Features
Features | |
| FirstSearch | OCLC WorldCat | The Administrative Module |
The Heartland Regional Library Network (HRLN) of the Library of California provides OCLC FirstSearch at no cost to member libraries. FirstSearch gives library users instant online access to a wide range of subjects in 57 databases. Fast, easy access to full-text articles is delivered from familiar databases and electronic journals as well as from links to web resources and essential ready reference sources.
The availability of FirstSearch to Heartland member libraries is an important step toward fulfilling the primary mission of the Library of California to provide equitable access to library materials and information resources for all Californians. This is especially important to libraries in the Heartland Region where many of the member libraries are geographically remote and lack sufficient financial resources to provide expensive and sophisticated levels of access to information resources.
FirstSearch, available from OCLC only through libraries, is accessible through a common web-based interface. Instructions for Heartland members wishing to set up access to FirstSearch can be found on the HRLN web site at http://www.sjvls.org/sjvls/hrln/oclcfs.html.
ArticleFirst is an index of articles from the content pages of over 16,000 journals. A general reference database, ArticleFirst covers such subjects as business, science, humanities, social science, popular culture, etc. The content of the database is a mix of popular works (e.g., magazines) and scholarly works (journal articles). The database, containing over 9.2 million records from 1990 to the present, is updated daily. Records are formatted as bibliographic citations with abstracts. ArticleFirst does not contain full-text articles.
ECO is an OCLC collection providing access to 3,941 scholarly journals. Original content (full-text and images) of articles is available for 3,932 of the titles in the collection. ECO includes bibliographic information for all journals and covers most subjects from agriculture and anthropology to social science and technology. The database, containing over 366,000 records from 1995 to the present, is updated daily.
NetFirst is an OCLC database covering a variety of internet-accessible resources including web pages, library catalogs, FTP sites, internet services, gopher servers, electronic journals, newsletters, electronic mailing lists. The database, containing over 105,000 current records, is updated daily. NetFirst covers only a small portion of the multitude of available internet and electronic resources. A preferable alternative to NetFirst is the Librarians Index to the Internet (www.lii.org), a project funded by the Library of California.
WorldCat is the OCLC catalog of books, web resources, and other material worldwide containing records submitted by OCLC member libraries. The database, containing over 48 million records from 1971 to the present, is updated daily.
Basic Search. Basic searching is performed by selecting the OCLC Collection or database from the drop down menu in the "Search in:" box. Enter a search term or terms in the "Search for:" box. If searching for an exact phrase, enclose the phrase in double quotes. The search may be limited in a variety of ways (e.g., author, title, subject, keyword, full-text, etc.) depending on the content of the collection or database.
Advanced Search. The Advanced Search screen allows the construction of more complex search statements. Each search string is entered in a "Search for:"- box using a single index. Up to three search strings in three indexes can be combined using Boolean operators (AND, OR, and NOT). Advanced Search allows limiting the search by year. Other search limiting features may be available depending on the content of the collection or individual database.
Expert Search. The Expert Search screen is designed for experienced searchers who prefer to enter logical search strings. Logical search strings are made up of specific labels and search terms combined with special characters and Boolean operators. Subsets of the search strings are nested in parentheses. A list of valid indexes and index labels is provided in the "Indexed in:" drop-down menu. The search may use the lists for reference or may select an index from the list as a default for one or more unlabeled search terms. Expert Search allows limiting the search by year. Other search limiting features may be available depending on the content of the collection or individual database.
Mark Records. To view the subset of records marked from the full list of records, click the Marked Records link in the Navigation menu. On the Marked Records screen are choices to e-mail, print, or save marked brief records, view a detailed record for each marked record, or view full text for each marked record, if available.
E-mail Marked Records. To e-mail marked records, click the e-mail icon at the top or bottom of the screen. Alternatively, go to the Marked Records screen (by clicking the link in the Navigation menu) to view marked records. Click the e-mail icon from the Marked Records screen.
Print marked records. Click the print icon to reformat a page of marked records to be printed. Reformatting temporarily removes the Navigation menu to the left of the screen and the Control Panel at the top of the screen. The browser's print function can be used to print the reformatted screen. When finished, click the return icon at the top right or bottom right of the screen to return to the original format.
