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resources

Essential Science Indicators and Journal Citation Reports on the InCites platform

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Thomson Reuters has released the Essential Science Indicators (ESI) and the Journal Citation Reports (JCR) on its InCites platform. This launch is part of a larger strategy to introduce InCites as single environment for research and bibliometric assessment and evaluation. In addition, the data from JCR and ESI will be integrated more prominently into the Web of Science. For an example, check out the "Highly Cited" icon or the "View Journal Information" section on this WoS Full Record page.

Users of the Max Planck Society may access ESI and JCR on both platforms until end of 2014 via the URLs provided below. From January 2015 onwards, both resources will be available via InCites only.

Journal Citation Reports

Essential Science Indicators

Training videos are available for JCR on InCites and ESI on InCites.

Login Information: IP authentication has been setup for InCites, but the platform still requires an explicit Sign-In. Therefore a login screen will be displayed when you enter InCites for the first time. From here you may select the "Continue without signing in" link if you do not wish to register for a personal account.

resources, sfx link resolver

How to set MPG/SFX links in the ADS

Users of the SAO/NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS) can configure their ADS preferences to link to the electronic resources available to them through their library subscriptions. The MPG/SFX server has recently be added to the list of Library Link servers offered by ADS.

To activate MPG/SFX buttons in the ADS, please:

  1. log in to your personal account (or create a new one),
  2. go to "my Account" and choose the "Library Link Settings",
  3. from the pull-down of available Library Link servers, select the entry for the "Max Planck Society"
    ADS preferences
  4. and save your settings.

Your ADS preferences are stored as a cookie in your browser and will remain active until you sign off the system.

resources

Mobile-optimized website for Safari Tech Books

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ProQuest introduced a new mobile-optimized website for customers of the academic version of the Safari Tech Books collection, including the MPG.

The emphasis of this additional website is to deliver easy access to licensed content via a simplified user interface. You can view it at: http://m.proquest.safaribooksonline.com.

Safari Books Online's mobile website supports the following devices:

  • All iOS 3+ devices
  • All Android 1.5+ (supported without prefetching), 2.1+ (supported with prefetching)
  • Blackberry 6, PlayBook (Blackberry Tablet)

Please note that access to the Safari Tech Books collection is IP authenticated, thus you need to ensure that your mobile device is assigned an MPG IP address.

Please feel free to comment on the new mobile-optimized website – here or via our contact form.

resources

CSA and ProQuest databases migrate to new platform

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Last year the information provider ProQuest released a new user interface which brings together reference databases and full text resources which were previously spread over various platforms (CSA Illumina, Chadwyck-Healey, ProQuest).

The new platform is now ready to use via http://search.proquest.com/.

Please note that we will start to redirect the relevant entry points to the new platform next week. We also recommend to update all local links and bookmarks as soon as possible.

For more information on using ProQuest, please consult your local MPI librarian or send your questions to the colleagues in the IVS-BM. Some online workshops featuring the new platform are now available, as well as a series of training videos created by the ProQuest team.

This is the list of the databases which have been migrated so far:

  • Aerospace Database (1962 – current)
  • AIDS and Cancer Research Abstracts (1982 – current)
  • Applied Social Sciences Index and Abstracts (1987 – current)
  • Aqualine (1960 – current)
  • ASFA: Aquatic Sciences and Fisheries Abstracts (1971 – current)
  • Biological Sciences (1971 – current)
  • Computer and Information Systems Abstracts (1981 – current)
  • Electronics & Communications Abstracts (1981 – current)
  • Environmental Impact Statements (1985 – current)
  • Environmental Science and Pollution Management (1967 – current)
  • ERIC (1966 – current)
  • GeoRef (1693 – current)
  • International Bibliography of Art (IBA) (1973 – current)
  • Linguistics and Language Behavior Abstracts (1973 – current)
  • Materials Research Database (1965 – current)
  • Meteorological & Geoastrophysical Abstracts (1974 – current)
  • MLA International Bibliography (1926 – current)
  • PAIS (1914 – current)
  • Philosopher’s Index (1940 – current)
  • Physical Education Index (1970 – current)
  • PILOTS (1871 – current)
  • ProQuest Dissertations & Theses (PQDT) (1639 – current)
  • ProQuest Historical Newspapers
  • ProQuest Illustrata: Natural Sciences
  • ProQuest Illustrata: Technology
  • Social Services Abstracts (1979 – current)
  • Sociological Abstracts (1952 – current)
  • Solid State and Superconductivity Abstracts (1981 – current)
  • Zoological Record (1978 – 2012)
resources

Information providers gone mobile

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Over the last two years, an increasing number of information providers started to offer mobile versions of their platforms or developed specialized applications to access the electronic content. In most cases, users with mobile devices will be automatically redirected to the corresponding version. Access to subscribed content may depend on your IP address, but some providers support remote access via specific measures.

Here you find some further information for selected providers:

sfx link resolver

Using MPG/SFX with your favorite literature management tool?

Unfortunately, we don’t know what your favorite tool is, but want to share a short video which provides some instructions for how to use MPG/SFX with Mendeley:

Watch on YouTube

The so-called base URL for the MPG/SFX link resolver is: https://sfx.mpg.de/sfx_local

Please note that Mendeley is by far not the only literature software which supports this kind of integration, e.g. the colleagues from the IVS-BM put together some information for EndNote. You are welcome to contact us if you are interested in instructions for any other tool, we’ll do our best to figure it out…

vLib portal

vLib outage ahead (Wednesday 8 September)

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.

vLib portal

vLib server down (Tuesday 24 August)

Unfortunately, the vLib portal is not running at the moment due to server problems at our hosting partner. The responsible system administrators at GWDG work intensely to resume service as soon as possible.

We apologize for any inconvenience.

Update from 6 pm: The problems have been caused by a failure of memory devices. The system was restarted successfully in the meantime.

resources, sfx link resolver

Problems with Safari Books Online

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Unfortunately, we noticed several problems with accessing the Safari Tech Books collection over the last days:

  1. The MPG/SFX server sometimes fails to redirect requests to the correct entry page, see example.
    Solution: Prefer the link offered by the "MPG eBook Index" as this seems to work much more reliable.
     
  2. Not all book content loads correctly if you select a particular book section from the table of content, see example.
    Solution: Try to switch to the HTML view instead by clicking the new icon from the Safari tool bar, i.e.
    safari tool bar

Note: We and the Safari support are aware of these problems and hope to solve them soon!

sfx link resolver

MPG/SFX: Unexpected outage solved

Today, the MPG/SFX server was not available from 12 a.m. to 3 p.m., due to a crash of the SFX database. Meanwhile our hosting partner managed to restore the database from the backfile and restarted the service successfully.

We are sorry for the inconvenience (and will try our best to get rid of all the bad karma