All posts by inga

How to get Elsevier articles after December 31, 2018

The Max Planck Digital Library has been mandated to discontinue their Elsevier subscription when the current agreement expires on December 31, 2018. Read more about the background in the full press release.

Nevertheless, most journal articles published until that date will remain available, due to the rights stipulated in the MPG contracts to date.

To fulfill the content needs of Max Planck researchers when Elsevier shuts off access to recent content at the beginning of January, the Max Planck libraries and MPDL have coordinated the setup of a common document order service. This will be integrated into the MPG/SFX interface and can be addressed as follows:

Step 1: Search in ScienceDirect, start in any other database or enter the article details into the MPG/SFX citation linker.

Step 2: Click the MPG/SFX button. Note: In ScienceDirect, it appears in the “Get Access” section at the top of those article pages for which the full text is no longer available:

Step 3: Check the options in the service menu presented to you, e.g. free available full text versions (if available).

Step 4: To order the article via your local library or the MPDL, select the corresponding link, e.g. "Request document via your local library". Please note that the wording might differ slightly according to your location.

Step 5: Add your personal details to the order form in the next screen and submit your document request.

The team in your local library or at the MPDL will get back to you as soon as possible.

Please feel free to contact us if you face any problem or want to raise a question.

Update, 06.06.2019: Check out our new flyer "How to deal with no subscription DEAL" prepared in cooperation with Max Planck’s PhDnet.

Aleph Multipool-Recherche: Parallele Suche in MPG-Bibliothekskatalogen

Update, 07.12.2018: Die Multipool-Suche gibt es jetzt auch als Webinterface.

Der Multipool-Expertenmodus im Aleph Katalogisierungs-Client dient der schnellen Recherche in mehreren Datenbanken gleichzeitig. Dabei können die Datenbanken entweder direkt auf dem Aleph-Server liegen oder als externe Ressourcen über das z39.50-Protokoll angebunden sein. Zusätzlich zu den lokalen Bibliotheken ist der MPI Bibliothekskatalog im GBV auf dem Aleph-Sever bereits vorkonfiguriert.

Die Multipool-Funktion ist im Aleph Katalogisierungs-Client im Recherche-Bereich zu finden (2. Tab):

Multipool Tab

Unterhalb des Bereichs zur Auswahl der relevanten Datenbanken kann man die Suchanfrage eintragen. Hinweise zur verwendeten Kommandosprache finden sich in der Aleph-Hilfe. Nach dem Absenden der Suchanfrage wird die Ergebnisliste mit den Datenbanken und der jeweiligen Treffermenge im unteren Rahmen angezeigt:

Zum Öffnen eines einzelnen Sets genügt ein Doppelklick:

Bei gemeinsamen Katalogen – wie z.B. dem MPI Bibliothekskatalog im GBV – findet sich der Hinweis auf die bestandshaltende Bibliothek in der Datensatz-Vollanzeige:

Aleph Datensatzanzeige

Zur Einrichtung der Multipool-Suche müssen die vom lokalen Aleph-Client genutzten Konfigurationsdateien (library.ini und searbase.dat) erweitert werden. Bei Bedarf stellen wir die von uns genutzten Dateien gerne zur Verfügung. Weiterführende Informationen finden sich auch im Aleph Wiki:

  1. Download und Installation des Aleph Clients
  2. Einrichtung weiterer Z39.50-Zugänge

Goodbye vLib! Shutdown after October 31, 2018

In 2002 the Max Planck virtual Library (vLib) was launched, with the idea of making all information resources relevant for Max Planck users simultaneously searchable under a common user interface. Since then, the vLib project partners from the Max Planck libraries, information retrieval services groups, the GWDG and the MPDL invested much time and effort to integrate various library catalogs, reference databases, full-text collections and other information resources into MetaLib, a federated search system developed by Ex Libris.

With the rise of large search engines and discovery tools in recent years, usage slowly shifted away and the metasearch technology applied was no longer fulfilling user’s expection. Therefore, the termination of most vLib services was announced two years ago and now we are approaching the final shutdown: The vLib portal will cease to operate after the 31th of October 2018.

