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| What's New in the catalog |
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Searching:
- Browse and keyword searches can now both be done from the first screen –
just select your type of search from the pull-down menu.
- When browsing, if your browsed string doesn’t exactly match an entry in the database,
a message displays in the browse results list where it would have appeared, orienting you in the list.
- Cross-references: When you browse the catalog, you will now see a
link to [view cross references] next to many entries. Click this l
ink to see synonyms and to follow related terms. For example, Nuclear reactors gives narrower terms
such as Pulsed reactors.
My Account:
- Renew your books: You can now renew just selected items - by clicking their check
boxes and then Renew Selected. After you ask to renew, the system will
show you on one page, which were not renewed, with the reason, and then ones which were renewed.
- Navigation is easier with a Back button on more pages.
My e-shelf:
Save records for later. As you view search results, you can select records and
save them to “My E-Shelf”, and they will collect for the duration of the
session. If you log in as a LANL user, the records will be saved even after you
log off. You can sort them, and manage them in folders. (My e-shelf
replaces the former “Bookshelf”.)
(11/29/07)
| Basics |
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Navigation
You can navigate the Library Catalog by using the buttons on your Web browser
as well as the navigation links and buttons on the Library Catalog screen.
Login
Login verifies your personal information and allows you to see your circulation information
and personal display preferences. You do not need to log in to search the Library Catalog.
Types of Searches
There are three screens for searching in the Library Catalog: Search/Browse, Advanced Search, and Browse. To choose a particular type of search, click the relevant link from the blue menu bar near the top of the screen.
For more information, see the Search section or Browse section.
Web Browser Requirements
You need a Web browser (Internet Explorer 5.x or higher; Netscape 6.2 or higher) configured to
support Unicode-based characters. Windows users need Windows 95 or higher (Windows 2000 is
recommended) with appropriate Global IMEs (input method editors) installed. Macintosh users need
OS9.x with the appropriate language packs installed or OS X.
| Browse |
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Browse allows you to search the catalog in alphabetical or numerical order, like a
dictionary. Your search will result in an alphabetical/numerical list.
Choose the index you want to browse, then enter the text from which you would like to start browsing. This text will appear near the top of the list.
If your search query does not match an entry exactly, you will see the line
[your search terms] would have appeared here.
with one entry before, and then the next appearing entries after.
You can
browse forward or backwards in the browse list using the Previous and Next buttons.
| Browse List |
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The Browse List displays the number of records for each entry and indicates whether or not there
are cross-references for the entry.
Cross references: Author entries and Subject entries often have cross-references, which can give you more information about an author, or help you find related subject terms. Click on "[view cross references]" after the entry to view cross-references, and click through to related headings, or to records that use those headings.
Click on an underlined entry to see the associated records for
the entry.
There are three ways to go to a Browse List:
- By using the Browse function and choosing an Index to browse. After typing in the text that
you want to appear at the top of the list, the Browse List will be displayed.
- By using hyperlinked text in a record. When viewing a record, you can click on an
underlined entry and retrieve a Browse a Headings List of nearby entries. For example,
if you click on an Author entry, an alphabetical list of authors appears, with
the current author at the top of the list.
- While viewing a list of cross-references. Clicking on an underlined tag will present a Browse
List. For example, clicking on a Browse Heading will present an alphabetical list of entries with
the current heading at the top of the list.
| Character Sets and Unicode |
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The catalog records are encoded in the Unicode character set. Unicode allows for the display of a
large range of alphabets and diacritics (also
known as accent marks) and special characters.
Displaying non-English Characters: If you are seeing strange characters in some of the Library Catalog records, it may be because of your
browser. There may be titles in the collection that are in non-Western European alphabets. To view
these records correctly, you need to use a Web browser, which is set up to display these
languages. In general, your browser should support Unicode (UTF-8 character set) display, and must
have a suitable font available.
In older browsers, some characters in non-Western European languages will show up as groups of
four letters and numbers. For instance, in Netscape 4.x, records with Chinese characters will
display strings such as \65B0\653F.
To set the browser character encoding:
- Internet Explorer:
From the View menu, select Encoding, then click on Auto-Select.
- Netscape:
From the View menu, select Character coding, then Auto-detect, then
All [for Netscape 6.x] or Universal [for Netscape 7.x].
The Arial Unicode MS font provides the most complete support for Unicode characters. It is
available with the following Microsoft products: Publisher 2000, Office 2000 Professional, Office
If Arial Unicode MS is not available to you, other fonts can be used with the Library Catalog. For
information on other fonts that support Unicode, see the Useful resources link at
www.unicode.org.
| Full View of Record |
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In the Full view of a record, you can see the record in standard view (the default) or a
full tag (labeled) view.
