CDLINFO LISTSERV, September 13, 2001, Vol.4, No.16
In planning for the new Melvyl using Ex Libris Aleph 500 software, one of our many tasks has been to evaluate the handling of personal author searches in Aleph catalog systems, to see if searches using variant forms of the name are as successful as they are in our existing Melvyl. We are happy to report that a careful analysis performed by CDL Bibliographic Assistant Pam Daniels revealed that personal author searching gives results equivalent to those currently found in Melvyl. The new Melvyl using Aleph software will have the additional bonus of enabling users to browse author names as headings, so that personal author searching should be more effective than ever. For those interested in examining Pam's analysis, it's available at: http://www.cdlib.org/libstaff/catalog/teams/database/algorithm.html
The transition schedule for these databases is as follows:
| Database Name | New Access Begins | Vendor | CDL Access Ends |
| PAIS International | January 1, 2002 | CSA | Via OCLC, January 15, 2002 |
| PsycINFO | January 1, 2002 | CSA | December, 2002* |
*CDL is committed to maintaining access through December 2002 unless there are unforeseen circumstances, such as vendors making significant changes to their data structure, or recommendations to remove parallel access earlier.
For detailed information about which databases will, or have already, transitioned to new vendors, please refer to the A&I Transition Status by Database Chart available at: http://www.cdlib.org/news/databasestatus.html
Directions for access to these resources will be
announced closer to their implementation date, after the CDL has verified
access.
The database producer is the American Geological Institute which has this to say about GeoRef (see http://www.georef.org ) "...GeoRef provides access to the geoscience literature of the world. GeoRef is the most comprehensive database in the geosciences and continues to grow by more than 70,000 references a year (79,797 in 2000). The database contains over 2.2 million references to geoscience journal articles, books, maps, conference papers, reports and theses. ... The GeoRef database covers the geology of North America from 1785 to the present and the geology of the rest of the world from 1933 to the present." GeoRef corresponds to the printed Bibliography and Index of Geology. GeoRef scans over 3,000 journals and there is a selected list of 99 journals given priority coverage. See the publisher's website for the complete serials list as well as the priority serials list; CSA GeoRef also links to them.
[Note: Below is detailed information on specific features and functionality of GeoRef from CSA]
Searching GeoRef
CSA has a stripped-down Quick Search interface that will be usable for general
needs. An Advanced Search interface is available for more involved searching,
with access to all the GeoRef fields. Command line searching within Advanced
Search is also supported. Search terms are highlighted in results. Searches
can be recycled from an online search history and rerun or combined with new
terms. Search results can be sorted by a relevancy ranking or reverse chronological
order by publication date. Relevance is determined using the first eight terms
in the descriptor field, with records containing the search term within the
descriptor field listed first.
Searching for an author
Unlike the author indexing CDL uses, the CSA scheme does not link the firstname
and lastname together, so you may find articles that have the first name you
asked for in one author and the last name in a second author. To get the same
type of retrieval you are used to getting in the CDl interface, use the CSA
Browse indexes feature to get the best results when looking for an author. The
Browse shows all variants of the author name, for example, GeoRef references
by Walter Munk are listed: Munk W; Munk W H; Munk Walter; Munk Walter H; Munk
Walter Heinrich so you can get comprehensive retrieval. CDL has spoken with
CSA about improving its author searching algorithm.
Proximity and Phrase searching
Phrase and proximity (word adjacency) searching is available on CSA GeoRef;
this feature was unavailable in the CDL interface for GeoRef@Stanford and is
very useful for obvious reasons. Beware that the default search screen for CSA
GeoRef has the radio button default set for phrase searching. Thus if your habit
was to type in several words in the CDL interface for GeoRef, knowing that an
implied AND Boolean search would be executed, you won't get a Boolean AND search
on CSA GeoRef without clicking on the "All of the words" radio button
before executing your CSA GeoRef search. Truncation (wildcard) is more full
featured on CSA GeoRef, with internal truncation available as well as specification
of the number of characters appearing at the end of a word.
GeoRef Thesaurus
CSA GeoRef has an interactive version of the GeoRef Thesaurus. Thesaurus terms
can be searched directly or as an embedded word; the thesaurus can be browsed
alphabetically as well. Variants will display, and you can read scope notes.
The thesaurus can be navigated among broader terms, narrower terms, and related
terms. Displayed thesaurus terms can be used in subsequent GeoRef searches The
GeoRef Thesaurus is available in print from the database producer.
Alerts (aka Update)
You can now setup an automatic email for new GeoRef records retrieved by your
pre-defined search. CSA calls this feature Alert, which is called Update on
CDL. CSA's information on setting up an Alert is rather buried in its online
help. A specially created GeoRef Alert web page is available at UCSD, which
you can edit for your own campus needs. See http://scilib.ucsd.edu/sio_instruct/guides/georef-alert.htm
How do I get a copy of an article?
