#LibraryNews

As promised in our last entry, we have more information about some of the changes happening at the library this summer. As of June 28^th 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 1^st, 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:

• PsycInfo,
• Criminal Justice,
• Communication and Mass Media Complete,
• ATLA Religion,
• Literature Resource Center,
• and SPORTDiscus

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

We hope you’ve had a chance to recover from the busy year we’ve just had. While we’re sure you are tired of hearing about things changing, the Library wants to let you know about some changes coming this summer so you have plenty of time to plan for the Fall semester.

• New Catalog: after years of searching for Harry Potter and getting a page of results that didn’t include the books by J. K. Rowling, we are getting a new system with all sorts of bells and whistles to help our students find books and journal articles all in one place.
• Some adjustments in our database selection: The State of Iowa helps financially support our databases and their offerings are different this year. This mostly effects our general databases, most of our specialized databases will stay the same and we’ll have some fun new databases for you to use.
• New ILL System: you won’t see much of a difference in the service, other than a new request screen, but the back end changes will make it much easier for us to find and request the items you’re looking for.
• Research Help: In addition to a whole new look, we’re changing the Research Help Center into an appointment based research service. Don’t worry, we’ll still have drop in research help at the Checkout Desk, but we feel appointments will allow us to give students more personalized assistance. Want to make sure your students use the service? We’d be happy to track usage so you can give them extra credit.

What does this mean for you?

Most of these changes are still in progress so keep an eye out for more information as we get closer to the Fall semester. In the meantime:

• Add our syllabi statement to your syllabus, Jen will be sending out an updated statement with important information for your students.
• Stop by for a preview, we’d be happy to show you what we’ve been working on.
• Don’t forget to schedule a library instruction session – your students may have a little trouble finding what they need with all the changes.
• Enjoy your summer and know we are working to make these changes as smooth as possible for everyone.

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