CSCI 100 LIBRARY INSTRUCTION 1. What we are trying to do If you have had a library session in an ORSEM or another class, you have had the basics of how to search CUNY+. These classes teach you how to do the work on the computer, but they do not teach you much about why the search works. Since this is a computer science class, the approach to using the library's computer resources is going to be a bit different. Computerized information in the library is much like computerized information that you will find in other applications. What you will learn about CUNY+ will assist you in using other computer systems, and what you know about other systems should help with CUNY+. 2. What is CUNY+ CUNY+ is a database like many others you will encounter. The commands that run the CUNY+ system are unique to a system called NOTIS. That is the software that runs all of CUNY+. The logic of searching, however, is not unique. That logic is the same in nearly every computerized database available today. Understanding the logic and structure of a database is an important step in developing what is called computer literacy. Here are some key terms that you will need to be familiar with in order to understand the way the databases work: Database: A database is merely a collection of information. Not every database needs to be on a computer, but a computer is an ideal storage and retrieval system for the kind of information that usually makes up a database. An example of a non-computerized database is the phone book. Record: A database is made up of records. A record is all the information about one item in the database. If we go back to the example of a phone book, the entire record for one person is the name, address, and phone number. Field: Each record is made up of fields. The length of each field and the amount of information that each field contains depends on the program that runs the database. Again if we look at the phone book, the phone number would be one of the fields in a record. The length of the field would be long enough to hold all the digits of a phone number. The CUNY+ records are long enough to hold the information that the library feels is important to describe the material, and to provide a way for the user to find and retrieve the information. They are long enough to manage the variety information that is necessary. There is a limit to how long a phone number can be, but no limit to a call number. Titles can be as short as one word, or as long as the author can make them. The programming accounts for these variables. The fields that we will spend the most time with are author title and subject, but we will deal with others a little later on. Searching a database like the phone book is simple, but limited. You can look things up one way. If the information were on a computer instead of in print, depending on how the programming was written, you could search by name, address, phone number, or any of the pieces. Searching CUNY+ is a little more complicated, but the concepts are the same. You can search by author, title, or subject, using one concept at a time, or by keyword, which lets you combine concepts. Look at the CUNY+ screen in front of you. You can see that it is a database made up of databases. Each contains different information. We are going to talk about DPAC and DPER, but the others work in the same way, so if you are familiar with these 2 then you can search all the CUNY+ databases. _______________________________________________________________________________ CITY UNIVERSITY OF NEW YORK LIBRARIES INFORMATION SYSTEM N007 CUNY+PLUS Select a database by entering the code. There may be additional databases available, type FOR DPAC CUNY Online Catalog Newspaper and Periodical Indexes *DNEW Newspaper Index *DPER Magazine and Journal Index Index to Dissertations *DDDIS Dissertation Abstracts * Databases that require Sign-On. ------------------------------------------------ + Page 1 of 4 ------------- HELp Select a database label from above FORward NEWs (Library System News) Database Selection: _______________________________________________________________________________ The different parts of CUNY+ do different things. The DPAC is the only one that we write. It tells you what is owned by all the libraries in CUNY. Everything found in the DPAC has a connection to one or more CUNY library. The other parts are commercial products. They reflect what exists in the world, and not everything listed will be found in CUNY. You select a database from CUNY+ by typing the 4 letter code to the left of the description on the screen. If you type DPAC, the screen looks like this. ________________________________________________ DPAC Introduction ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ ***WELCOME TO CUNY+PLUS*** Use the following command: To search by: A= Author T= Title S= Subject K= Keyword C= Call Number You may begin a new search on any screen. For an introduction to subject (s=), author (a=), title (t=), or keyword (k=) searching, type exp a, exp t, exp s or exp k. For more information on searching CUNY+ press or ------------------------------------------------ + Page 1 of 2 ------------- STArt over Enter search command FORward page NEWs NEXT COMMAND: ________________________________________________ The search procedure is shown on the screen. The A=, T=, and so on