Basics
Navigation
Types of Searches
Browse
Brief Records Display
Browse List
Character Sets and Unicode
Customizing Your Display
Full View of Record
Saved Searches
Holdings
Online Transactions
My e-Shelf
My Library Card
Loans Information
Loan History
Hold Requests
Cash Transactions
How to Delete a Hold Request
Previous Searches
Requesting Items on Loan
Search
Advanced Search
Basic Search
Multi-field Search
Working with Results Lists
Create Subset
Filter
Refine
Sort
Basics
You can navigate the Web OPAC by using the buttons on your Web browser as well as the navigation buttons on the Web OPAC screen.
A screen is made up of two frames. The top frame shows the menu bar. This frame appears on every screen and offers the key functions and user options for the system. The large lower frame displays various search options along with screens that display results.
The Browse search allows you to search the catalog in alphabetical or numerical order, like a dictionary. Your search, if successful, will result in an alphabetical/numerical list. You can then browse forward or backwards through that particular list or index. You do not have to use uppercase letters.
To search by browsing:
Choose the index you want to browse through, then enter the text from which you would like to start browsing. This text will appear at the top of a scrollable list. For example, entering the letter "a" will give you an alphabetical list starting at the letter "a".
Your library might have set the browse option to enable the users to search keyword in headings. In case where the "Search Keywords in headings" checkbox is marked, the system returns a list of headings that contains the requested keywords. For example, if you enter the subject football, you might see a heading list starting with American football and then continuing with Football Association, The great football book, world cup- football and other.
In a Browse list, you can click a 'Brief Recs' button to retrieve a list of works related to the heading. Note that the 'Brief Recs' button is active only if the highlighted heading has related brief records.
The Browse List displays the number of records for each entry. Click on an underlined entry to see the associated records for the entry.
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.
The Preferences option lets you set up the display of information on your screen. From Preferences you may set the number of brief records per page; display the maximum number of records for Auto Full; include AUT data in browse list. You cannot save your customized view if you are not a registered user.
The Full view of a record, can be seen by clicking on the title from the browse list.
The Full view has links that allow you to jump to:
- Next / Previous record
- To records by same author (Main Entry)
- Other, similar records, for example, other records that share the same subject
- A search engine in order to find related information on Google
- Holdings information
- To Export to RefWorks
The Saved Searches function allows you to view your search queries, which you saved on your previous visits to the library. These search queries are saved in a permanent buffer and can be used as bookmarks for future use. You save your queries in the History buffer from the Previous Searches screen.
To view your saved searches, click Saved Searches from the menu bar.
From the search queries in the Saved Searches screen, you can rerun your search queries by clicking Find, or delete them from the permanent buffer. Note that the value displayed in the No. of Records column refers to the number of records retrieved at the time that the search query was first run.
To view Holdings information for a given library:
In the results list screen, click on the underlined library name in the Lib/Items column.
or
In the Full View of Record screen, click on the All Items link. The Holdings window, containing a list of items held by the library, appears. You can apply several filters on the list of items that displays:
- Select year: only items issued on the specified year will display
- Select volume: only the specified volume will display
- Select sublibrary: only items that belong to the specified sublibrary will display
- Hide loaned items: items that are currently on loan or on hold will not display
The Holdings window allows you to use the following options:
- Request the item (if shown)
- View the expanded information on the item
In order to proceed with online transactions, such as renewing of items, requesting material that is on loan by another patron and other related activities a user must login into the system.
Click on the Login button at the top right-hand corner. Enter your IT Services user ID and password as indicated on the screen and press enter. Remember to always logout when you have finished.
You can create your own set of records and save it in a buffer, which is called My e-shelf. If you are an identified patron, the records that you save in My e-shelf will not be deleted when 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 records from the items list and click the Add to My e-shelf link from the options bar.
To view all the records that are currently saved, click My e-Shelf from the menu bar.
My e-shelf allows you to:
- Delete records from My e-shelf
- Empty My e-shelf by clicking on "Select All" and "Delete"
- Export to RefWorks
The My Library Card screen displays your circulation information. It also enables you to perform a number of online activities.
You can view your current circulation statuses from the Activities entry of the screen:
- Loans: the screen gives you access to your loans information. In addition, if you click on an underlined number, you have two options for renewing your loans.
1.
Renew All (Loans): select this option from the menu bar to renew all records that you have
on loan.
