New feature from Serials Solutions

Serials Solutions has adopted Columbia University's hierarchical listing of LC subject headings for its subject browse (prior to today it was using Ulrich's subjects). If you would like to see it in action, go to the USC Content Connection page and use the "browse by subject" drop down list. This gives you high level subjects; each takes you to a list of sub-topics.

Neat way to stay currrent with USC's eresources

Want to know when new items (ejournals, databases, free websites) are added to USC's eelectronic resources? Try subscribing to this RSS feed: http://was.usc.edu/eresources/new_isd_rss.xml. It will show items added in the last 14 days. If you don't have a news reader to keep track of RSS feeds, take a look here.

New OCLC Report on "Perceptions of Libraries and Information Resources"

Perceptions of Libraries and Information Resources (2005) summarizes findings of an international study on information-seeking habits and preferences.

With extensive input from hundreds of librarians and OCLC staff, the OCLC Market Research team developed a project and commissioned Harris Interactive Inc. to survey a representative sample of information consumers. In June of 2005, we collected over 3,300 responses from information consumers in Australia, Canada, India, Singapore, the United Kingdom and the United States.

Read the report in its entirety here. One interesting point to ponder from the report: users still tend to see libraries as places to find books. They aren't so aware of the vast quantities of electronic content now available.

New issue of RLG Focus out

The December 2005 issue of "RLG Focus", the bimonthly newsletter on news and uses of RLG services, is now available on the RLG Web site at: http://www.rlg.org/en/page.php?Page_ID=20859.

*** CONTENTS of "RLG Focus," issue 77, December 2005 ***

"Gateway to Holdings Launched through Eureka(r) and RLIN21(tm)"
-- Dennis Massie, RLG

"Red-Haired Barbarians Invade RLG Cultural Materials"
-- Marien van der Heijden, International Institute of Social History

"RLG's CAMIO(tm) Features Hard-to-Find Contemporary Art"
-- Ricky Erway, RLG

"More CAMIO(tm) News: Promotional Toolkit Now Available!"

"Eureka(r) Adds OpenURL 1.0 Support"
-- Walt Crawford, RLG

"ArchiveGrid: Stay Informed about the Newest Way to Access
Archival Material"
-- Gregory Whitfield, RLG

E-Resource RSS feeds you can subscribe to

Interested in subscribing to some targeted eresource RSS feeds? Here are a few links to get you started: OCLC offers feeds to several of its resources here. And ProQuest is now offering Curriculum Match Factor and Dissertation & Theses RSS feeds.

Need an introduction to the world of blogs and RSS feeds? Check out this website.

SCELC trial databases for December

Check out the SCELC trial databases website for new trials that are running through December! Current offerings: Gale databases (including Testaments to the Holocaust, History Resource Center: US, The Shakespeare Collection: Featuring The Arden Shakespeare Complete Works, Opposing Viewpoints Resource Center), and Readex Archive of Americana.

Updated Serials Solutions subject lists

Received from Serials Solutions:

We're excited to announce that in response to client requests we will be moving our e-journal subject browsing feature to a new hierarchy based on Columbia University's Hierarchical Interface to Library of Congress Classification (HILCC) on December 15. This transition enables your library to employ a more powerful and flexible solution for browsing your e-journal collection by subject.

Librarians at Columbia developed HILCC as a method for mapping Library of Congress class numbers to a structured new system, and spent much time resolving the many challenges presented by this data. We have customized the hierarchy and combined it with our holdings information to ensure users have the best resource tool possible for browsing e-journals by subject.

More information on the HILCC can be found here.

New Serials Solutions solution

Serials Solutions is now offering Alternate title searching, which gives your staff and patrons expanded searching options for finding journals. Rather than just searching on a single uniform title, alternate title searching opens up the complete set of alternate titles that a journal may have, including abbreviated titles. This makes it easier for patrons to find journals, even when they may know the journal by a slightly different name than the official one.

Check out this PDF file for details.