Catalogue display from staff offices

We’ve recently had reports from academic staff about problems with the catalogue from their staff office. When they open the catalogue the layout is clearly broken, and they also report that searches are very slow.

These reports all seem to come from on-campus and we suspect the staff affected are using the Internet Explorer version 6 web browser. This corresponds with our tests here in the Library.

The short term advice is that if staff have this problem they should use the F5 key (refresh) and the page should load and display the best that IE6 can do with our catalogue. There will always be some issues with IE 6. Staff may have to use F5 several times through their session to get the best results.

A better solution is for staff to upgrade their browser to Internet Explorer version 7. Staff can install the upgrade themselves by launching

Start -> Install Apps (RMIT) -> Microsoft -> Internet Explorer 7 Install.

Allow some time for the installation – it can take a few minutes. This installer for IE 7 is provided by ITS, so staff should feel comfortable about adding the software to their computers. If they have concerns they should speak to ITS Help Desk.

We are also following up the IE 7 roll out with ITS.

New titles

The Library has just added a new titles tab to the catalogue. It sorts by campus and then by call no area. So as you are browsing titles for a particular campus you might for example go to 370s for education.

I will no longer be using LibraryThing for new titles. We hope to be introducing further improvements to this function, including a primary sort by subject and RSS feeds.

UPDATE: Here is a link to new 370s (education) across all campuses.

New library books on LibraryThing

The Library moved to a new catalogue this year and hopes to eventually allow users to access a new titles list. In the meantime, I have created a “widget” on this blog (on the right hand side, scroll down) that features new education books coming into the Library.