CSA GeoRef has a "locate document" link alongside each retrieved reference.
Click on it and it pastes pertinent bibliographic elements into a search screen
for your review. You can choose between a search of your online catalog or linking
to online full text if available.
Here's a GeoRef guide I surfed and found on the web, in case you are looking for something to adapt for your needs. If you have developed anything local to your UC, please let me know. We would all like to know about it: http://www.leeds.ac.uk/library/documents/workbook/csa/georef.pdf
Editor's note: We have a page at the CDL linking to adaptable outreach and
instructional materials from the campuses and vendors. Please send appropriate
items to Ellen.Meltzer@ucop.edu.
As the UC Resource Liaison for MEDLINE, I'm anxious to receive any and all feedback about the database. Please contact me at jcontini@library.ucla.edu.
[Note: Below is detailed information on specific features and functionality of MEDLINE from NLM]
Linking
Links to many of the electronic journals subscribed to by the CDL and individual
campuses have been added by UC/CDL staff. As NLM enters into agreements with
additional publishers/aggregators for additional titles in its Link Out program,
UC links will be updated. In order for the links to automatically display and
to provide access to holdings and CDL Request it is important that the special
UC URLs be used to access PubMed. Instructions for creating these URLs are given
in Creating special URL's for PubMed, an RTF document on the MEDLINE transition
page http://www.cdlib.org/inside/instruct/medlinechanges.rtf.
For example, the link from the UCLA Biomedical Library home page is: http://www.pubmed.gov/query.fcgi?tool=cdl&holding=uclalib
.
Search Options
The best way for the novice to search PubMed is to simply type the natural language
search query in the "search for" box and press Enter. PubMed automatically
maps to the MeSH controlled vocabulary and also retrieves common phrases from
its phrase index. Browsing by journal and subject heading is available as well
as looking through the database index for many fields such as author, major
MeSH, text words, journal, etc. The expert searcher may paste a complex, nested
search query in the initial query box or may build a step by step strategy using
the Preview/Index and History features and Boolean operators (and, or, not.)
Additional features include a citation matcher and clinical queries filter for
evidence-based medicine.
Display Options
The user may display up to 500 citations on a single page. The default display
is a summary, basic citation format. The abstract display offers the icons for
linking to electronic articles, and the MEDLINE display provides the format
for downloading into a citation management program such as EndNote. The citation
display shows MeSH terms for the citation in addition to basic elements and
abstract. The Related Articles display option retrieves the related articles
for all articles in the original result.
Why don't I get the same number of records from PubMed that I get with the
CDL version?
PubMed provides access to bibliographic information which includes MEDLINE as
well as:
Sorting
The default display sort is chronological from newest added to oldest. The user
may change the sort to author, journal, or publication date. The default sort
for the Related Articles link is in rank order by most related to the citation
linked from. The user also may sort those by author, journal, or publication
date.
Marking
The user may check boxes to select citations for printing, saving (downloading),
or "ordering." Clicking "Add to Clipboard" saves up to 500
as a list for the current session for up to one hour of no activity.
Working with Results, and Output Options
Both the main display page and the Clipboard display page have a "Text"
button for formatting citations for printing from the browser. The "Save"
button saves the citations on the current page in the current display format.
Users may click the "Order" button to bring the citations (up to 500)
from the PubMed display page or the Clipboard to the CDL. Once there, users
may find local library holdings information as well as links to the additional
UC electronic subscriptions not linked from PubMed by clicking the Check to
see if your campus library owns this item link. Also, by checking boxes for
citations not available electronically, or from the local campus, the user may
initiate a CDL Request from another campus. To email citations, users simply
click "History" and then click the "URL" button. The citations
with the search strategy in the URL will display, and then user may select the
browser email or send page feature.
Update
PubMed has a "Cubby" feature that allows users to store search strategies.
The user may then update their search by clicking on the "What's New for
Selected" link for strategies they have checked. Unlike the CDL version,
PubMed does not email results of regular updates to users; however, there are
some free programs that will do this. The PubMed transition team has tested
the free utilities that have an email update feature for PubMed. BioMail is
the simplest and most straightforward of the ones tested. See the Current Awareness
RTF document available on the MEDLINE Transition page. http://www.cdlib.org/lib
staff/sharedcoll/a-i-trans/med/index.html
Additional Features
The Cubby also allows users to specify the library for "Link Out"
to electronic journals and to specify the document delivery service. Users who
do not use the special UC URLs to link to PubMed mentioned above need to specify
a UC link out library and University of California as their document delivery
service to use the linking and ordering features explained above.