are references to the FIELDS of a CUNY+ record. We can do a field-specific search. Each of these commands will look only in one field of the record. A=faulkner will retrieve all the material that has the word "faulkner" at the beginning of the author field. We find 1413. [note: If you try this search yourself, the number of items that are found may not be the same as those in the examples. At the time that this was written, these are the numbers that were found. As things are added to the libraries, the numbers will change.] T=faulkner will retrieve all the things that have the word "faulkner" as the first word of the title. We find 526. S=faulkner will retrieve all the things that have those letters as the first word of a subject heading. We find 1957. Try this yourself with another name that you think might appear in all three fields. 3. How do you find a book? You have been told to find a book for you American History Class. All you know is the title is No Ordinary Time. To find it you would type "t=no ordinary time" at the bottom of the screen where it says "next command" and press the ENTER key. your results would look like this. _____________________________________________________________ Search Request: T=NO ORDINARY TIME DPAC Search Results: 7 Entries Found Title Index ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ NO ORDINARY TIME FRANKLIN AND ELEANOR ROOSEVELT THE HOME FRONT IN WORLD WAR II 1 GOODWIN DORIS KEARNS <1994> (BC) 2 GOODWIN DORIS KEARNS <1994> (CC) 3 GOODWIN DORIS KEARNS <1994> (HC) 4 GOODWIN DORIS KEARNS <1994> (LE) 5 GOODWIN DORIS KEARNS <1994> (NY) 6 GOODWIN DORIS KEARNS <1994> (QB) 7 GOODWIN DORIS KEARNS <1994> (SI) ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ STArt over Type number to display record HELp MARk OTHer options NEXT COMMAND: _______________________________________________________________________ This screen is called the INDEX SCREEN. There are 7 listings for the book at different CUNY libraries; the code on the right refers to the school that owns the book. The HC refers to Hunter College. To see the rest of the record, type the line #, 3 and "enter." ________________________________________________________________________________ Search Request: T=NO ORDINARY TIME DPAC BOOK - Record 3 of 7 Entries Found Brief View ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Author: Goodwin, Doris Kearns. Title: No ordinary time : Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt : the home front in World War II Publisher: New York : Simon & Schuster, c1994. Subjects: Roosevelt, Franklin D. (Franklin Delano), 1882-1945. Roosevelt, Eleanor, 1884-1962. World War, 1939-1945--United States. Presidents--United States--Biography. Presidents' spouses--United States--Biography. United States--History--1933-1945. LOCATION: CALL NUMBER STATUS: Hunter Main Library E807 .G66 1994 Not checked out Stacks NEXT COMMAND: ________________________________________________________________________________ (the record for this book takes up 2 screens, they are shown as combined here) The location is given as HUNTER MAIN LIBRARY--that is the 68th St. library. There are libraries a the School of Social Work on 79th St. and at Heath Professions on 25th St. The Call number tells you where to find the book on the shelf. There are charts in the library that tell you which numbers are on which floors. The status tells you whether the book has been borrowed or not. If a copy of this book were not available at Hunter, you could go to another CUNY library that has the book and use your Hunter ID to borrow the book there. The command to go back to the INDEX screen is shown on the bottom. Type "IND" and choose the line number of another CUNY school to see their record. 3.5 Set Cat Command Many students want to know how to find ONLY materials that are located in Hunter College Library. A recent update to the software that runs the system lets a user do this easily, but you must remember that it works only in the DPAC. At the prompt, type "set cat" . This shows a list of all the CUNY schools and the 2 letter code that refer to them. To choose the catalog for Hunter, type "set cat hc" . The introductory screen will show that you are in the Hunter catalog, and whatever you search will show results for only Hunter. To return the catalog to the whole database, type "set cat all" . _______________________________________________________________________________ Hunter Catalog Introduction ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ WELCOME TO THE HUNTER COLLEGE CATALOG Use the following command: To search by: A= Author T= Title S= Subject K= Keyword C= Call Number You may enter a search command from any screen. To return to the catalog of the holdings of all CUNY libraries type set cat and select item one or type set cat all to go directly to DPAC ------------------------------------------------ Page 1 of 1 --------------- STArt over Enter search command NEWs NEXT COMMAND: ________________________________________________________________________________ 4. Search logic What makes computer searching useful and powerful is doing searches that are not necessarily FIELD specific, but made specific by combining terms. If we search K=faulkner, we find many more items that in the other searches above, but they aren't very specific. By combining terms, you can in