The Full view has links on text within the record that allow you to jump to:
- A Browse List
- Other, similar records, for example, other records that share the same subject
- Holdings information
- External files, such as an electronic journal
In addition, from Full view you can add the record to My e-Shelf, or Save or e-mail the record.
| Holdings |
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For print (hard-copy) materials,
on the Brief Results screen or Full View screen, click on the underlined text appearing after the label "CLICK FOR STATUS " at the bottom of the record.
The Library Holdings screen appears, showing the items held by the library and their circulation status, for example the due date if and item is checked out. If you are logged in, you will see a Request link next to items that can be checked out.
For electronic materials: from the Brief Results screen or a Full View screen, click
on the underlined
URL that appears after "ONLINE ACCESS".
| My e-Shelf |
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You can create your own set of records and save it in a buffer, which is called My e-Shelf. If you
are logged in as a LANL user, the records that you save in My e-Shelf will be saved, even after your
session is over. If you are a guest user, the buffer is deleted when your session ends.
To add the records to My e-Shelf,
- select record(s) by clicking the checkbox(es) on a results list
- click the Add to My
e-Shelf link above the results list
- add a note if you wish, and click the Go button.
You can also add a record to My e-Shelf on Full View of Record.
To see the records you have saved, click My e-Shelf in the upper right corner of the screen..
In My e-Shelf you can:
- Save/E-mail the records
- Delete the records
- Sort the records by the text in a column by clicking on the underlined column heading, such as Title
- Re-order the records using the up and down arrows on the left
- Create folders and move records to them
- Use Folder Management to name, rename or delete folders
| My Account |
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The Login to My Account link gives you access to your library circulation records,
and personal preferences. You can:
- View list of items on loan, with due dates
- Renew items
- View hold requests. Click the number on the left to see more information
about a hold or to delete a hold.
- View a history of items you have checkout out previously
- Account Summary & Preferences provides a summary of your loans and holds and
your contact information which is on file. (The contact information comes from
the LANL Employee Information System.)
It also allows you to specify display
preferences for your Library Catalog sessions.
Accessing My Account requires logging on with your LANL Z# and cryptocard
password, in order to prevent unauthorized access to your records. (Note that
currently this gives you access to the Research Library catalog only, not to
other LANL cryptocard-protected systems.)
| Preferences : Customizing your display |
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To view and change preferences, Login, click on Account Summary & Preferences, then click on View/Change Personal Preferences. This allows you to save settings for:
- Records per page: How many records will display on the Results screen
at one time.
- Auto full: Select a number other than zero and the system will automatically
display a Full record for this # or fewer results. This is an alternative to always
seeing Brief records on the Results screen.
| Previous Searches |
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To see a history list of the searches you have made during your current session, click on Previous
Searches in the blue navigation bar.
- To see the results of a search again, select it and click View.
- To erase a search, select it and click Delete.
- To combine two or more searches, select them, and click Cross.
Cross lets you work in various ways with a pair of result sets. For example, if you
searched for Chicago, and now want do a similar search for Illinois, you can
combine them by choosing a predefined logical operation: and, or, First set not
second, Second set not first..
To cross sets with the First Set not Second and Second Set not First operations,
choose two sets only.
| Requesting Items |
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You must first be logged in to place a request on an item.
- Do a search/browse to the desired title.
- On the Brief Results list or on a record's Full View, after the label "CLICK FOR STATUS" click on the underlined text (such as "MAIN: QH450.2 .T67 1988").
- On the resulting Library Holdings screen, in the Status/Due date column, click Request Item.
If the item is available it will be sent to you via interoffice
mail. If it is on loan a hold will be placed for you.
The "No. of requests" column will show the number of
hold requests for an item that has like copies.
For example, 1 (1/3) , where the numbers mean:
<# of Original hold requests (Total # of hold requests for this item>/
<Total # of like-copy items for this title)>
| Saving and Emailing Your Results |
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Once you have selected records, you can save them or forward them by email.
To send the record or list of records by email:
- Click Save/Email to invoke the E-mail or Save Selected Records screen.
- Choose All, Selected, or a Range of records (e.g. 2-6).
- Choose a record format
- Fill in the Name, Subject and Text fields
if you wish. These are optional and can be helpful in handling your email.
(Note: The Text field will not be sent if you use the Tagged output format, since this is designed for importing into bibliographic management software such as EndNote or Refworks.)
- Fill in the email address field.
- Click Go.
To save the records to your computer:
- Click Save/Email to invoke the E-mail or Save Selected Records screen, and choose options/fill in fields as above, except:
- Leave the email address field blank.
- Click Go. A Save file on PC screen appears.
- Click Save Selected. You will be prompted with your options for saving and naming the
file.
| Search |
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To perform any
search, click on one of the three choices on the blue navigation bar: Search/Browse, Advanced Search, and Browse. These are explained below.
| Search/Browse |
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In this screen,
1) Choose your Search Type from the pull-down menu, which offers a mix of browse and word searches.
For example:
"Title begins with", performs a Browse search of an alphabetical list of titles in the catalog
"Title word(s)" performs a keyword search for word(s) anywhere in title fields.
