Wednesday, September 19, 2007

Reminders: Bye Bye Barcode and MLA, PsycInfo, & RILM interface change

Say Goodbye to Memorizing your Barcode Number!

Current Kalamazoo College students, faculty, and staff no longer need to use their name and 14-digit barcode number to use features of Ariadne, log in to research databases from off campus, or to request materials from MeLCat. Users now will be prompted for their K College username and password!

This affects:
In MeLCat, the system will ask you for your:
  • Campus ID# (this is your K College USERNAME)
  • Password (this is your K College PASSWORD)

MLA, PsycInfo, and RILM have a New Interface: CSA Illumina

On July 1, 2007 three of our databases (MLA International Bibliography, PsycInfo, and RILM) moved to the CSA Illumina platform from FirstSearch. This means these databases will look and search a little differently, but the content remains the same.

Why is this happening?

The Kalamazoo College Library subscribes to these three databases through the Michigan Library Consortium (MLC), which negotiates licensing and price. This year the price of the FirstSearch platform to these databases was significantly higher than for CSA Illumina, so MLC will be licensing them through CSA. In an effort to maintain our current FirstSearch platform, Kalamazoo College Librarians investigated the cost of keeping these databases with FirstSearch, but the 69% increase in subscription price over last year's price made the CSA platform the only affordable option.

Tutorial for CSA Illumina

CSA offers an online tutorial on using their advanced search here:

http://www.csa.com/tutorials/advsearch.html

CSA Illumina Database Guides:

MLA
http://www.csa.com/factsheets/mla-set-c.php
http://www.csa.com/factsheets/supplements/MLAguide.pdf

PsycInfo
http://www.csa.com/factsheets/psycinfo-set-c.php

RILM
http://www.csa.com/factsheets/rilm-set-c.php

If you have any questions about these changes, please contact Reference at 337-7152 or reference@kzoo.edu.