September 29, 2009

Library Spotlight: Reading Area

The "next step" anticipated here on July 31st began late yesterday afternoon; new furniture has arrived for the library main floor! With the floor plan in place ...

And a friendly group of strong delivery people ...

Three trucks of comfortable, colorful new furniture are now in available. For your reading and working pleasure, this area on the main floor now includes chairs, sofas, end-tables, and lamps for ambient lighting.


More pictures will be coming soon as we are still finessing placement, arranging items around the new reading area for maximum comfort, but stop in soon and "sit a spell."

There is still more to come @ your library.

September 21, 2009

Library Catalog



We are in the midst of having our security certificate renewed for the library catalog. While in progress, you may notice the above message when reloading a catalog page, requesting OhioLINK books, or trying to renew or view your library record.
  • If using Internet Explorer, simply choose the option: continue to this website.
  • If using Mozilla it may take a few more steps, but you will be able to move beyond the expired security certificate.

We apologize for the inconvenience and expect the issue to be resolved within the week. Thank you in advance for your patience and as always, please feel free to ask for help.

ERIC News

The U.S. Department of Education will spend $29 million over the next five years to enhance and operate the ERIC digital library of education literature, which offers free access to a broad array of scholarly materials. ERIC is the world's largest and most frequently used digital library of education, containing more than 1.3 million bibliographic records indexed from 1966 to the present. Its website (http://eric.ed.gov) provides free access to the ERIC digital library, which received more than 40 million visits in 2008 from educators, researchers, and the general public.

New enhancements included in this five-year contract include:

  • Collaboration with the agency's library to digitize and process archival
    materials related to the history of the Department, such as early 20th century
    records from the Commissioner of Education
  • Enhanced online submission format allowing Department of Education grantees
    and contractors to easily submit reports and related published research
  • Establishment of a Library Committee, composed of school, academic, and
    special librarians who will recommend journals and sources, changes to the ERIC
    Thesaurus, and services and outreach
  • Optical Character Recognition (OCR) of 486,000 digitized microfiche
    documents to ensure universal access.

The ERIC website provides an alphabetical list of more than 984 journals currently indexed in the digital library. Other materials-including research syntheses, conference papers, technical reports, and policy papers -are also indexed from more than 760 sources. More than 20 percent of the collection is full-text materials. ERIC, one of the longest-running services offered by the department of education, is part of the National Library of Education in the Institute of Education Sciences. Visit the ERIC website at: http://eric.ed.gov -- IES Newsflash 9/21/09


Ashland University Library provides users with access to the ERIC government portal as well as ERIC in EBSCOHost and ERIC via OhioLINK. As always, full text not available in these database resources may be requested using InterLibrary Loan.

This information is also available on the IRC blog post ERIC Update.

September 8, 2009

LibGuides Resources by Subject


Resources by Subject, also known as LibGuides, are not part of the current university-wide web content freeze. Guides created for classes and developed by AU librarians will continue to be updated with new information and resources for library users. For ease of use, a quick link to the library blog is featured on the guide main page.

Remember, sections of the library web site not effected by the content freeze include:

Please feel free to contact us with questions regarding the University web site redesign. We want to make this transition as easy as possible.

September 3, 2009

Library Hours: Labor Day

In observance of the Labor Day holiday, AU Library will close at 4:00 pm on Friday, September 4th. Additional holiday weekend hours are:
  • Saturday, September 5th: Library Closed
  • Sunday, September 6th: Library Closed
  • Monday, September 7th: Library opens @ 6:00 pm

Regular hours resume on Tuesday, September 8th.

Please note Instructional Resource Center holiday hours differ from the main library. When the IRC is closed and the library open, general second floor computers and printing remain available to students. Color printing and other IRC resources are not available when the IRC is closed.