FirstSearch is a formidable research tool. Its availability to Heartland member libraries is a boon to the level of service they can provide. Heartland members who have not tuned into FirstSearch are missing out on a major opportunity to extend the range of research services to their user at no additional cost.
(Editor's Note: if you would like more information on this service you can visit the FirstSearch "about" page, which includes a guided tour. Also, if you are uncertain what "counts as a search" when using FirstSearch, you can view OCLC's What Counts as a Search page.
Heartland Members who have questions about accessing OCLC FirstSearch, please call the San Joaquin Valley Information Service at (559)488-3229 and ask for Mike Drake.)
You can customize the FirstSearch interface through the Administrative Module. Setting these options will make the FirstSearch system more effective for your librarians and patrons.
This article covers four customization options specificly designed for Heartland Regional District members
http://firstsearch.oclc.org/admin
and enter your FirstSearch authorization and password at the prompts.
You can use the My Library Limit features to help users find items they need by letting them limit their FirstSearch search results to items in your library or a library of your choice.
If you make this search limit available, a check box appears on FirstSearch search screens. The text with the check box includes the OCLC symbol used to identify items in your library. It also includes the library name. In the administrative module, you can specify the symbol and library name used.
If a user selects this limit when entering a search, the search results will include only records to which the specified symbol is attached. (The symbol is attached when your library catalogs items using the OCLC Cataloging service.)
In addition, items in your library are highlighted in FirstSearch lists of records. A library icon and the library name appear with each record to which the specified symbol is attached. They appear whether or not the user selects the My Library search limit when entering a search.
To have your institution’s holdings be highlighted in FirstSearch:
Click on System Settings - the second tab
Click on Library Holdings - in the middle row
If your library is cataloging on OCLC:
Under My Library Limit: My Library - check Display
Under My Library Limit: Library Name - edit or accept your library’s name
If your institution is not cataloging on OCLC:
Under My Library Limit: My Library - check Display
Under My Library Limit: Library Name - edit a library’s name
Under My Library Limit: Library Symbol - enter their symbol
Here are the names and symbols of Heartland Library members cataloging on OCLC.
UOA - Alliant International Univ (Fresno)
CBA - California State Univ - Bakerfield
CFS - California State Univ - Fresno
F@N - Fresno City College
JQR - Fresno County Free Library
KLC - Kern County Library System
CKC - Kings County Library
KGT - Reedley College
SJL - San Joaquin Valley Lib Sys
TCB - Tulare County Free Lib
Press Save Changes when finished
You can use the Custom Library Groups features in the administrative module to help users find items they need by letting them limit their search results in the WorldCat database to items in libraries that you select. To do this, you create a custom library group. Users can select one of the group's libraries when entering a search in WorldCat and the search results will include records describing items in that library.
In addition, items in libraries in the group are highlighted in WorldCat lists of records. A library group icon and the group name appear with each record to which any of the libraries' symbols is attached. Users can view lists of libraries that own an item to learn which of the group's libraries own it.
This is a two step process:
First create a Custom Library Group for Heartland Library District.
Click on System Settings - the second tab.
Click on Custom Library Groups - in the middle row.
In Group Name enter Heartland Regional Library and click on the ADD button.
Enter the following Symbols one at a time and press ADD - you have the option to edit the OCLC assigned name of the library
UOA - Alliant International Univ (Fresno)
CBA - California State Univ - Bakerfield
CFS - California State Univ - Fresno
F@N - Fresno City College
JQR - Fresno County Free Library
KLC - Kern County Library System
CKC - Kings County Library
KGT - Reedley College
SJL - San Joaquin Valley Lib Sys
TCB - Tulare County Free Lib
Press Save Changes when finished
Second, select the group in Custom Library Group Limit.
Click on System Settings - the second tab.
Click on Library Holdings - in the middle row.
Under Custom Library Group Limit click on Display button next to Heartland Library District.
Press Save Changes when finished
You can add your library's logo to the FirstSearch service by typing the URL of the logo's image file in the administrative module. If you do, the logo appears throughout each FirstSearch session at the bottom of the menu, in the left panel of FirstSearch screens.