a sense define what you are looking at in as specific a manner as you wish. The trick is to combine terms in the right way. And that way is to combine the terms using words called "operators." Let's say we are looking for material on "how computers are used in education." We need to look at our request and pick the key terms. In this case, those would be COMPUTERS and EDUCATION. The word "and" is the operator that links these 2 terms and produces results that will have both of those terms used in the record. We can use the circle diagrams below to demonstrate. If the circle on the left represents the records in the database that contain the word "computers," and the circle on the right represents the material containing the word "education," the intersection of the two circles, the place where they overlap, represents the records that contain both. K=COMPUTERS and EDUCATION If this search does not produce enough material, you might want to expand your search by thinking of some synonyms for one or more of the original terms. We could use CLASSROOM as part of the search statement. We would combine it with the word EDUCATION using another operator, "or." When you combine terms with "or" it is essential to put the statement inside parentheses. (education or classroom) before combining this phrase with COMPUTERS. Using the circle diagrams, CLASSROOM or EDUCATION would look like this. The whole statement would be written: K=COMPUTERS and (EDUCATION or CLASSROOM) Try some others on your own. 5. How to use keyword in DPER We can change to the periodicals index by typing CHO DPER. The screen will look like this. _________________________________________________________________ Magazine and Journal I Introduction ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ INTRODUCTION TO THE GENERAL PERIODICAL INDEX DPER contains citations from four periodical indexes produced by the H. W. Wilson Company. These four indexes cover over 800 journals. DPER covers the sciences, the humanities, the social sciences, and general periodicals. SEARCH OPTIONS: ENTER: SUBJECT HEADING s=military finance AUTHOR a=sagan TITLE t=journey to the stars KEYWORD k=defense spending For an introduction to subject (s=), author (a=), title (t=), or keyword (k=) searches, type exp s, exp a, exp t or exp k. ------------------------------------------------ Page 1 of 1 --------------- Enter search command NEWs NEXT COMMAND: _________________________________________________________________ The search commands are nearly the same as those in DPAC. Let's try the search we used to explain the use of operators. If we type K=computers and (classroom or education) our results will look like this. _________________________________________________________________ Search Request: K=COMPUTERS AND (CLASSROOM OR EDUCATI Magazine and Journal I Search Results: 1265 Entries Found Keyword Index ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ DATE TITLE: AUTHOR: 1 1996 Microsoft and The College Fund/UNCF announ RG 2 1995 Airspace simulation RG 3 1995 America's shame Van Horn, Royal W RG 4 1995 Animation of imaginary frequencies at the Higgins, Robert H GS 5 1995 Asking the right questions Ehrmann, Stephen C RG 6 1995 Beyond cyberspace Draper, Mark RG 7 1995 Born-again computers Lockwood, Charles RG 8 1995 A brave new world Chidley, Joe RG 9 1995 Buoyancy Programs; viscosity of polymer so Bertrand, Gary L GS 10 1995 Cheats' outwit computerised exam Kiernan, Vincent GS 11 1995 Chemical education via MOLGEN Benecke, C GS 12 1995 The chemical hygiene plan Hunsley, James R GS 13 1995 Chemical solubilities revised with compute De Roo, Saskja GS 14 1995 Classroom chaos on the information highway Hecht, Jeff GS ------------------------------------------------ CONTINUED on next page ---- STArt over Type number to display record FORward page HELp MARk OTHer options NEXT COMMAND: _________________________________________________________________ We have found 1265 references. Not all of these may be relevant, but it is up to you to choose the best ones for your purposes. In the DPAC you could tell from this INDEX screen which CUNY school owned the book by looking at the code on the right. However, in the DPER, the code on the right refers to the section of the periodicals index that the reference comes from. From the titles listed, #5 looks interesting. We choose it by typing "5" and "enter". _________________________________________________________________ Search Request: K=COMPUTERS AND (EDUCATION OR CLASSRO Magazine and Journal I WILSON RECORD -- 5 of 1265 Entries Found Brief View ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ AUTHORS: Ehrmann, Stephen C. ARTICLE TITLE: Asking the right questions. how to use computers in higher education SOURCE/DATE: Change v. 27 (Mar./Apr. '95) p. 20-7 SPECIAL FEATURES: bibl il. ABSTRACT: People seeking information about the use of innovative technology in higher education often ask questions based on false assumptions. Those who ask whether computer-assisted teaching is more effective than conventional teaching are assuming that conventional teaching practices have been uniform and stable, which they have not. Such questions also fail to examine the accuracy of grades as measures of student learning and the usefulness of the content of the traditional curriculum. An examination of existing