We are currently experiencing problems using the Institutional Sign In feature on the Oxford Academic platform. You should only need to use this Sign In on the Oxford Academic site when off-campus, so on-campus users should not be affected.

When a user links to an article on the Oxford Academic platform via Summon, the Summon ‘frame’ prevents the Institutional Sign In link on the site from working – nothing will happen when you click the ‘Sign In’ link. To work around this problem, please click the ‘Open content in a new tab’ button in the Summon sidebar, as indicated below. This should open the page in a new tab, and you should be able to click ‘Sign In’ successfully.

If you navigate to the platform via a route other than Summon, e.g. the E-Journals Finder you should not experience this problem.

We are working with the supplier to fix this, and hope the issue will be resolved soon.

If you have trouble accessing any online resources, please contact us via an E-resources problem report form.

Lucy Ardill, E-resources Team

We are pleased to say that the problems with access to LexisLibrary have been resolved, and you should be able to use this resource as normal.

Some users may need to clear their browser cache and cookies before using this resource again.

If you experience further problems, please do get in touch with us via an e-resources problem report form.

Our apologies for any inconvenience this has caused.

Lucy Ardill – E-resources Team

We are pleased to say that the remaining problems with access to ScienceDirect have been resolved and you should be able to use this resource as normal.

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 now have access to Aerial Digimap, a new addition to the Digimap suite of mapping databases. It consists of detailed vertical aerial photography, which can be viewed, annotated, printed or downloaded.  Maps are viewed in Aerial Roam as a single seamless coverage of Great Britain, with optional Ordnance Survey background mapping.

The imagery is provided by Getmapping plc in a jpg format, and can be printed at scales from 1:250 to 1:175,000. A sliding control in Aerial Roam allows you to choose how much of the background mapping you show, and the data will be regularly updated. Downloaded data can be combined in a geographical information system (GIS) with other Digimap data such as OS MasterMap or used to produce 3D models in conjunction with, for example, OS Terrain DTM.

Why should I use it?

• If you are studying archaeology it will aid visualisation of a site within its landscape, and may allow things not visible at ground level to be discerned.
• Environmental and biological scientists can use it to help to identify conservation areas and habitats, and to measure specific land uses.
• Studying architecture and urban planning? Use Aerial Digimap to view infrastructure networks, and to closely examine buildings using the detailed, 25 cm resolution of the imagery.

Using Aerial Digimap

To use Aerial Digimap you will need to accept the licence terms and conditions.  It will prompt you to do this the first time you use it.

Help is available in the Digimap Resource Centre, and there are useful videos available on the Digimap YouTube channel.  Alternatively, contact the Map Librarian for information and help.

Judith Fox, Map Librarian

If you regularly use the Library’s e-books, you may have noticed that we now have access to a new e-book platform. E-books which were hosted on the EBL and ebrary platforms have moved and are now available on ProQuest’s new Ebook Central platform.

How this will affect you

The interface of the new Ebook Central platform is very similar to the EBL platform so you may not even notice a difference! If you’ve bookmarked an EBL or ebrary e-book, you will automatically be re-directed to the e-book on Ebook Central. Links from the Library website will also take you to Ebook Central.

If you had created a bookshelf on EBL you will find that it has already migrated to Ebook Central.

If you had created a bookshelf on ebrary, you will be prompted to move your bookshelf contents to Ebook Central when you first log in to access an e-book.

Some features of Ebook Central

As with EBL and ebrary, you will be able to download E-book Central e-books for a limited time period using the free Adobe Digital Editions software.

You will now also be able to download e-book chapters as simple PDFs which can be read using the free Adobe Reader software and saved to your device.

Up to 40% of an e-book can be printed or downloaded in chapters, and up to 20% of an e-book can be copied. The exact pages available for you to print/download or copy will be displayed in each e-book.

To find out more about Ebook Central, take a look at ProQuest’s Ebook Central LibGuide.

If you have any questions or problems locating the content you need on Ebook Central, please get in touch with us by submitting a problem report form.

We are pleased to say that Digimap is now working again!  Ordnance Survey data to use in ArcGIS can now be downloaded as before.

Remember, if you experience any problems accessing our online resources, please fill in the E-resources problem report form.

Judith Fox, Map Librarian

From 17:00 until midnight on Saturday 29 October it may not be possible to link to resources via Summon, the Item Finder, and the E-journals Finder. This is due to ProQuest upgrading some of their products and services which means links to journal articles and other online resources may not work.

During this period if you know which journal you need to use, try going directly to that journal via a search engine – if you are off-campus you will need to look for an institutional login option to gain access. If you have found an interesting book chapter on Summon, but can’t link to it, try searching for the book title on the Enterprise catalogue and then browsing the e-book for the chapter you need.

Lucy Ardill, E-resources Team

Eduserv, the company who provide the Athens service, are decommissioning this access route on the 31 October 2016. They will no longer be providing this service for any institution. Those with long memories might remember the news three years ago regarding the move from old-style Athens to Institutional login for accessing e-resources. Since then we’ve continued to work on ensuring your access and authentication to our resources is as simple and seamless as possible, and with IT have enabled access for the majority of them via the Single Sign On (SSO) page.

Almost all of you will be used to going via the SSO page, so the news that the old-style Athens login is finally being removed should have no impact at all. However we are aware there are a few people still logging in via the old Athens sign-in page:

You might have reached this page either because you have an old bookmark for a resource, or because you have found the University of Reading listed under ‘Login via Athens’ options on resource websites. After 31 October you will no longer find us listed here, we will only be listed via the Institutional login options, often shown on the same pages.

You may need to update your links

If any of your favourites or bookmarks for resources take you to the page above, you will need to replace them with up-to-date links that direct you to login via the SSO page. To find an up-to-date link:

• Go to our Databases A-Z list.
• Locate your resource and click on the link for it.
• On the next page, click on the off-campus link to the resource. This should take you via the SSO page.
• Enter your University username and password and click on log in.
• You should now be in the resource and you can favourite or bookmark this page.
• The next time you use your new favourite link it will automatically route you to the SSO page so you can login.

Alternatively, if you are trying to access a specific book or journal, just follow the links from the Enterprise catalogue.

Need help?

If you have any problems accessing a specific resource please fill in our e-resources problem report form and a member of the E-resources Team will investigate your issue.

Jackie Skinner, on behalf of Sue Egleton, Head of Systems & User Services

We are pleased to say that Oxford University Press have fixed the problem with Oxford Scholarship Online, so you should be able to access everything normally again.

If you experience any problems accessing our online resources, please fill in the E-resources problem report form.

Jackie Skinner, Library Web Manager

Our newest e-resource is Box of Broadcasts (BoB) – BoB is a resource that allows you to record and view TV and radio programmes from over 65 free-to-air channels.

Also available is an archive of over 2 million programmes from the 1990s to the present day – ready to watch. Includes content from; BBC TV and radio, ITV, Channel 4, Film4, some foreign language channels, the BBC Shakespeare Archive and lots more! Check the full list of available channels.

Use BoB’s integrated tools to;

• Create clips & playlists and share
• Link to BoB content in BlackBoard or play in lectures
• Find programmes and create clips on your topic by searching across programme transcripts and subtitles

Programmes available in BoB are made available to members of the University under the ERA licence and are for educational and non-commercial purposes only. BoB is only available to users in the UK for copyright reasons.

For more information on how you may use the content available, please check the access page or have a look at Box of Broadcast’s FAQs

If you plan to use BoB to enhance your teaching we’d love to hear about it! Contact Natalie Guest with your ideas.

Natalie Guest, Document Delivery Co-ordinator