Click on System Settings - the second tab
Click on Your Library - in the top row
Enter the link to your graphic in Logo Image File URL:
Here are some options for Logo Image File URL
Heartland Region- http://www.heartlandlibraries.org/graphics/heartland.gif
San Joaquin Valley Library System- http://www.sjvls.org/images/bnr.gif
Kern County Library- http://www.kerncountylibrary.org/images/logo_kcl1.gif
Fresno County Free Library- http://www.fresnolibrary.org/images/banner.gif
Press Save Changes when finished
The Catalog Search Entry URL takes users to a search screen in your catalog or to a menu for selecting a search screen.
Users who click the link for this URL go to your catalog screen that has the URL. FirstSearch does not perform a search for the user.
Click on System Settings - the second tab
Click on Your Library - in the top row
Enter the link to the catalog in Catalog Search Entry URL:
Enter the name of the catalog in Library Name in Link Text.
Here are some common options for Library Name and Catalog Search Entry URL
CSU Bakersfield - http://voyager.lib.csubak.edu
CSU Fresno - http://www.lib.csufresno.edu:8000
ValleyCat (Fresno) - http://www.sjvls.org/webpacj/fresnopac.html
ValleyCat (Kern) - http://www.sjvls.org/webpacj/kernpac.html
Press Save Changes when finished.
(Editor's Note: If you want additional information about the FirstSearch Administrative Module, you can visit http://www.oclc.org/firstsearch/documentation/adminref/)
For almost forty years The San Joaquin Valley Information Service (SJVIS) has served public libraries in what has recently become the Heartland Region, and for almost thirty years SJVIS has provided the same services to libraries of all types in this same region. Two of these services are working on difficult reference questions and assisting libraries with interlibrary loan. In recent years OCLC WorldCat has become an indispensable resource used by the staff at SJVIS in providing these two services. As members of the Heartland Regional Library Network, the staff at Heartland libraries now have access to WorldCat as part of the OCLC FirstSearch service. As Heartland continues to provide training and support to its members in the use of FirstSearch, we at SJVIS expect that requests that rely on WorldCat as a primary resource will decrease, especially requests for assistance with interlibrary loan.
OCLC WorldCat is a union catalog containing over 48 million records from the catalogs of OCLC member libraries. These include the catalog records of most public and academic libraries in the United States. It also includes records from special libraries and libraries outside of the U.S.. The WorldCat database reflects the cataloging activity of OCLC member libraries and contains records for any type of item that libraries have chosen to catalog. These include books, periodicals, audio/visual materials, musical scores, maps, and a variety of other types of items. Records for web sites appear in the database with increasing frequency.
Each record is linked to a list of libraries that use that record and so the usefulness of WorldCat as a resource for locating libraries for interlibrary loan should be obvious. When your library needs to identify other libraries who own a book that your library needs to borrow, searching WorldCat for that item will result in a list of such libraries. However, keep in mind that knowing that a library owns a book does not necessarily mean that they will loan it. Also, be aware that you cannot make interlibrary loan requests using WorldCat.
WorldCat can also be used to identify libraries that own a certain periodical. It can not be used to identify a library that owns a specific issue of that periodical. Just as with books and other type of materials, WorldCat will provide a list of libraries that own a periodical, but it cannot show the holdings for those libraries. Fortunately, FirstSearch offers another database called UnionLists, which is a database of records that describe periodical holdings of OCLC member libraries. Each record in this database pertains to a single institution and it contains complete bibliographic information about the periodical as well as the holdings for that library.
WorldCat and UnionLists are great resources for locating libraries to borrow from, but they should be used after having checked resources that are more local in scope.
Borrowing from other Heartland members
There are a variety of tools available to help locate a library within the Heartland region that has a particular book or periodical.
Heartland Virtual Library Catalog:
http://heartland.sjvls.org/ipac20/ipac.jsp?session=1021582310734.2&profile=sjvls
You can use Heartland’s Virtual Library Catalog to search the online catalogs of seven Heartland libraries using a single user interface. Work on the Virtual Library Catalog is on going, and more libraries will be added. For more questions about the Catalog, contact Mary Ellen Tyckoson.
San Joaquin Valley Library System’s "ValleyCat"
http://www.sjvls.org/sjvls/allpacs.html
This is the shared online catalog for the public libraries in the Heartland Region.
Fresno Area Medical Libraries Journal Holdings
http://www.sjvls.lib.ca.us/medlib/holdings.html
The medical libraries in the Fresno area maintain a union list of their periodical holdings. The list can be browsed from this web site.
