Max Planck vLib News

after upgrading to Firefox 17 the download-record-to-Zotero icon may presently fail to appear in the navigation bar

for more information see http://forums.zotero.org/discussion/26419/unapi-mods-translator-no-longer-working-in-zotero-3010-firefox-170/

you may wish to update your MODS translator immediately by following the link and instructions provided by Zotero developer Dan Stillman

we understand that the updated version of the translator will be rolled out soon

Please see http://vlib.mpg.de/start?title=WoK for Web of Knowledge databases as available in vLib.

As a consequence of an unexpected change of web services (i.e. services required by vLib to search databases in the background, and present results), Web of Science databases (e.g. A&HCI, SCI, SSCI) are no longer searchable through a single resource – see Web of Science – hence no vLib search checkbox is available for Web of Science at the moment.

In addition, integration of remaining WoK databases (Biosis Previews, INSPEC, Zoological Record) has turned out to be problematic and error-prone (at least INSPEC search had to be switched off entirely, investigation is continuing).

Please drop us a comment if you appreciate a stable, cross-searchable interface to search WoK databases in vLib.

Thank you in advance,

The vLib project team

An autocomplete service has been added to vLib forms that enable searching for appropriate information resources.

It’s available for resource title and publisher input fields at

http://vlib.mpg.de/start?view=metasearch&srv=locate
http://vlib.mpg.de/start?view=find-database&srv=browse
http://vlib.mpg.de/start?view=find-database&srv=locate

Just type any term (presently a minimum of three characters) to display a list of resources matching the input right below the form field.

To navigate through suggestions use the mouse or cursor up/down. To select an entry, click on it or press enter.

The service behind it has been designed to consider all title variants of a resource (or publisher name variants, respectively).

However, the list of suggestions actually shown contains display titles only (suggesting any title variants would be rather confusing and would unnecessarily bloat the list).

If you type some entry, and if matches are found, it’s obvious that some of the resource titles suggested do not seem to contain the string entered, for example:

This is because the term does not always match part of a vLib display title, but only part of the full or alternative title of the resource that is being suggested.

If you follow a suggestion, resource titles may be verified by opening the info window (by clicking the button):

In our example, resource info reveals that the resource was suggested because of its former name which is still recorded in vLib.

Any feedback (comments, etc.) is most welcome.

vLib will be unavailable on Wednesday, 28/03/12, during our scheduled maintenance hours, some time between 8 and 9 am, due to the installation of a minor software release.

There should be a maximum of 10 to 15 minutes downtime.

!! PLEASE NOTE: to be reapplied tonight after 6 pm !!

We apologize for any inconvenience.

Due to a scheduled power outage vLib will be unavailable between Friday, 27/05/11, 8 p.m., and Saturday some time during the day.

Please see the GWDG schedule (in German) for the most detailed information we found.

As a high number of services will be experiencing a downtime, systems will be started successively.

We have done our best to prioritize the start of vLib, however, we are unable to give any precise point of time when vLib will be available again after the outage.

MPG/SFX services should be available without interruption.

More info see GWDG News (in German see here).

We apologize for any inconvenience.

vLib is to move to a new server hardware, and will thus be unavailable from Tuesday 07/12/10 night until Wednesday 08/12/10 in the morning when the migration is planned be completed during our scheduled maintenance hours.

We sincerely regret the downtimes vLib has experienced recently, and apologize for any inconveniences caused.

Unfortunately, last week’s update failed because of networking problems, and has thus been re-scheduled to take place tomorrow morning, 1st of December, between 07:00 a.m. and 09:00 a.m.

We apologize for any inconvenience caused by this repeated downtime.

A software component will be upgraded on Wednesday, 24/11/10, in the course of our scheduled maintenance hours.

Since the upgrade requires approximately 2 hours downtime of vLib, the installation will be started at 07:00 a.m. Services are expected to be back by 09:00 a.m.

We apologize for any inconvenience.

Due to a scheduled power outage vLib will be unavailable on Wednesday, 17/11/10, from 6 am onwards.

As a a high number of services will be experiencing a downtime, systems will be initialized successively after the outage.

We have done our best to prioritize the start of vLib, however, we are unable to give any more precise point of time when vLib will be available again but between 9 and 12 o’clock in the morning.

MPG/SFX services should be available without interruption.

More info see GWDG News.

We apologize for any inconvenience.

The GWDG currently undertakes some necessary construction work in their server room and the vLib server need to be moved to a new location in this context. Therefore, our hosting partner scheduled a downtime for the vLib portal on Wednesday between 07:30 a.m. to approximately 12:00 a.m. We apologize for any inconvenience.

Update from 1 pm: Server restart will be delayed by two hours at least.