Collections News

Hello everyone,

For two of our large subscription ebook packages, books are added throughout the year (and their accompanying records are added to the catalogue), but removals have historically happened only twice each year. As of 2026, ProQuest will only remove ebooks from our subscription package once a year – in June. However, EBSCO will continue to remove ebooks twice a year (in January and July). This is an update on the January 2026 removals from the EBSCO ebook subscription package. A list of removed ebooks is attached to this post.

Please note that this is routine collection maintenance. This maintenance is not related to budget cuts.

EBSCO Academic North America
EBSCO removed 8458 ebooks from the EBSCO Academic NA ebook subscription package. Usage data illustrate that 3.1% (n=265) of the removed titles had seen use at the U of A in the past 12 months.

In the CSU, we’ve taken steps to prevent loss of access to ebooks that have seen some use. We already have several of the most-used books on other platforms (e.g., OVID, Taylor & Francis, JSTOR), and have purchased the remaining titles.

If you have questions or concerns about these changes, please email csu@ualberta.ca.

Last month, we posted about a problem with the CSA OnDemand Complete Collection database interface. It had been reconfigured to make it extremely easy to trigger a security message saying “you have been blocked” — even in response to perfectly normal interface interactions. The CSA has now fixed this problem. You can again search and navigate the database easily, without accidentally triggering a security message.

This is for awareness, particularly for everybody who fields questions about databases from students and faculty. The CSU team doesn’t always send out alerts when database interfaces change, but in this case, there’s a real possibility that changes may spark confusion and frustration. Please share this info, add to FAQs, etc., as you see fit.

At UAL, we subscribe to the CSA OnDemand Complete Collection. This is an important standards database. The Canadian Standards Association (CSA) recently made changes that mean it’s now extremely easy for our patrons to trigger a security message telling them, “Sorry, you have been blocked,” even though they haven’t done anything wrong (and they aren’t really blocked). Fortunately there’s a way to avoid this situation, even though CSA’s interface doesn’t make it obvious.

If patrons interact with the CSA Catalogue, they will trigger the security message. If patrons interact with the CSA Document Library, they will access the CSA collection via our subscription, as normal. Here is a screenshot with the relevant areas marked.

The CSU team has explained to CSA that this new arrangement is detrimental to students and researchers. We will continue to follow up with them on this. We hope this info will help you trouble-shoot on the spot, for anyone who thinks they’ve been blocked.

Archived since September 2025

 

The Edmonton Heritage Council (EHC) Digital Resources Web Archive aims to capture and preserve digital resources created by or funded by the EHC. This new archive includes community-created resources that were funded by the Heritage Community Investment Program (HCIP) or the Funding Indigenous Resurgence in Edmonton (FIRE) grant streams from EHC. Such projects focus on local heritage in Edmonton and on Treaty 6, and include important information on historic places, cultural communities, people, and language preservation, as well as organizational websites. Archived content includes the EHC website, the Edmonton City as Museum Project (ECAMP), Edmonton Maps Heritage, and Capital Modern. Beginning in 2025, most content has been crawled on a quarterly basis. All content was produced and made available online by the Edmonton Heritage Council. Where available, current web content can be found on the attributed websites or related successor websites.

1. Empowering Edmonton’s Heritage through inclusive Grant Programs. https://wayback.archive-it.org/30628/20251107160107/https://edmontonheritage.ca/
2. Our Initiatives. https://wayback.archive-it.org/30628/20251107160107/https://edmontonheritage.ca/

For questions, site suggestions, or referrals, contact the Web Archiving Team at webarch@ualberta.ca

As you may recall, last year, the CSU team decided to discontinue the UAL subscription that provided unlimited access to NYTimes.com via browser or app. In effect, this change returns New York Times access options to their pre-pandemic state (as we only added the app-focused NYTimes.com subscription in 2019).

The collection still contains numerous ways of accessing the New York Times, including up-to-date access to multiple editions, as well as archival access back to the paper’s founding in 1851.

HELPFUL LINKS

Here are some links that may come in handy:

Noelle Fraser and Doris Wagner maintain the Newspapers LibGuide, including a page dedicated to clarifying New York Times options! Thanks, Noelle and Doris! https://guides.library.ualberta.ca/newspapers/New-York-Times

Our new Primo search system, with its FRBR-ization capacity, makes it quite a lot easier to search for the New York Times: https://search.library.ualberta.ca/permalink/01UOA_INST/cgo409/alma991043577449909116

DATABASE A-Z LIST ASSET UPDATES

The NYTimes.com asset and the related NYTimes inEDUCATION asset have been updated to communicate the cessation of this subscription. In a short while we will delete these assets altogether. Thanks to Lisa Maraj for taking care of these updates!

In the course of tidying up these assets, CSU also decided to delete the asset called “New York Times (1980-current).” This one largely duplicated the US Major Dailies database asset.