BLACKBOARD | RESERVES | ENDECA

 

Library Resources: A New Link in your Blackboard Course Menu
SHERIL HOOK

Each course in Blackboard now has access to Library Resources from the course menu. If you require your students to engage in research projects that require scholarly, discipline-specific journals and resources, then these lists provide good starting points for their research. Through the resources listed your students can access scholarly articles, primary source documents, statistical data, specialized online encyclopedias, book reviews, film reviews, full-text plays and analysis, images, and more.

Along with access to top-quality resources, the list provides a connection to the library catalogue and a quick link to the UT Mississauga Library’s  Reference & Research Services’ chat service.

If you would like modifications made to the resource list contact your Liaison Librarian.  He/she will work with you to develop a list that is specific to the research needs of your student’s course assignments.

 

Reserves and eReserves Services
IAN WHYTE

With the introduction of Blackboard many students find the complexity of the University of Toronto’s information landscape overwhelming. They do not always know where to look for course supplementary readings and materials to support their research assignments, even when they might be available within Blackboard.  We can help them!

The Library provides students with controlled access to course-related material in high demand and selected supplementary readings, for example:

1. Durable links to subscription-based electronic journals, ebooks, and other online resources (licensed to the University)
2. Links to web resources
3. Scanned copies of past course tests and exams
4. Books
5. Photocopies of journal articles, excerpts from books
6. Class notes, sample tests, assignments and solutions
7. Videos, CDs, DVDs and artifacts
8. Course textbooks

When instructors send us their course readings, in addition to placing print materials within the Reserves collection of the Library, we also create links to the online materials (staff will receive reading lists or course syllabi from instructors in electronic format and create persistent HTML links to the full-text electronic source documents when they are available or to Library catalogue records providing location details).  Instructors are then able to post the course readings with embedded links within Blackboard and Library staff makes the course readings available within our online reserves system.  This means that wherever students might look for supplementary readings for their courses they will find them.

In addition to providing embedded links in course readings, one of the most powerful tools within Blackboard to promote access to online resources for faculty and students is the Library Resources Tool (LRT).  Course reserves and readings are available from each LRT page within Blackboard.

Reserve requests and course reading lists must be submitted electronically via email, with a Word or PDF attachment, to: reserves.utm@utoronto.ca, or via our online request form at: www.utm.utoronto.ca/library/services/requestreserves.html

Since there is a range of support options for Reserves and eReserves, contact your Liaison Librarian, call (905) 828-5239, or send email to reserves.utm@utoronto.ca.

 

Endeca is Here – Take a look!
PAM KING

In the last issue of Foreword (Spring 2008) Ian Whyte reported on Endeca, the new Information Access Platform which is to become the principle resource discovery tool and catalogue for the University of Toronto Libraries’ (UTL) collections.  In August, when most of us were thinking about that final bit of unused vacation time, UTL released Endeca as a Try it now! link on the Libraries' and requested feedback on its functionality and usability. 

This term, UT Mississauga Liaison Librarians have introduced some students to the new catalogue environment.  The faceted refinement of search results, a feature that allows the searcher to focus on sub-sets of the results based on key features such as date of publication, author, language of publication and call number range, relevance ranking of search results, and a ‘spell check’ are a few of the new features that have produced a positive student response. 

At the time of publication, the UTL continues to request your feedback on this new and evolving search interface.  Try a keyword search and provide your comments through the ‘Provide us with your feedback’ link in the upper left of the screen.