As you know, there are many alternatives to the former vLib services: MPG.ReNa will remain available for browsing and discovering electronic resources available to Max Planck users. In addition, we’ll post some information on how to cross search Max Planck library catalogs soon.

Let us take the opportunity to send a big "Thank you!" to all vLib users and collaborators within and outside the Max Planck Society. It always was and will continue to be a pleasure to work with and for you.

Goodbye!… and please feel free to contact us in case of any further question.

Citation Trails in Primo Central Index (PCI)

The May 2016 release brought an interesting functionality to the Primo Central Index (PCI): The new "Citation Trail" capability enables PCI users to discover relevant materials by providing cited and citing publications for selected article records.

Citation trail feature in PCI

At this time the only data source for the citation trail feature is CrossRef, thus the number of citing articles will be below the "Cited by" counts in other sources like Scopus and Web of Science.

Further information:

ProQuest Illustrata databases discontinued

Last year, the information provider ProQuest decided to discontinue its "Illustrata Technology" and "Illustrata Natural Science" databases. Unfortunately, this represents a preliminary end to ProQuest’s long-year investment into deep indexing content.

In a corresponding support article ProQuest states that there "[…] will be no loss of full text and full text + graphics images because of the removal of Deep Indexed content". In addition, they announce to "[…] develop an even better way for researchers to discover images, figures, tables, and other relevant visual materials related to their research tasks".

The MPG.ReNa records for ProQuest Illustrata: Technology and ProQuest Illustrata: Natural Science have been marked as "terminating" and will be deactivated soon.

Personal Accounts activated for OvidSP

Users from the Max Planck Society have now access to the "Personal Account" feature in OvidSP. This enables you to create a private workspace to store search strategies, AutoAlerts, and more, by logging in at any time during an active OvidSP session.

In order to try out the Personal Account feature, please:

  • log into OvidSP (IP authenticated access)
  • select "My Workspace" in the top menu to be directed to a login screen

First time users will need to register via the "Create a new Personal Account" link above the login box. Further information can be found in the Ovid help and the video tutorials offered by Wolters Kluwer.

Please note that OvidSP Personal Accounts will replace the MPG/Ovid user login in the near future. All users with an active MPG/Ovid account will receive an email providing more details soon.

Changes to WoS database portfolio

We would like to announce following two changes to the databases available via the Web of Science:

1. The MPG subscription has been extended to Thomson Reuters Citation Connection. This provides MPG researchers with additional access to following databases:

In addition, the Web of Science Core Collection has been expanded by following segments:

  • Book Citation Index, 2005-
  • Current Chemical Reactions, 1986- (incl. INPI Data, 1840-1985)
  • Index Chemicus (IC), 1993-

2. Unfortunately, the subscription to Inspec will terminate end of 2014, thus the database will no longer be available via WoS in 2015. The decision was taken due to the continuously decreasing usage of the database which suggests that a MPG-wide license is no longer reasonable.

Any feedback is welcome, please feel free to fill up the contact form.

MPG/SFX: No further DOI Hijacking

It has been 9 years since we introduced the DOI CookiePusher for the MPG/SFX server. This functionality sets a cookie in the browser which will redirect DOI links to a local link resolver. As a result clicking a DOI link like doi:10.1016/j.biocon.2007.06.019 may lead you to a MPG/SFX service menu, instead of forwarding you to the publisher’s web site directly.

Lately, we received quite a lot of feedback from users complaining about the extra clicks caused by this feature. Therefore, we decided to deactivate the DOI CookiePusher on MPG/SFX. It will take some days until all existing cookies have expired, but afterwards DOI links should no longer be hijacked by MPG/SFX.

You still can request a SFX service menu for a known DOI by:

  1. entering the DOI into the MPG/SFX citation linker: http://sfx.mpg.de/citation/sfx_local
  2. adding the corresponding plug-in to your browser and pasting the DOI into the search bar: Search plugin creator
  3. calling the script to set DOI cookie manually: DOI cookie pusher
    Please note that the cookie will expire after 72 hours, thus this needs to be repeated regularly.

As always, your feedback is highly appreciated. Feel free to post your comment here or to contact us.