AskAway Blog

Journal Loan Periods

Submitted by admin-boss on

Did you know: journals are "in-library use only" at some institutions? Here is a list of institutions and their journal lending periods:
In-library use only:
BCIT
CAP - most periodicals except some graphic arts ones
CNC - except for employees
DC
ECIAD
MUC
NIC - exceptions may be permitted for faculty upon request
NWCC
OC
SFU - with exceptions under special circumstances
TRU - students
TWU
UBC - except Math, Law, and Asian Library journals
UNBC
UVic

Search Engines for Kids

Submitted by admin-boss on

Since the Public Library version of AskAway has been closed, we have been receiving increased numbers of questions from high school and elementary school students.
Having heard so much about "freedom of information", I thought we'd be able to use Google to do the searches, but I've discovered that the students' reading level can be really prohibitive when relying on a standard search engine.

Recording of the Medical Reference Resources brown bag now available

Submitted by admin-boss on

The recording of the AskAway brown bag presentation: Medical Reference Resources is now available on the AskAway portal.
Here is the link:
http://eln.bc.ca/askaway/?page=recordings#subject
Table of contents:
0:00 Possible types of medical questions
2:55 Medicine and Health Sciences Wiki Page
4:06 Online Reference Sources
7:42 Top Database: Medline
23:53 Overview of other databases in Medicine
31:38 Consumer Health Information

Happy Birthday AskAway!

Submitted by admin-boss on

It's been one year since AskAway was officially launched by Minister of Advanced Education Murray Coell and Minster of Education Shirley Bond, and since then we've answered over 10,000 questions from patrons around the province! That means 1 in 20 BC learners has asked a question on AskAway! Congratulations to all of you who have worked so hard to make this service such a success!

New Local - Authentication script

Submitted by admin-boss on

In response to service provider feedback, we have encouraged institutions to change the title of their Cobrowse 3 script, which describes how a patron can authenticate into the databases at their library. The script should now be called Local - Authentication, which is a little more self-explanatory than Cobrowse 3!
For example, the UBC Local - Authentication script reads:

Java Updates now supported

Submitted by admin-boss on

OCLC informs us that the QuestionPoint software is now compatible with the Java version 6, update 2 (i.e. the one that wasn't working in the summer).
Java has since released Java version 6, update 3. OCLC says that after limitted testing it appears that update 3 also works with QuestionPoint.
So what does this mean for you?

QP Reports Webinar

Submitted by admin-boss on

Questionpoint will be hosting a webinar on QP Reports. See below for details. If you have any questions about this webinar, please ask Becky Hawk (contact info below).
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The QuestionPoint team will host a one-hour Live Meeting session entitled “QuestionPoint Reports Webinar” on 22 October from 11:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m., Eastern Daylight Time (3:30 p.m. GMT). Microsoft Live Meeting will be used for the visual portion of the webinar and a dial-in toll-free conference call for the audio portion.
There are three prerequisites to attending the session:

Brown-bag Recording: Preparation for Assignment Ads

Submitted by admin-boss on

Now available!
Check out the recording of the presentation: Preparation for Assignment Ads
This presentation shows you some tips for handling questions generated by the assignment ads.
If you don't have time to view the entire presentation, use the time indices below to skip to the topic you wish to view:
Content:
1:55 What are the Assignment Ads?
7:31 Primary Sources in Science/Social Science
12:06 Primary Sources in Arts
19:18 Finding Scholarly and Peer Reviewed articles
25:24 Is *this* article peer-reviewed?

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