practice at colleges and universities reveals that computers, video, and telecommunications can be used to assist a variety of different teaching and learning methods. The writer cites several innovative examples of computer-assisted teaching and describes the Flashlight Project, an intercollegiate effort to evaluate educational strategies for using technology. SUBJECT DESCRIPTORS: Computers--Educational use. Educational technology. ------------------------------------------------ + Page 3 of 3 ------------- STArt over HOLdings MARk BACk page HELp LONg view NEXt record OTHer options INDex PREvious record Held by library--type HOL for holdings information. NEXT COMMAND: _________________________________________________________________ (This record has been compressed from 3 screens) The citation, the information that you need to find the material, is on the top: Author of the article, title of the article, name of the magazine or journal, volume, issue, page and date. This is the information that you MUST copy in order to find the article. (You must also save this information, so that you can include it in the bibliography of your paper.) In order to find out who owns the magazine, use the command HOL. The schools that have this magazine will be listed in alphabetical order by the name of the school. Most times Hunter will not be first on the list. You must page down through the listings until you get to Hunter's listing, or if Hunter doesn't own the magazine, until you go past the H's in the alphabetical order. The holdings record looks like this. _________________________________________________________________ Search Request: K=COMPUTERS AND (EDUCATION OR CLASSRO Magazine and Journal I WILSON RECORD -- 5 of 1265 Entries Found Holdings Detail ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ ARTICLE TITLE: Asking the right questions. SOURCE/DATE: Change v. 27 (Mar./Apr. '95) p. 20-7 ------------------------------- Location 8 --------------------------------- Change magazine. LOCATION: City College Cohen Stacks CALL NUMBER SERIAL ------------------------------- Location 9 --------------------------------- Change. LOCATION: Hunter Main Periodicals, 5th floor (Non-Circulating) CALL NUMBER SHELVED UNDER TITLE STATUS: Check Shelf CURRENT ISSUES: v.28:no.1 (1996:Jan/Feb) v.27:no.6 (1995:Nov/Dec) v.27:no.5 (1995:Sept/Oct) v.27:no.4 (1995:Jul/Aug) v.27:no.3 (1995:May/Jun) v.27:no.2 (1995:Mar/Apr) v.27:no.1 (1995:Jan/Feb) v.26:no.6 (1994:Nov/Dec) v.26:no.5 (1994:Sept/Oct) v.26:no.4 (1994:Jul/Aug) v.26:no.2 (1994:Mar/Apr) v.26:no.3 (1994:May/Jun) EXCEPTIONS: Volumes 1,15-16 are incomplete. Missing v.18:no.5; (1986), v.23:no.2; (1991) LIBRARY HAS: v. 1-25; (1969-1993) ------------------------------------------------ + Page 8 of 19 ------------ STArt over VIEw record MARk FORward page HELp LONg view BACk page OTHer options INDex NEXt record PREvious record CSCI 100 LIBRARY INSTRUCTION PART 2 One of the most useful habits to learn in order to become a more sophisticated user of the computer, regardless of application, is to look for and use the HELP SCREENS available in nearly every program. CUNY+ is no different. Every part of CUNY+ has some sort of help or explain screen. What ever section of you choose, if you type NEWS, you will find a definition of the database that you are in and many times yo will find the dates of coverage for the periodical indexes. For example, in DPER the NEWS screen looks like: _________________________________________________________________ Magazine and Journal I News ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ WILSON SYSTEM NEWS DATABASE BEGINNING DATE LATEST UPDATE General Science Index May 1, 1984 January 25, 1996 Humanities Index February 1, 1984 January 25, 1996 Social Science Index February 1, 1983 January 25, 1996 Readers' Guide January 1, 1983 January 26, 1996 ------------------------------------------------ Page 1 of 1 --------------- STArt over OTHer options NEXT COMMAND: ______________________________________________________________________________ You are told what DPER consists of, and what dates each part indexes. In each of the database choices in CUNY+, the NEWS screen will define the database and perhaps give special information that will help you know better what you are searching. If we switch to DPAC and look at the opening screen ______________________________________________________________________________ DPAC Introduction ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ ***WELCOME TO CUNY+PLUS*** Use the following command: To search by: A= Author T= Title S= Subject K= Keyword C= Call Number You may begin a new search on any screen. For an introduction to subject (s=), author (a=), title (t=), or keyword (k=) searching, type exp a, exp t, exp s or exp k. For more information on searching CUNY+ press or ------------------------------------------------ + Page 1 of 2 ------------- STArt over Enter search command FORward page NEWs NEXT COMMAND: ______________________________________________________________________________ The command and the information about the NEWS screen ar at the bottom, where we would expect them to be. In the middle of the screen, you are told about the command exp (for explain). This command, when coupled with a search key as shown above defines how that way of searching works. If you have forgotten