Springer has released print books with supplementary content on CDs and DVDs. However, this content is not included in the e-books Springer offers. Rather, they have posted supplementary content to their Springer Extra Materials site.

If you find a Springer e-book through our catalog or the SpringerLink site and the contents are incomplete, note the ISBN and search for it on the Springer Extra Materials site. The UMass Amherst Libraries have Springer e-books published in English between 2005-2008.

Beginning in December 2009 and as a result of an upgrade to our proxy server, a user may see a series of security warnings upon first attempt to login to a database or e-journal from off-campus. This a result of an incompatibility between our security certificate vendor and browser software. It is beyond our control.

Go through the messages and select “Accept the exception”. Microsoft Windows users should run a Windows update. The warning will not appear again for the same computer.

If you have questions, please contact dbhelp@library.umass.edu.

In an earlier posting I noted that we’ve added online newspapers through “Massachusetts Newstand” and that this replaced Newsbank. What I failed to mention was that the Newstand didn’t include the Springfield Republican, which we previously offered as part of Newsbank. Fear not. We have restored access to the Springfield Republican online. It’s also listed in the Database Locator under “S”. Thanks to the Massachusetts Board of Library Commissioners for bringing this back.

According to John Simpson, Chief Editor of the Oxford English Dictionary, “The revised range of the OED published on 14 June 2007 runs from prima to proteose. It contains 2,693 entries, bringing the total number of main entries in the OED to 260,154. The dictionary’s 590,077 lemmas (roughly, words and expressions which are included in the dictionary) are illustrated by 2,827,811 quotations and represent 697,324 different meanings.” It includes 2693 new and revised entries, and is released alongside 318 new words and senses from across the alphabet. Examples of new words include chill pill, fattoush, and prime time; revised words include proceed, profit, prophet and prose.