School of Information Management & Systems.
290-1 Design of Library Services.
Buckland. Spring 1999.
Exercise 1: Using the MELVYL catalog. Due Feb 5.
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, TEN, not the web-version
of MELVYL and not GLADIS.
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 me to recognize
what you found.
F ISBN 0-08-035755-5 (Find International Standard Book No.,
an ID number for books.)
F LCCN 88-17864 (Find Library of Congress Control Number,
i.e. catalog record no.)
F PA BUCKLAND, MICHAEL K
(Personal Author search) Scan using D REV
then D 10 LONG
(D or D LONG without
a number would start
with the first one).
F XT   PRINTING TRANSFORMS KNOWLEDGE (Search on the eXact Title.
Initial "A" or "THE" unnecessary.)
F TW KNOWLEDGE TRANSFORMS PRINTING
(Search using Title Words in any order.) then
D MARC and look for section 520,
What is it about?
F SE DAY THE UNIVERSE
CHANGED 4
(Search by a publisher's SEries in which an item has been issued).
What was that James Burke video we saw in class?
Try F PA BURKE, JAMES How many?
Try a narrower search
F PA BURKE, JAMES AND FORM VIDEO
How many?
Now an "add on" an AND command: AND TW PRINTING
Found it?
(A "Boolean" search combining a Personal Author
with FORM of publication and then a Title Word.)
Any new books recently on new technology in libraries?
F XSU LIBRARY SCIENCE
-- TECHNOLOGICAL INNOVATIONS
AND DATE CURRENT
(Using the eXact SUbject heading and date "current"
[= last three years].)
Look over the books found by Displaying them.
Want a record of your discovery? Send one of them home!
Use the following command, substitute any number and your own full e-mail address:
Try MAIL 9 LONG TO buckland@sims.berkeley.edu
Did it arrive?
"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 PREJUDICES AND ANTIP#
Use F SU to search for words within subject headings.
Think of a foreign country (or a U.S. state) and try
F SU LIBRARIES [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?
Advanced searching:
Try F ISBN 0080357547
Is the same as the first item above?
Can you explain the difference in numbers?
Hint do D MARC with each search before answering.