how to search for a title or author, you can find out. The most useful "explain" screen is exp k which is a lesson on all the various aspects of keyword searching. When you type the command, what appears is a menu of choices. ______________________________________________________________________________ DPAC Explain Keyword ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ EXPLAIN Keyword Searching Menu To find out about: Type the following keys and -- Basic Keyword searching FOR 1 -- Truncating search terms FOR 2 -- Boolean and positional operators FOR 3 -- Qualifying search terms FOR 6 -- Nested searches FOR 8 -- Reviewing your search FOR 9 -- Helpful hints FOR 10 -- Stopwords FOR 11 Please note: There is a space between the letters FOR and the desired number. **You may also browse these screens sequentially by pressing ** ------------------------------------------------ + Page 1 of 12 ------------ STArt over FORward page OTHer options NEXT COMMAND: ______________________________________________________________________________ There is a table of contents for the information and the command FOR and a numeral shows how to jump to that section without paging through the rest. One of the most useful TRUNCATION which explains how to search using the first portion of a term, so as to search more of the forms of the word. ______________________________________________________________________________ DPAC Explain Keyword ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Truncating Search Terms A search term can be shortened by using a '?' as a truncation symbol. This allows one search to retrieve singular or plural forms or different spellings of a word or name. Examples: K=RHYME? will match RHYME and RHYMES, and RHYMER K=FREUD? will find FREUD as well as FREUDIAN Avoid "over-truncating" search terms. For example, don't enter k=micro? if you are searching for the term microorganisms . Too many words begin with the letters MICRO. k=microorgan? is a better search. To return to the EXPLAIN keyword menu, type b 2 and press . ------------------------------------------------ + Page 3 of 12 ------------ STArt over FORward page OTHer options BACk page NEXT COMMAND: ______________________________________________________________________________ It also shows some of the problems of truncating too early in the word. Qualifying search terms, one of the choices, is more useful to you than it might sound. If we look at those screens ( I have compressed 2 screens into one here) you might get an idea of how to make use of this. ______________________________________________________________________________ ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Qualifying Search Terms Keyword searches may be qualified to limit search terms to a field or group of fields in a record, such as author, title or subject. A period must precede and follow the field code. Some of the qualifiers used in the system are: .SU. -- limits the search to subject fields. k=jackson andrew.su. .TI. -- limits the search to title fields. k=midsummer nights.ti. .AU. -- limits the search to author fields. k=thoreau.au. More than one field code can be used in a search. Link the codes with a comma. Example: k=ovid.au,su. will search for OVID in the author and subject fields. For more information on QUALIFYING SEARCH TERMS, press . Another type of qualification, known as fixed field qualification, allows you to combine search terms with information from the fixed fields of a record. For example, you may combine your search term with a date or a language code. Commonly used fixed field qualifiers are: .FMT. -- to limit a search to a particular format Examples: m.fmt. =music or spoken word s.fmt. =serials f.fmt. =visual material .LA. -- to limit a search to items written in a particular language use the first three letters of the language qualified by .la. Examples: rus.la. =Russian spa.la. =Spanish gre.la. =Greek .DT1. -- to limit a search to a specific publication year. E.g., 1990.DT1. ------------------------------------------------ + Page 8 of 12 ------------ STArt over FORward page OTHer options BACk page NEXT COMMAND: _____________________________________________________________________________ Let's look at some searches where this might be useful. If you knew the author of a book, say "Hill" and you knew the book was a Sociology text, but that is all that you knew, you could try "a=hill" or "s=sociology", but both of those would produce huge results, and finding the one book you want would take some time. If you tried "k=hill and sociology" your results would be smaller, but still large. To make the most efficient use of the information you have, you want to combine an author search and a subject search, in a keyword search. To do that you have to make use of the field tags to qualify the search. Try this search. k=hill.au. and sociology.su. You can also search for material in a specific language. To find books of short stories written in Spanish try k=short stories and spa.la. To find books written about Pushkin written in Russian try k=pushkin.su. and rus.la. If you want to limit what you find to what is at Hunter College you can type "set cat hc" before you begin your keyword search. Other EXPLAIN screens that will be of special use to you are: exp hours and exp directions. Try these and see what you find.