Help
PubMed has a very complete tutorial (requires Macromedia Flash player)
http://www.nlm.nih.gov/bsd/pubmed_tutorial/m1001.html
PubMed has a FAQ and a help that while only partially context sensitive provides
a good overview. The PubMed transition team is preparing user guides to assist
UC faculty, staff, and students in making the transition from CDL MEDLINE/HealthSTAR
to PubMed. The guides currently available are Current Awareness, Obtaining Articles,
Using Cubby and LinkOut, Creating special URL's for PubMed, and Transitioning
to PubMed from the Telnet Interface. Please see the MEDLINE Transition page:
http://www.cdlib.org/inside/instruct/medlinechanges.rtf
. The NLM National Training Center offers classes on PubMed in California regularly.
Class descriptions and schedules are available at: http://nnlm.gov/mar/online/.
A list of recently added content is always available at: http://www.cdlib.org/news/whatsnew.html#recentadds
The full list of journals is available at http://www.bioone.org/bioone/?request=get-jour nals-list .
BioOne is one of the Scholarly Publishing and Academic Resources Coalition's (SPARC) "Scientific Communities" partnerships. SPARC (see http://www.arl.org/sparc) is an alliance of research institutions, libraries and organizations that encourages competition in the scholarly communications market and facilitates the use of technology to bring top-quality, low-cost research to a greater audience. The CDL's eScholarship program also receives SPARC support. In addition to providing high-quality research content, the UC subscription to BioOne--many of the UC campuses are also Charter Supporters--is an important statement of support for innovations in scholarly publishing and communication. Additional information on BioOne is available at http://www.BioOne.org .
Twenty-two titles are currently available and the Collection will contain at least 100 when completed at the end of 2002. Lists of titles are available at http://www.jstor.org/about/asII.list.htm .
The CDL paid the one-time Archive Capital Fees for all campuses. Campuses will contribute the Annual Access Fees. There are no access fees due during 2001, and they will be prorated at half for 2002. Campuses will not pay the full fee until the Collection is complete in 2003.
On September 10, 2001, the CDL offices moved to 415 20th Street in downtown Oakland. The new location, just 2 blocks from the Kaiser Center where some staff were located, and 8 blocks from UCOP's main offices at 1111 Franklin, for the first time provides a single location for CDL's Oakland-based staff. Email and phone numbers have not changed but the new address is:
California Digital Library
Office of the President
415 20th Street, 4th Floor
Oakland, CA 94612
The building is secured at all times so it will be necessary to buzz the security desk for access and sign in if you visit the new offices. Your host will notify the security guard to admit you. There are meeting rooms in the new space, and we will still have access to Franklin and Kaiser for meetings.
In addition to the new default screen, ABC-CLIO has added several other noteworthy features:
Try these new features for America: History and Life at http:/serials.abc-clio.com/cgi-bin/nph-AppStart.py2.1?_appname=v3&initialdb=AHL or Historical Abstracts at http://serials.abc-clio.com/cgi-bin/nph-AppStart.py2.1?_appname=v3&initialdb=HA
Content
Content is constantly being added and deleted from LexisNexis Academic
Universe.
New Content:
Content Deletions:
On June 25, 2001, the Supreme Court ruled in the case of New York Times
v. Tasini that media companies may not republish freelance writers' works
in database form without their prior approval. LexisNexis was asked by
the New York Times to remove a large number of articles written by freelancers.
LexisNexis has said that some older articles may no longer be available
from online services but that for the past several years publishers have
been obtaining broader rights from freelance writers to permit their articles
to be included in databases such as LexisNexis.
In addition to the freelance articles, content losses from Academic Universe include all National Journal titles and an extensive amount of accounting literature received through the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants.
New Functionality
Functionality enhancements in Academic Universe include the ability
to jump to a specific page of 25 results using the drop-down selector at
the top of each page of results. In any of the "News" search forms, the
user can now search the same terms in another news category by using the
drop down menu under "Search Another News Category" at the top of the page.
Usage Statistics Error
LexisNexis recently conceded that there are serious problems with its
use statistics. Monthly statistics are significantly lower than normal.
According to LexisNexis, "something happened in Fall 2000 which has impacted
the statistics to date." The UC statewide statistics are less than half
the normal amount for March 2001 (the latest month available for consortial
totals) compared to the previous year. UCD campus totals for May were five
times lower. It is not known when the problem will be corrected, or whether
the incorrect data can be replaced.
See http://www.lexisnexis.com/academic/1univ/acad/default.htm for more information on content, archived newsletters, and training resources.
Remember also that reports, working documents, and status information of particular interest to library staff, are all available at http://www.cdlib.org/libstaff/.
Eligible subscribers: UC library employees
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