New term news round-up

Welcome back to those returning after the summer, and a warm welcome too to new students!  Our term time hours start today (Monday-Friday, 9am-7pm; Saturday, 10am-2pm), and we look forward to seeing you all in the library soon.

Here’s a round-up of various bits of news from over the summer that you may have missed:

New electronic resources
We have been able to acquire (or contribute to the acquisition of) four major new electronic resources for US studies this summer, as follows:

All are now available through SOLO/OxLIP+ and listed in our online guide. Click on the links above for more information.

Improvements to SOLO: clustering, display of locations
Various changes were implemented to SOLO over the summer, as follows:

Click on the links above to learn more. 

History Faculty Library move
The move of the History Faculty Library to the Radcliffe Camera and Gladstone Link took place as planned over the summer vacation. The old HFL on the corner of Catte St and Holywell St has now closed. All the details, including information on where and how to access HFL books now, can be found on the HFL website and blog. HFL staff are also offering tours throughout 0th and 1st weeks for returning tutors and students.

Less directly relevant to VHL readers, the Philosophy and Theology Faculties Library has also moved this summer, and is now open in its new location in the Radcliffe Humanities Building on Woodstock Road.

Annual ILL price rise
Charges for inter-library loans increased by 25p per request on 1st August.

RAI Elections 2012 blog
If you are avidly following the US elections, you may be interested to know that the Rothermere American Institute has launched a blog in partnership with Politics in Spires, designed to bring together contributions from scholars from a range of different fields to discuss the upcoming elections. The blog can be read on the RAI website and will run until mid-November.

Annual ILL price rise

From 1st August 2012 the charges for inter-library loans will increase by 25p as follows:

  • Loan, photocopy, or delivery of an item by secure electronic delivery for University members from £4.75 to £5.00
  • Urgent requests for University members from £10.75 to £11.00
  • Worldwide requests for University members from £12.75 to £13.00 

Our charges were last increased in January 2012; this was the delayed increase from August 2011. This price rise brings our annual increases in line with the University financial year.

Full information on the Bodleian Libraries’ inter-library loans service can be found at: http://www.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/services/ill.

New Year News – change to default sort order within clustered search results, inter-library loan price rise, opening hours

Happy New Year! Hope you all had a lovely Christmas break! The library is now open again for 2012.
A few pieces of news for the new year: 
Change to default sort order within clustered search results
This morning, the Bodleian Libraries have implemented the first stage of a plan to improve the display of records in SOLO with clusters of versions (where SOLO has grouped together ‘versions’ of the same work). To achieve this, the default sort order for search results within clusters will be changed to relevance rather than date-newest. If you prefer to see your results in date order you can still do so – please use the sort option at the top of the results screen.
While clustering is beneficial to and highly valued by a large number of readers, it can cause problems for others, particularly where searching for very specific editions or antiquarian/non-book material. The long-term aim is to exclude certain categories of material from clustering, which will solve the small number of problematic cases while retaining the benefits of clustering for the majority of searches and readers. 
The decision to retain clustering in SOLO and work to improve it was taken following extensive consultation and user testing. The change to sort order within clusters is a first step to mitigate against some of the major problems caused by clustering while we work to develop an improved solution for everyone.
Inter-library loan price rises
The January 2012  ILL price increase has now been implemented. 
This represents an annual increase since the charges were last revised in January 2012, and are in line with a recommendation that was passed by the Curators to apply a 25p annual increase to our charges for Inter-library loans and document supply.
The ILL charge increases are as follows:
  • Loan, photocopy, or delivery of an item by secure electronic delivery for University members from £4.50 to £4.75          
  • Urgent requests for University members from £10.50 to £10.75 
  • Worldwide searches for University members from £12.50 to £12.75.
The full revised price list can be found on the Bodleian website at: http://www.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/services/ill/prices

After this price rise, the annual price increase will take place in line with the beginning of the budget year so there will be a further rise of 25p from August 2012.

Saturday opening Hilary Term

The VHL will be open on Saturdays throughout Hilary Term (10am-2pm), from 14th January – 10th March.  

 

Increase to inter-library loan charges

The cost of submitting an inter-library loan request at the Bodleian Libraries has increased by 50p to £4.50 for a standard loan or photocopy.   International requests have likewise increased to £12.50.

The increases represent a 2 year increase since the charges were last revised 2 years ago, and are in line with a recommendation that was passed by the Curators to apply a 25p annual increase to our charges for inter-library loans and document supply. These increases are modest but will help to cover the costs of the annual price rise imposed by the British library in August of this year and also the VAT increase from 4th January.

A full table of inter-library loan charges can be found on the Bodleian Libraries’ website at: http://www.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/services/ill/prices.

Remote access, OxLIP+ and ILL charges

Various things to update you all on now we’re into August:

  • Remote Access: Athens will no longer work to allow access to electronic resources from outside the University. Instead resources will require you to authenticate using your Oxford single sign-on (the same as your webmail username and password). The best way to do this (without VPN) is to log in via the new OxLIP+ interface (from where you can also click through to OU ejournals). For more information, see the OULS remote access page.
  • OxLIP+: This is the new interface to electronic resources, currently in beta launch. As well as access to all the resources, it includes some cross-searching facilities and personalised features (My Research). It can be accessed via: http://oxlip-plus.ouls.ox.ac.uk.
  • Inter-library loan charges have increased to £4.00 per request (£12.00 for international requests).