LIS618 lecture 5

Thomas Krichel

2002-10-14

Structure of talk

• Nexis.com• OCLC firstsearch

Subject directory

• you can follow the subject tree but

• there seems to be only a tiny amount of documents

• categories are not particularly deep or developed

• there is a "more like this" feature of limited use, Thomas finds

Power search

• source selection, editing is possible

• use of connectors is possible here– OR -- AND – AND NOT – PRE/n, n is a number, ordered proximity– W/n, n is a number, unordered proximity – W/S words in same sentence – W/P words is the some paragraph

• no use of double quotes for paragraphs

Power search expressions

• Parentheses group terms together• * for one or no letter• ! for any number of letters• ATLEAST n(term), where n is a minimum

number of occurrences• PLURAL (term) only the plural of term• SINGULAR (term) only the singular of term• ALLCAPS (term) only capitals of term• NOCAPS (term) no capitals of term• CAPS (term) capitalized term only

power search for news

• uses power search expressions, plus

• hlead (expression)

• company (expression) for a company

• byline (expression) for the author

• show (expression) for a television show transcript

power search for legal data

• uses power search expressions, plus

• name (expression) for the name of a party

• cite (expression) for a citation expression for case law

• title (expression) for the title of a law article

expression is a Boolean expression

other searches

• web searches• news alert

– use this to get personal news– do a search, then click on update to get to a

screen where you can enter • periodicity • document type

• use query language to filter documents

a different query language

• terms are implicitly ANDed

• explicit AND and OR allowed

• phrases have to be put in quotes

• * starts for any number of characters, not just one as in power search

• parenthesis can be used

Verdict on Nexis

• A lot more intuitive than Dialog• Some confusion because three different

query languages are used in the basic Nexis service. Some meta characters have different meanings

• Seems quite reliable.• Essentially news, contents seems shallow

at times. • More full-text, easier to see items.

OCLC lastfind

OCLC FirstSearch

• WorldCat• ArticleFirst • Electronic Collections Online • PapersFirst • ProceedingsFirst • UnionLists • MLA Bibliography• GPO government publications

WorldCat

• OCLC catalog of books, web resources, and other material worldwide

• Contains all the records cataloged by OCLC member libraries

• Offers around 50M bibliographic records

• Includes records representing 400 languages

types of stuff

• books and manuscripts• websites and internet resources• maps • computer programs• musical scores• films and slides• newspapers• journals and magazines• sound recordings• videotapes

simple search

• expression

• field indicator– keywords (basically anywhere)– author– title (recommend)

• limit to type of material (see next slide)

• limit to availability

limit to types

• basic types– Books -- Serial Publications -- Articles– Visual Materials -- Sound Recordings– Musical Scores -- Computer Files – Archival Materials -- Maps -- Internet Resources  

• subtypes– audience– contents– format

subtypes

• audience– juvenile -- non-juvenile -- any

• contents– fiction – non-fiction –biography –music – non-musical recording –thesis/dissertation

• format– large print –braille –microfilm –non-microfilm– manuscript –cd-audio –cassette recording – lp recording –vhs tape –dvd/videodisk

• no logic between types and subtypes• no "any" for format subtype

ranking

• Number of Libraries is the default

• Relevance Records – Data on its calculation are scetchy

• Date records is reverse chronological order by year of publication

• No ranking records is reverse chronological order by addition to the database

indexed field expansion

--Keyword Access –Method --Accession Number –Author--Author Phrase Conference Name --Conference Name

Phrase –Corporate Name --Corporate Name Phrase --Descriptor --Descriptor Phrase --Genre/Form Phrase--Geographic Coverage Phrase –ISBN --Language Phrase--Material Type --Material Type Phrase --Named

Conference Phrase --Named Corporation Phrase -- Named Person Phrase-- Notes/Comments -- Personal

Name --Personal Name Phrase –Publisher -- Publisher Location --Series Title -- Series Title Phrase --Standard Number –Subject --Subject Phrase – Title --Title Phrase

advanced search

• has features of basic search with type and subtype listings

• search is fielded (see previous slide for fields), up to three Boolean combination in the search terms

• publication year range

• language (problems with input)

• minimum number of libraries

index labels I

• Keyword kw:coffee or tea and house+

• Accession number no:37993343

• Access Method am: www oclc org

• Author au:saint-arroman

• Author phrase au=saint-arroman auguste

• Citation cr:magazine index

• Conference name cn:canadian

indexing labels ii

• Corporate name co:double five

• Descriptor de:voice disorders

• Dewey class number dd:998.900

• Extended author(s) ea:gershwin ira harburg yip

index terms ii

• Extended title et:century events• Genre/Form phrase ge=screenplays• Geographic coverage phrase gc=capetown• Government document numbergn:y4p9610w29

• Identifier id:riemann• ISBN nb:3196311821 (omit hyphens)• ISSN ns:4069-6571 (use hyphens)

index terms iii

• Language ln=japanese• Library of Congress Call Number lc:hd9000.6• Library of Congress Control Number nl:map

64-119 rev• Material type mt:vhs• Music number mu:has19832• Musical composition mc:jazz• Named conference phrase cf=world conference

on women

index terms iv

• Named corporation phrase nc=intel corporation• Named person phrase na=mandela nelson• National Agricultural Library call number ag:sf223.w47

• National Library of Canada call no.ca:sf209.5• National Library of Medicine (NLM) call

numberlm:asa0011970• Notes/Commentsnt:translation-adaptation• Personal name pn:lemaire

index terms v

• Publisher location pl:china• Report number rn:nofhwap179012• Series title se:emb report • Series phrase titlese=emb evaluation report• Secondary formatst=bks• Standard numbersn:1092-177• Subject su:coffee and tea house+• Subject phrase su=coffeehouses in art• Subject all sa=authors american biography• Subject headings, LC hl:biography

index terms vi

• Subject headings, LC children's literature hc:parties

• Subject headings, LC children's lit phrase hc=childrens writing

• Subject headings, MESH hm:optometry• Subject headings, MESH phrase hm=vision low• Subject headings, NAL ha:fruit• Subject headings, NAL phrase ha=fruit trees• Subject headings, NLC he:photography• Subject headings, NLC phrase he=landscape

photography

index terms vii

• Subject headings, RVM hr:indiens• Subject headings, RVM phrase hr=politique sanitaire• Subject headings, Sears hs:legends• Subject headings, Sears phrase hs=jewish legends• Title ti:music w3 british w3 enlightenment• Uniform title ut:bible• Unique serial title tk:renew annual report• Universal decimal class no.ud:101-051• Update Date up:20020101• Vendor information vn:libros• Year of publication yy:1997

word and phrase indexing

• colon means word indexed field• equal means phrase indexed field.• For word indexed fields, there are

proximity operators– X w Y (X is followed by Y)– X wi Y (X is followed by Y with at most i terms

between)– X n Y (X is next to Y, either order)– X ni Y (X is within i terms of Y, either order)

truncation and wildcards

• Use + for plurals (s and es)

• Use * for truncation

• Use ? for zero to nine additional characters

• Use ?i for up to i characters

• Use # for a single character, i.e. an abbreviation of ?1.

Boolean operation

• you can combine elementary search operations using Boolean operations OR, AND, NOT

• a NOT b means a AND NOT b.

• there are operator precedence rules, but it is best to rely on parenthesis.

other OCLC databases

• search interfaces are almost identical

• Verdict:– easy to learn but very powerful query

language. – system is fast.– friendly layout– some technical data is missing in the help

screens