School of Information Management & Systems.
142  Access to American Cultural Heritages. Buckland. Fall 1997.

Exercise 1:   Using the MELVYL catalog.   Due Sept 4.

The purpose of this exercise is to assure minimal skill in searching the library catalog. Use the MELVYL CATALOG database (the default), not MELVYL TEN, which has the last TEN years' books only.

A record is displayed automatically if only one is found. The command D [for DISPLAY] is needed when two or more have been found, e.g. D[space]4 means Display the 4th record.
D[ISPLAY] REV[IEW] -- one or two lines for scanning several items.
D[ISPLAY] -- brief (or "short") display, the default.
D[ISPLAY] LONG -- includes more information in a convenient format.
D[ISPLAY] MARC -- MELVYL's version of the full underlying "MARC" record.

What do the following find? Write down just enough for us recognize what you found.

F   ISBN   0316831123   (Find International Standard Book No., an ID number for books.)

F   LCCN   92-33491   (Find Library of Congress Control Number, i.e. catalog record no.)

F   PA   SOWELL,   THOMAS   (Personal Author search) Scan using   D   REV   then   D   18   LONG   (D   or   D   LONG   without a number would start with the first one).

F   XT   DIFFERENT   MIRROR   (Search on the eXact Title. Initial "A" or "THE" unnecessary.)

F   TW   OURSELVES   MUSEUMS   (Search using Title Words in any order.) then   D   MARC   and look for section 505, a table of contents. What is the first item?

F   SE   NEW   DIRECTIONS   IN   INFORMATION   MANAGEMENT   25
(Search by a publisher's SEries in which a book has been issued).

Look for a video we'll show in class:   F   TW   DEGENERATE   AND   FORM   VIDEO
(A "Boolean" search combining a Title Word with FORM of publication.)
Do   D   LONG to find out what it is about.

F   XSU   UNITED   STATES   CULTURAL   POLICY   AND   DATE   CURRENT   (Using the eXact SUbject heading and date "current" [= last three years].)   Look over the books found by Displaying them.

"EXact" searches, e.g. XSU and XT, assume truncation. You must start the title correctly but you don't have to put all of the words in. A word can be truncated with #   try   F   XT   ETHNIC   AMERIC#

Use F   SU   to search for words within subject headings. Think of a foreign country (or a U.S. state) and try   F   SU   MINORITIES   [Name of country or state]   Try   D   TI   SU   which Displays TItles and SUbject headings only and is convenient not only for scanning retrieved sets but also for becoming familiar with the the subject headings being used. Briefly, what did you look for and what did you find?