SciFinder Scholar Users:
You may have noticed that turnaways (already 5 users logged in when you try to connect to SciFinder Scholar) are becoming more common. There are a couple things we can all do which will minimize this problem and take better advantage of the seats we have available to us:
- When you are through searching, please remember to log out of the system. This opens that seat immediately to someone else who might be waiting to get on. Otherwise, the system will eventually log your session out but not for 20 minutes, a very long 20 minutes if you are the one waiting to connect.
- Don’t read the electronic articles you retrieve via Chemport (clicking on the computer terminal icon in your answer set connects you to an electronic version of the article in many cases). Look at the article long enough to see if it is of use to you and then print it off or email it to yourself. Chemport is great for this and also allows easy access to many patents and other types of documents. However, it also ties up a scholar seat that others may need. A better way to really read the articles is by connecting to the ejournal via the UW Libraries Catalog (www.lib.washington.edu and click on UW Libraries Catalog). The catalog is the most up-to-date list of ejournals available to you and allows you to connect via a link in the record. Chemport does not always know that we do have a valid subscription to an ejournal, another reason that this is the better option. Please keep in mind also though that not all journals are available electronically anyway and the catalog will alert to our holdings in print as well.
- If you get the message that all seats are taken when you log in, please wait several minutes before you try again. We are finding that some users are making several attempts within a minute or two and this is not likely to get you in any faster, doesn’t help your blood pressure and improperly inflates our turnaway statistics.
Updated 3/2002
