School of Information Management & Systems.   Spring 2000.   M. Buckland.
Infosys 245: Organization of Information in Collections   

Exercise 1:   Using the MELVYL catalog.   Due Jan. 26.
The purpose of this exercise is: (1) Assure minimal skill in searching the catalog; and (ii) To set up a basis for discussion of information retrieval. Use the telnet MELVYL CATALOG database, not web MELVYL. Note just enough to enable me to know what you found. Paper preferred, email accepted (but plain text only).

Note on the DISPLAY command: A record is displayed automatically if only one is found. The command D [for DISPLAY] is needed when two or more are retrieved, e.g. D[space]4 [Display 4th record].

D[ISPLAY] REV[IEW] -- one or two lines for scanning several items.
D[ISPLAY] -- brief (alias "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 recognize what you found.

1. F ISBN 1-56308-493-7 (Find International Standard Book No.)

2. F LCCN 98-053625 (Find Library of Congress Control Number, i.e. catalog record no.)

3. F DLA ID 11978760 (Search by MELVYL's (i.e. Division of Library Automation's) own record identification no.)

4. F PA TAYLOR, ARLENE G    then D 6    (Personal Author search, then 6th item. Just D would also assume that the first one is wanted).   Try D Rev, then D 6 LONG.

What are the "subjects" of this book?

5. F SE LIBRARY AND INFORMATION SCIENCE TEXT SERIES (Search by a publisher's series. What is the 9th item).

6. F XT ORGANIZATION OF INFORMATION then D REV then D 5

7. F TW INFORMATION ORGANIZATION (Search on words from the title). How many found?
What is the 232nd?

8. F PA LENSKI, LOIS AND DATE 1931    Try D MARC
(Search using two element combination of Personal Author and DATE of publication. A "Boolean" search.)

9. F XT BENNY AND DATE 1991 AND FORM SOUND
(Three element search: eXact Title, date, and form (SOUND recording). XT (eXact Title) assumes truncation. You specify the beginning of the title, but not necessarily all of it. Likewise with eXact SUbject XSU.) Send me a copy of the record: MAIL 1 LONG TO BUCKLAND@SIMS.BERKELEY.EDU

10. F XSU INFORMATION ORGANIZATION AND DATE RECENT
(Search for an eXact SUbject heading and date RECENT [means in last 10 years. CURRENT means last three years].) Look over the titles and dates of publication by displaying them. Tip: A quick way is to display selected fields only: D TI DP -- *Not F TI DP* as in handout.

Advanced: Try F ISBN 1-56308-498-8   Is it the same as the first?
Hint: Do D MARC with each search before answering.