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V o l um e 13 , Is s ue 2 J a nua r y 2 0 1 4
THE ICONN TIMES New! Ebooks in iCONN
INSIDE THIS ISSUE:
Ebooks in iCONN
P.1
iCONN Emergency Access Web Site
P.1
EBSCO & Common Core State Standards
P.1
ReQuest ILL training
P.1
Consumer Reports Search Box Again
P.2
Permalinks for Classic Menu Pages
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RFP for Statewide Library Catalog
P.2
iCONN Training
P.2
iCONN is pleased to have added a starter collection of eBooks to its OneClickdigital account. After a trial period early in November 2013 and a soft launch on November 8, iCONN announced the service on December 2, 2013. The collection includes a variety of 85 classic titles plus 47 more current titles. The eBooks appear along with the existing eAudio titles at the same web address of http://iconnct.oneclickdigital.com/. Browsing, title checkouts and holds function the same as the downloadable audio titles. Questions about the service can be directed to Eric Hansen, Eric.A.Hansen@ct.gov or by calling 860-704-2224. For technical support, contact support@oneclickdigital.com or call 877-77-AUDIO (877-772-8346).
iCONN Emergency Access Web Site
Refresh your request ILL Skills (for request ILL participants) Wed., Jan. 29, 9-12 p.m. Registration and networking from 8:30-9:00 a.m. To register for this in-person training (at MLSC), visit the CT State Library’s Continuing Education Calendar at: http://evanced.info/cslib/ evanced/eventcalendar.asp
Emergency planning should be a part of every organization’s operations. iCONN has experienced impressive reliability in recent years from the company (Auto-Graphics) that hosts the iCONN.org domain and statewide library catalog, and that provides authenticated access to all our licensed resources. In the event of an emergency, or a planned extended outage such as occurred on the last weekend of December 2012, or a problem affecting only your library’s access to iCONN, we have created an alternative site at http://www.cslib.org/iconnsitemap/staff/ iCONNHome.htm that provides access to all resources in the event that iCONN.org became inaccessible. The site is intended to be utilitarian, providing an alternate method of accessing each of the resources, rather than aesthetic. All pages on this site, including all classic menu pages, are accessible without authentication. Access to databases is afforded by direct database vendor links (supplied by EBSCO and ProQuest) in lieu of the links supplied by AutoGraphics. Links within the classic menus authenticate on the servers of the database vendors that furnished them. This effectively replaces iCONN’s usual single sign-on authentication with authentication from each vendor (EBSCO and ProQuest). Both vendors have furnished iCONN with links that authenticate first by IP address; failing that, the user is prompted for a valid Connecticut public library card number. For further information, contact Eric Hansen at Eric.A.Hansen@ct.gov or call 860-704-2224.
EBSCO and Common Core State Standards
iCONN is a service of the Connecticut State Library’s Division of Library Development.
We are working with EBSCO Product Management and school librarians on the iCONN Database Committee to determine how EBSCO’s K-12 content can best be aligned to Common Core State Standards, and how this alignment can best be reflected in the user interface. We anticipate that most of this work will not be visible until new versions of EBSCO’s K-12 products, including Searchasaurus, Kids Search and Student Research Center, are available. Examples of how MetaMetrics, the originator of the Lexile standard, has addressed this in the user interface of its own products (for books, not articles) can be seen at http://bit.ly/1esFU75 and http://bit.ly/1coKvUH.
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Free iCONN Training iCONN-Specific EBSCO Training Usage Statistics and Administration for iCONN EBSCO Resources: Wed., Jan. 29, 10-11:30 a.m. To register or view any of the archived webinars, visit the iCONN-Specific EBSCO Training page at: http://is.gd/vrEl0e iCONN Downloadable Audiobook Training for staff and students: OneClickdigital product demonstration for staff: Tues., Feb. 4 11a.m.-12p.m. Tues., Mar. 4 2-3p.m. OneClickdigital product training for staff—patron experience: Tues., Feb. 4 2-3 p.m. Tues, Mar. 4 12-1 p.m. OneClickdigital product demonstration for patrons: Wed., Jan. 22 3-4 p.m. Tues., Feb. 25 3-4 p.m. Tues., Mar. 25 2:30 3-4 p.m. To register, visit iCONN’s Downloadable Audio Books page at: http://www.cslib.org/ iconnsitemap/staff/ AudioBooksNews.aspx
The iCONN Times is a quarterly publication of iCONN— Connecticut’s re-search engine. Find it on the site index at: http://bit.ly/qLlmwu. iCONN 786 South Main Street Middletown, CT 06457 (860) 704-2220 or toll free (888) 256-1222
V o l um e 13 , Is s ue 2
Consumer Reports Search Box Again iCONN’s first release of its Consumer Reports search box included a link to the Consumer Reports logo from an address on the open web. That address is no longer valid. To prevent any future broken image links in the search box, iCONN has installed the logo on the State Library’s web server. Here is the new link to the updated search box: http://bit.ly/192cUFm. As before, simply copy and paste the source code into your own library’s web site. Users in the library can then use the search box to search Consumer Reports with no further authentication. Users outside the library will be prompted for a valid Connecticut public library card number. For help with this, contact Eric Hansen at Eric.A.Hansen@ct.gov or call 860-704-2224.
Permalinks for Classic Menu Pages The URLs that appear in your web browser for all of the classic menu pages listed below are not permalinks. To make it easier for librarians and users to link to these pages, we have added shorter permalinks to all of these pages: Resources for Colleges & Universities Resources for the Public Resources for High Schools Resources for Middle Schools Resources for Elementary Schools iCONN Newspapers iCONN Popular Magazines - Public Libraries iCONN Popular Magazines - High Schools iCONN Popular Magazines - Middle Schools iCONN Popular Magazines - Elementary Schools In every case the permalink appears in a text box beneath the page title, in the upper right portion of the page. Copy and paste the link for an easy method to bookmark the page or embed it in other web pages. The permalinks will automatically authenticate onsite users within the college or university, school, or public library. Remote users will be prompted for a valid CT public library card number to login.
RFP for the Statewide Library Catalog A Request for Proposal (RFP) was issued for the statewide library and associated services on October 31, 2013 at http://1.usa.gov/1a3DD2M. Associated services include the interlibrary loan system, online cataloging and (optionally) authentication for iCONN databases. Proposals were received on December 11, 2013. The new system must be operational by July 1, 2015 but could be implemented much sooner.