Resources blog end-of-year round-up

For those who don't already know, in addition to this blog for library news and information, we maintain a second blog at vhlresources.blogspot.com which focuses on sources available both here in Oxford and elsewhere for those studying the United States. If you haven't been following already, here's a round-up of posts over there this year:

• Finding primary sources on the web for US history: some tips
• "Access to presidential paper and records in the presidential libraries": guest post by DPhil candidate Patrick Sandman, reporting on a talk given at the RAI by Nancy Smith, Director of the Presidential Materials Division at the National Archives of the United States.
• The Philip & Rosamund Davies US Elections Campaigns Archive, including a video of a talk by Professor Philip Davies, Director of the Eccles Centre for American Studies at the British Library and donor of the archive held at the VHL.
• Elections resources on the web
• New sites saved on our delicious page

More to come in 2013, including posts on the new electronic resources we acquired in the summer.

New digital microfilm scanner available

An early Christmas present for those of you who use our microfilm collections: we now have a very fancy new digital microfilm scanner available in the library.  The more observant of you may have already seen it in the library (or indeed, tried it out already), as it was installed a few weeks ago, but we have now got it all set up for use and can officially announce its presence.

This new scanner will read microfilms, microfiche and microcards and make digital copies which can be saved as PDFs. It is not currently possible to print directly from the scanner, but the images can be saved onto a USB drive for transfer to a laptop or another library computer and from there printed via PCAS.

A guide to how to use the scanner and its various functions is available in the library.

SOLO downtime: Monday 10th December

SOLO and OxLIP+ will be unavailable for several hours this evening (starting at 6pm), due to server maintenance.

If you need to find books in the VHL after 6pm today, please ask the member of staff on duty as we will still have access to the staff side of the library system. You can also always search Mobile Oxford or COPAC to find Oxford holdings, or check shelfmarks in the Library of Congress online catalogue, as we use the same shelving system.

SOLO and OxLIP+ should be up and running again by tomorrow morning.