New JSTOR Sandbox Feature: Faceted Search

This is an interesting new JSTOR "beta" search feature - here is a description:
"After completing a search, users may see how the returned articles are distributed among the categories, or “facets.” The faceted search will show how many results appear in each discipline, how many are book reviews or full-length articles, and how many of articles fall into each decade over the last 400 years, as well as other useful facets.

By selecting the facets, users may narrow results to fit particular characteristics. For instance, clicking on the "French Language" facet, the "Book Review" facet, and the "1950" facet would automatically narrow the search results down to all book reviews written in French in the 1950's."

You can play with this via this link:
http://fsearch-sandbox.jstor.org.library.esc.edu/search

Question: would this be worthy to add to our News Blog?

Gaming for info lit podcast

An interesting audio file from a recent gaming conference relevant to academic librarians about the use of gaming for info lit:
http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/techsource/~3/147348382/audio-from-glls2007-games-students-play-a-new-approach-to-online-information-literacy-instruction.html

Question: Ask-a-Librarian via EBSCOhost

Question: curtrently there is an "Ask-a-Librarian" link in the upper right of EBSCO databases that leads to an EBSCO e-mail form which then gets delivered to librarian@esc.edu. We now have the ability to have that link go directly to our current online form - should we do that instead?

What we would lose would be the identifying subject line which let's us know users are coming from EBSCO as well as the attachment showing their search history.

What we would gain would be a filled out form where we don't have to cut and paste details.

Please comment as to your preference on this.

New feature to this blog: Blogroll

I've added a Blogroll feed display (in the left menu) from my own Bloglines page to our ESC Librarians blog containing links to various library blogs I find useful in keeping up with developments in the profession - if you have others that are relevant to all of us and our jobs, let me know and I can add.

Multi-Database Search up and ready for testing!

Our SerialsSolutions Multi-Database Search is now up and we need to do some testing on it. Please use the link below to access it, play around with it and test it out. Try to look at it from the pespectives of students and faculty - here are some specifics I could think of to keep in mind.
Be aware that there are definite limits to what can be changed - we can change most any label or heading or help text or subject list of databases, but the basic structure beyond what we looked at in the original search options document (attached below) most likely can't be adjusted too much - but please include all suggestions - those we can't make at present, we can keep a running list of for possible future enhancements:

• navigation - easy to use?
• defaults: do they make sense?
• terminology/labels: what is unclear or too jargony?
• help text: what, when and where might we put it?
• does it make sense to list those database links that don't offer a connection within appropriate subject lists - those that don't have a check box next to them (example: in Books - netlibrary or perhaps we might add to Law, Westlaw Campus?)
• does it make sense to create a splash page before directing users to the interface, with a brief explanation of functions as well as a link to a more in-depth tutorial?
• how might we best integrate this into our web site? We can embed a search box onto any web site, including our library home page (note: I've attached my draft for home page redesign from a few months ago here: - this by default would search the "Multidisciplinary" subject topic).

Link to Multi-Database Search:
http://library.esc.edu/login?url=http://wk4ky4tk9h.cs.serialssolutions.com