The online Heartland Library Directory (http://www.sjvls.org/cgi/hrln_6/A/Z) can be used to contact a Heartland member to inquire about interlibrary loan (interlibrary loan information for each library will be added to the directory in the near future).
California Libraries:
MELVYL: UC Libraries
http://www.melvyl.ucop.edu/
You can access two databases from this web site: the MELVYL Catalog, which is the union catalog for University of California libraries, and the California Periodicals Database. It is the Periodicals Database that is especially valuable to libraries that are not UC libraries. This database is a union list of the periodical holdings of just about every library in the state of California, including many Heartland libraries.
Special Note about Borrowing from other Heartland members
One of the purposes of establishing the Library of California and the Heartland Regional Library Network was to facilitate the sharing of resources among its members. Each member will participate in resource sharing in some way, but not every member will participate by lending its materials to other members. In the coming months, Heartland’s Interlibrary Loan and Resource Sharing Committee will be surveying each Heartland member to determine their current resource sharing practices, resource sharing needs, and in what way each member wishes to participate. The Committee will then formulate the ILL & Resource Sharing code which will provide specific guidelines for the Heartland Region. In the mean time, resource sharing can take place on an informal basis, and Heartland libraries should think of other members as possible sources for interlibrary loan. However, keep in mind that the current and future resource sharing practice of some Heartland libraries does not include loaning materials to other libraries; and until the resource sharing code is established, we can not be sure who will be willing to participate in this way.
Three qualities of the WorldCat database combine to make it an extraordinary resource for helping to find answers and information for patrons. First, the breadth of the database, which is the result of the large number of records and libraries represented. Second, its depth, which is the result of the wide variety of library materials cataloged and the rich detail contained in the records. And third, the flexible searching that the FirstSearch user interface provides.
Discovering resources
Library staff and patrons often turn to their online catalogs to identify books and other library materials that might contain information on a particular subject. But most library collections are necessarily limited and so the library catalog presents only a subset of all of the existing books on that subject. As a union catalog of "41,000 libraries in 82 countries and territories around the world", WorldCat most nearly approaches being a database of everything that’s out there. When searching the broader collection of records found in WorldCat, the results are more likely to uncover resources more precisely relevant to the patron’s request. Usually obtaining these materials will require an interlibrary loan request. But in many cases, the question is important enough to the patron that waiting a few weeks is not considered inconvenient.
WorldCat makes it simple to discover unique and obscure items whose discovery by other means would be an arduous and serendipitous process. Some actual examples include: an unpublished family history in the collection of a rural public library in Kansas; the personal memoirs of a Nazi diplomat in manuscript form in a library in Germany; a map showing past volcanic flow in the Southern Sierra Nevada; or a natural history of the San Juan Islands published by the University of Washington in 1930.
Discovering clues that lead to information
Often details found in these records can provide important clues for tracking down an answer for a patron. The publisher field can be especially fruitful in this way. For example identifying: a publisher of books on a particular topic (Master Publications for washing machine repair); when an organization, who happened to publish a few things, was active (Atlantis Rising Educational Center published its books and periodicals in the 1970’s); which government agency coordinated the draft during WWII and the SuDoc number for its publications; or that some county historical museum might have a special collection or expertise in a certain subject because they published a few books on that topic.
The notes field can also yield helpful bits of information. Books containing the musical score for a certain song can easily be found by searching the notes field. Recently we were able to identify a patron’s edition of "Edinburgh" by Robert Lewis Stevenson by searching the notes field for key words selected from the patron’s description of the publisher’s note found in his copy, which fortunately a cataloger somewhere conscientiously transcribed into the notes field for that record.
OCLC WorldCat is heavily used by SJVIS when working on reference and interlibrary loan related requests sent by libraries in the Heartland Region. This indicates that it is a resource that would be useful to the staff at the libraries that send these requests. Heartland’s decision to provide access to OCLC FirstSearch as a resource to its members, which are made up of a variety of types of libraries, was well considered. As a giant bibliographic database, WorldCat could support a variety of basic library functions (e.g. reference, ILL, collection development). And the more than fifty other databases that Heartland members can access with FirstSearch contain a wide variety of content and subject matter. Hopefully this Heartland service will be beneficial to every Heartland member.