This is to clarify any potential public PC or public printer problems which may occur over the holiday period (Dec 20- Jan 4)

Please note there is no official technical support during the holiday period.

1) For minor or non-emergency problems with public PCs and public printers:
* email a record of the problem to Jeff Heeney (j.heeney@utoronto.ca) (time, date, machine #, problem details)
* will be attended to when normal activity resumes week of Jan 7th
* if applicable put a pink out-of-order sign on PC (signs kept in lower reference drawer)

2) For emergencies (defined as BOTH public printers non-functional)
* call Mark Leighton on his cell 416-688-7690 (number on blotter) and leave a message
* may be attended to as is convenient on his personal time (be prepared for a good chance of delayed/no response. )

3) For network problems (e.g. staff or public PCs not connecting to Internet, etc)
* call ITS at 8-5555

4) Patrons with problems with their UTORids
* please first try the following webpage to see if the options will help (activate UTORid on your Tcard; create a UTORid; check your UTORid; reset forgotten UTORid password):
-from Gerstein home page click on "Find UTORid info" (on lower left “How-to” column)
* if these options do not solve patron's problem, patron may want to call or walk to Info Commons Help Desk (978-HELP)
* please note the IC Help Desk has considerably reduced hours over the holidays (check their website)

5) Patrons with problems with their laptops (wireless or docking ports)
* advise them to follow the handouts on the Info Desk or in the binder
* if handouts do not help with their problem, patron can be advised to walk-to or call the IC Help Desk (978-HELP; see note above regarding reduced holiday hours)
* cables can be loaned to patrons who have wireless problems (take ID from patron)

Heather 17/12/2008

Firefox Denying Access to E-Resources

A problem has just come up with accessing e-resources from off-campus. (Insert by Jeff H.: it is both on and off campus)
If you use Firefox and try to authenticate with my.access you will get a warning that "myaccess.library.utoronto.ca has been reported as an attack site and has been blocked based on your security preferences".

Please tell users to click on the "ignore this warning" message (you'll find it in the lower right corner of the red box) and they will get sent to the authentication page.


We hope to resolve this issue as soon as possible. Sorry for the inconvenience.

Marc Lalonde 05/12/2008

Stat!Ref Access Issue on UTORcwn

If users complain of not being able to access Stat!Ref resources from our wireless network, let then know we have informed the people at Stat!Ref and they are working on it.

Wireless networks rely on many IP addresses to allow users access.
This year we have added many new IP addresses which had to be forwarded on to our licenced resource providers.
If the provider has not yet added them and a user gets on our wireless with one of those new numbers, the user will be unable to connect to that resource.
We've seen this with 3 providers this year so far. And what a user sees in this scenario is a logon prompt instead of just getting into the e-resource.

Gerstein Network Cable Access Problems

Because of our ongoing wireless problems i've suggested using network cables as an alternative.

But some of the sockets the network cables plug into are not working.

In our new Gerstein Reading Room only the first two tables to the left as you walk in from the north side of the room are working.
In the Morrison Pavilion I think there are a small number of the sockets that aren't working...so ask users to try another socket or table.

Oct 30 - I just got an update today that ITS/CNS are aware of the problem and will fix asap

Refworks Errors

I have two students trying to complete their papers and both are getting a variety of "errors were encountered while processing your file" messages.
M. Vandenburg
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Two very common mistakes can kill the Write-N-Cite processing function:

1. Adding additional information to the encoded citations (e.g. page numbers).
If you want to add information, use the "Edit citation" function.
2. Adding citations manually, if you are using a footnote or endnote system.

Either or both of these will stop the processing of a bibliography, resulting in an error message.
W. Badke
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Forwarded by Sian Meikle from an OCUL-Refworks mailing list at U of Waterloo - Oct. 20, 2008

Problem with OvidSP Medline Search Button

A few of us have noticed that the "Search" button in Medline is sometimes unusable. (disabled)

If you experience this problem the "Search" button would appear greyed out, and clicking on it would do nothing.

Technical staff at Ovid have been contacted and are looking into it.

Try using the back button on your browser to 'enable' the Search button again. (you may lose some of your search data by doing this)

If you notice anything that might help us figure out why it is occurring...or 'when' it occurs, please let Elena or myself know.

Gerstein Wireless Issue - intermittent or weak connections

If users complain of low or no wireless connection in our building, and it has worked fine for them in the past, please direct them to one of these locations:

1. the octagon portion of the Morrison Pavilion.
2. the new reference room
3. another building

Using network cables to connect is a good alternative for the problem areas.
So you could also offer to loan them one of our cables. (there's some at both the infodesk and loan services desk)

I've just begun testing this and can only say for certain that some of the wireless areas in our building are not working as well as they should...and some laptops work better in these areas than others.

The main problem areas were the long hallway sections of the Morrison Pavilion study space. (which is a huge portion of that study space)

E-book Issues from Knovel and MyiLibrary

If someone is trying to access an ebook from the Knovel distributor from our public pcs, they should use Firefox instead of IE. If one uses IE, the pdfs they click on open a blank window prompting the user to "Download File" first. This has confused some users and they think the ebooks are inaccessible.

The problem does not occur on our staff pcs.

A slightly different issue with MyiLibrary ebooks is also causing some problems.
The increased usage of ebooks has triggered alarms at publishers and they have mistakenly tagged some ebooks as inaccessible.
Users may see a popup that says "Warning! The selected title is temporarily locked":










I've only seen one incident of this with the title "Neuroendocrinology: An Integrated Approach" and have heard of no resolution, but that Ingram/Coutts who own MyiLibrary are working on a solution.

Problem with OSAP forms not opening for public computers.

If users complain of not being able to open an OSAP document on the web, please tell them to use Firefox instead of IE.

When they use Firefox they will still need to be observant of a light yellow horizontal bar at the top of the page that appears when trying to access OSAP documents.
Clicking the button on the right hand side of the bar will permit them to choose "allow popup".
Once they do that they should see the small login prompt form the OSAP page. If not, minimize Firefox, because the popup may be behind the Firefox window.

Problems Opening Attachments

User complains of attachments not opening.
Advise the user to try again in Firefox.

There is a known issue with IE and opening attachments from Hotmail and UofT's webmail. Typically this problem will not occur with Yahoo mail or Gmail in IE.