As promised in our last entry, we have more information about some of the changes happening at the library this summer. As of June 28th we officially migrated to our new Interlibrary Loan (ILL) system. This new system offers better behind the scenes functionality that will make processing requests much easier for our Interlibrary Loan Coordinator, Lisa. On your end you will see a new website and request form that you’ll access using your Loras network ID and password. Accessing the articles you request will be slightly different – instead of logging into your account to download the article, you will receive an email with a unique login and password you will use to download the article. Unfortunately, we weren’t able to transfer your request history to the new system, but we do have a log of all of your previous requests that we will keep until July 1st, 2018. If you need a copy of your previous requests please email Lisa Finnegan.
We work with a few purchasing consortia in the state to help us save money on our databases. One of the newest and biggest, the Iowa Library Alliance, worked with the State Library of Iowa and reviewed the major database vendors for both quality and price and made a significant change in their purchasing decisions. This resulted in a switch from EBSCO’s Academic Source Complete and Business Source Complete to Gale’s Academic OneFile, General OneFile, and Business Insights. We reviewed the journal lists for these databases and are confident that Gale’s resources, while different, are comparable to EBSCO’s.
During our annual review of databases we decided to cancel Films on Demand as its usage did not justify its growing cost.
The subject specific databases such as:
will stay the same. We will also add some really interesting databases including U.S. History Collection, World History Collection, and Gender Studies Collection. We are especially excited to offer a new Spanish Language database, Informe Académico and Transparent Languages, a language tutoring site.
We are still in the process of updating the Library’s website with all of our new databases, but links are active to Academic OneFile, General OneFile, and Business Insights. We encourage you to use these databases and send us any questions that may arise. As we get closer to the start of the semester we will be creating additional tutorials and guides to help students adjust to this major change. We would be happy to schedule an instruction session to help your students find the best research for their papers.
Please contact one of us if you have any questions!
Joyce, Library Director, x7164
Kris, eResources and Research Services Librarian, x7042
Heidi, Special Collections and Technical Services Librarian, x7873
Jen, Instruction Services Librarian, x7917
Laura, Circulation Services Librarian, x7125
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