2) Enter your search query in Search For.
Tips for entering word searches:
- Use quotes for word adjacency. For example, type "computer programming" to retrieve only records that have the word computer NEXT to the word programming.
- You may use the Boolean operators AND and OR in your search string. For example, you could type (heart OR cardiac) AND surgery to retrieve all records having heart or cardiac in them, together with the word surgery.
- Use the ? character to find matches that contain portions of words. For example, telom? finds telomeric, telomere etc.For word searches, putting a search in quotes will give you a phrase search.
- Search terms are case insensitive - you can use lower case or upper case..
Note that you can limit a word search by format, language and years of publication using Advanced Search.
| Advanced Search |
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Advanced Search lets you search for keywords in several fields at one time.
Use the pull-down menus to specify fields and define search mode. The catalog
offers various fields such as Author, Subject and Title. The relationship between
these three fields is handled by the Boolean operator, AND, OR and NOT. You
can also limit the search by format, language and years of publication, for example, to see only books, or only journals, or only materials available online.
| Constructing a Word Search |
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You can use the Boolean operators AND, OR, and NOT in the search string. AND is
assumed if no operator is present. Operators can be typed in English or expressed by using any of
the following conventions:
- AND = + (plus sign)
- AND = & (ampersand)
- OR = | (pipe sign)
- NOT = ~ (tilde)
You
can also use AND/OR/NOT as real words (that is, not as Boolean operators) when they are part of a phrase, as in, for example, TIT=gone but NOT forgotten, or if the operator is
enclosed in double quotes, as in, for example WTI=gone but "NOT" forgotten (NOT is
written in uppercase for the sake of clarity - it can be lowercase in the search query).
All word searches can be further limited by format, language and years. You can define these
limits on the Advanced Search screen.
In addition to the Search Hints at the bottom of each Search screen, the following are additional
rules for all types of searches:
The ? character or * character (asterisk) can be placed at the left, right or
middle of a portion of a word, but it can never be used more than once in a text string.
The ! character can be used to find variant spellings in cases where a single character
may vary. For example, wom!n will retrieve both woman and women.
You can also use Common Command Language (CCL) to search for words and headings in several different
indexes at once. You must specify the code of the word or heading (browse) index to be searched.
Following are some of the abbreviations used by the Common Command Language:
WTI - Words in title
WAU - Words in author
WSU - Words in subject
WTA - Words in title, subject or abstract
WPU - Words in publisher
WRD - Words anywhere
WYR - Year of publication
WTP - Format, such as book or journal (use terms that display in Full view)
WLN - Language code, such as ENG or FRE
An example:
((wau=carlyle or ruskin or hegel) and (wti=cultur?)) not (wsu=art?)
This search finds anything written by individuals named Carlyle or Ruskin or Hegel with a word
beginning with cultur, for example, culture, cultures, cultural, and so on, in any title which has not been assigned a subject beginning with
the word art, for example, art, arts, artist, artistic, and so on.
| Working with Results lists |
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The list of records appears in the results list window. When you enter a successful
word search, or click on an underlined entry from the browse list, a Results
list is displayed. The Results list can display up to 1000 records. The Results
list shows how many records satisfy your query specifications. Each record in
a Results list is sequentially numbered. (The search results can be automatically displayed
in Full format by logging in and changing your preferences.)
The search query and current sort criteria, and the # of records found, are shown
in the upper left side of the screen.
You can jump to other places in the results set using Jump to # or Jump to Text , on the upper right side.
Jump to Text means that you will jump to the record in your results that starts with the text closest to what you type, according to the way the results are sorted. For example, if you sort the results by Author, then use Jump to Text = martin, the record with the author Martin (or the closest one to that alphabetically) will appear at the top of your results display.
You can also sort, filter within results,
and select records for other actions, as described below.
| Filter
within results |
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Filtering results allows you to view a subset of your current search results.
You can filter by:
Self-defined filters:
- Range on data - e.g. specify a , b to see titles beginning with A or B.
- Year - specify beginning and ending year of publication
- Created after - specify YYYYMMDD of date added to the catalog
Pre-defined filters:
- Available items (not checked out)
- Published 1990-2006
| Refine
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Refine allows you to broaden or narrow your search strategy by expanding your terminology
or creating subsets of your search.
- Choose desired Boolean Operator - AND, OR, NOT
- Select search index from the drop-down menu
- Enter search term(s)
| Revise your search |
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You can broaden or narrow your search using the input box which appears at the
bottom of the Brief Results Display. Fields
must be specified with Common Command Language and Boolean operators. For example:
WTI = ( transactions ) and WAU = ( nair )
See the list of Common Command Language codes for more information.
| Sort |
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You can sort records in the Results display by clicking on
one of the predefined sort options: Author, Title, Year, Year (ascending). Your
results will appear in "Year" sort, which displays the most recently published
first, unless you change the sort.
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