archive – archive of the Journal of Nutrition, (1928-1996) and American Journal of Clinical Nutrition (1952-1998, named Journal of Clinical Nutrition 1952-1954)
• The Telegraph Historical Archive – covering the years 1855-2000
• Wiley journal backfiles – politics collection. Including titles such as Political Quarterly and European Journal of Political Research

You can also find resources relevant to your subject by exploring your subject guide.

Lucy Ardill, E-resources Team

We are pleased to say that the problems with downloading PDFs from ScienceDirect have been resolved and you should be able to use this resource as normal. You may need to clear your browser cache and cookies first.

If you experience difficulties accessing any of our resources please fill in the E-resources problem report form and we will do our best to assist you.

Apologies for any inconvenience this has caused.

Lucy Ardill, E-resources Team

We’re pleased to say that the problems we were experiencing with access to ProQuest resources have been fixed. You should be able to access all our e-resources as usual.

If you experience any issues, please let us know by completing the E-resources problem report form.

Jackie Skinner, Library Web Manager

We are pleased to confirm the issues linking from Summon to ProQuest resources have now been resolved.

If you experience any problems with any electronic resources, please do contact us via an E-resources problem report form.

Lucy Ardill, E-resources Team

Digimap have announced a trial of a new service – Digimap Lidar. Download Lidar data for England, Scotland and Wales as Digital Terrain Models, Digital Surface Models and the raw LAS point file data.

The data will be available until July 31 – for more information see the Digimap blog post.

If you are using or intend to use Lidar in your research, have a look at what’s there and fill in the short survey – you could win a £20 Amazon voucher!

3D scene showing imagery with hillshading derived from the 50cm Lidar DSM. © Getmapping Plc, © Environment Agency copyright and/or database right 2015. All rights reserved.

Judith Fox, Map Librarian