Friday 29 January 2016

Dawsonera ebooks - accessibility enhancements coming on 2nd February

Dawsonera have announced new enhancements coming on 2nd February as part of their work towards RNIB approved status:



A number of the pop-up box error messages on the platform were not intuitively interacting with screen readers. These will now function correctly and will be clearly announced when used with a screen reader. We have made these improvements to the following pop-up messages:
1.     Account settings.
2.     Add to MUA queue.
3.     IP passport request account.
4.     Modify search modal.
5.     Request rental.
6.     Suggest for purchase.
7.     Forgotten password reset.
Site Navigation Links have been improved. Previously, some of the links and navigational elements were not being announced and appearing in the correct sequential order. These have been corrected and users can now easily navigate around the following areas when using a screen reader:
1.     Title and description for books in different languages are now recognised by screen readers.
2.     Improved focus on Contact us page to ensure compatibility with screen readers.
3.     Social Media links now appear in the correct order when swiping with screen readers.
4.     Screens are now showing a more responsive layout and resizing correctly when screen readers are enabled.
5.     After searches are completed, users will now be able to skip straight to the results via a new link that has been incorporated.
6.     Using the back button when the sign in or contact us modal window is displayed will now close the modal window.
7.     When a user filters a ‘search’ according to title/author, the focus is now taken to the search button to improve navigation.
8.     The label for the ‘quick search’ text input box has been improved so that it will be clear to the user what the function of this box is.
9.     We have improved the overall accessibility of the ‘skip links’ so that they are always displayed when using the site with an Android device.  This addresses an issue on Android devices when Talkback is enabled and the ‘focus’ event is not fired when the skip links are in focus, which was preventing the links from being displayed or utilised. 

Monday 25 January 2016

ICE Virtual Library: site upgrade Tuesday, 26th January 2016

The ICEVirtual Library is undergoing a site upgrade tomorrow, Tuesday 26th January.

Between 07:00 and 19:00 GMT, the platform will be at risk, and some functions will not be available.

Tuesday 19 January 2016

Web of Science at risk Sunday January 24th

Web of Science is being upgraded on Sunday January 24th, 2pm to 2am.


Thomson Reuters advise that they do not expect to have any outages or downtime during the release. However they wish to advise users that as they are conducting scheduled maintenance there may be intermittent access at this time.




Monday 11 January 2016

Off campus login problems affecting DISCOVER/Library catalogue renewals

Since the middle of December we have been having issues with off campus users logging into DISCOVER via the link on BREO, and Library catalogue renewals (Library sign page). We believe it is to do with changes to the auto fill options on Chrome but it may apply to other browsers.








Below are things you can do to try to resolve the issue:

1.Turn off the auto fill option in your browser and try again
Settings, show advanced settings, password and forms, uncheck auto-fill. (Chrome)

2.If this doesn’t work please try a different browser if you are using Chrome, to see if that helps.

3. Otherwise you may need to clear your browser cache:

http://www.wikihow.com/Clear-Your-Browser's-Cache

3. You could also try to use DISCOVER via this alternative link



4. Or try the Discover search box on LRWEB.


Friday 8 January 2016

Key Note off campus login - problem solved

We have a new off campus link for Key Note, please let us know if you have any further problems with it.

Key Note login problems

We're currently unable to access Key Note off campus. We are working to get this fixed as soon as possible. In the meantime, you can still access Key Note from on campus, via this link.










Thursday 7 January 2016

Dawsonera ebooks - accessibility improvements

Dawsonera have made some changes today to help people with visual impairments to real their ebooks. These include: 
  • Link text has been underlined in the following areas: footer, My Bookshelf and search results. This ensures that the link conventions are consistent and clear.
  • An increased contrast ratio has been applied to the reader portal (excluding the online reader).
  • Help pop-ups are now displayed on keyboard focus as well as mouse hover.
  • When ‘Skip links’ are in focus they are now clearly displayed.  When used, the user is navigated to the targeted element where the keyboard focus is set, allowing users to seamlessly navigate.
  • Checkboxes in the ‘refine search’ area are now more clearly visible.  
  • Error messages encountered during login and in the ’contact us’ forms have been improved from an accessibility perspective in the HTML markup and the relevant focus set.
  • The order of the links in the site header, navigation and social area can now be tabbed through in a logical order at different screen sizes.  
  • Text can now be resized up to 200% without cropping and can be applied to a number of forms, including Contact us, My Account and Search.
  • There is now the ability to allow dynamic content to be announced when it changes.
  • We have ensured that any pop-up notifications are clearly announced to the user. For example, when downloading an ebook or when requesting a rental.
  • Meaningful and intuitive text has been inserted into the close button for pop-up windows.

ProQuest downtime Sunday, 17 January 2016 3am - 11am


On January 17, 2016, ProQuest will be upgrading its systems infrastructure to improve performance, security, and overall reliability. All ProQuest services will be unavailable between 3am and 11am, including:
  

DISCOVER/Digital Library login problems off-campus

We still have reports of people getting this error, "Sorry, cannot locate your account". THIS DOES NOT MEAN THAT THERE IS ANYTHING WRONG WITH YOUR ACCOUNT.













We think that this is being caused by the autofill function in your browser (particularly Chrome) scrambling your login information.

You may need to turn off the auto fill option in your browser and try again:

  •  Settings, show advanced settings, password and forms, uncheck auto-fill. (Chrome)

 If this doesn’t work please try a different browser  to see if that helps.
You may also need to clear your browser history, if you don't know how to do this check out http://www.wikihow.com/Clear-Your-Browser's-Cache.