2.
Renew Selected (Loans): use this option to renew the selected records only. If the item
has been requested by another patron you will not be able to renew the item/s
1. Enter My Library Card
2. Click on Hold Request number
3. A list of requested items appears on the screen
4. Click on Description or number of item
5. Press Delete. This button is found at the bottom left-hand side of the page
In addition, the My Library Card screen displays some general circulation information:
- Messages for the patron
- Patron's circulation blocks
- Patron's personal profile with an option to modify it
- Patron's SDI profiles with the option to modify them
In order to prevent unauthorized access to your records, access to your library card is achieved by logging into the system using your IT Services user ID and password.
Note that in order to protect your personal information, the system does not allow the browser's Back function from most of My Library Card's pages. Instead of taking you to the previous page, the system opens the page that you opened before going to My Library Card.
You can view the results of previous searches of current session, incorporate them into new searches, or combine them into one result set.
- To see a list of the searches you have made during your current session, click on Previous Searches from the menu bar.
- To review a search, select it, and click View.
- To erase a search, select it and click Delete.
To place a request on an item that is currently on loan:
- Click on an underlined Holdings tag from the Full view of a record. A holding list of items stocked by the library is displayed.
In the Holdings list, you can:
- Click Request (if shown) to place a hold request.
- Delete the Request on an item in case book is not longer required
If the Holdings List contains a Due Date, this indicates that the item is currently on loan
The Search function enables you to find records by entering keywords or phrases. To perform any search, click on Search from the menu bar. There are three different Search types available in Web OPAC: Basic; Multi-field; and Advanced Search.
In this screen, you can choose a field to be searched such as Title, Author, Subject, and so on, and type in the keywords. Lowercase letters can also find matches of capitalized words. You can use the Boolean operators AND, OR, and NOT in the search string. 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, "management and costs" retreives records with both words; "management NOT costs" retrieves records with the word "management" but not "costs".
To retrieve search terms that are next to each other, choose Yes for Words adjacent.
Constructing a Search
A Search request is limited to the number of records the System is set to (for example, 1000).
ALEPH supports "and", "or", and "not" Boolean operators. "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)
All searches can be further limited by type (e.g. Monograph, serial, dissertation, etc.) and location (e.g. Main, Melitensia Special Collection, Short Loans, etc.). You can define these limits at the bottom of each 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 # symbol can be used to find variant spellings in cases where one version of the word has one more character than another version. For example, colo#:r will find both "color" and "colour"; and arch#eology will find both "archaeology" and "archeology".
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".
The % symbol, followed by a number, can be placed between two words to indicate that you want the words to appear within a particular distance from each other, irrespective of what order the words appear in. For example, england %3 ballads will retrieve "Ballads of England", "Ballads of Merry Olde England" and "England and Her Ballads".
The ! character, followed by a number, can be placed between two words to indicate that you want the words to appear within a particular distance from each other, and in the same order in which you type the words. In this case, ballads !3 england will retrieve Ballads of England and Ballads of Merry Olde England but not England and Her Ballads.
The Multi-Field Search lets you search more than one word group at the same time, with "AND" between them. The more fields you can fill in, the narrower the search.
The -> (hyphen and greater than symbols) can be placed between two words. This indicates that you want to retrieve records that have words from (and including) the first word, through the second word. This search is particularly helpful for limiting a set of records by year of publication. You cannot use to instead of the symbols.
Here is an example: 1993 -> 1996
Advanced Search lets you search the database for keywords present anywhere in the catalog record, or only in specific fields (for example, author, title, subject, and so on). The relationship between the fields is handled by the logical operator, AND. To view a list of records, click on an adjacent link in the No. of records column.
The list of records appears in the results list window. When you enter a successful search query, 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 displayed in different formats.
Creating a subset allows you to work with a group of records selected from a result set. Select records in the results list, and then click Create Subset. The results list will then display only the records you have put in the subset. This subset can be treated just like any result set: records can be selected, added to a list, and turned into another subset. Any subset or record selected can be exported to RefWorks.
The new set will remain in Previous Searches until the session ends. The only way to distinguish a subset from a full records set is the number of records.
Filter enables you to define filter options post-search, creating your own filter or using predefined filter options, which are "Year"; "Created after date"; "Range on data"; and "Text"
Click Filter from the options bar of the results list. The filter form page that displays allows you either to define your own filter or to use the predefined filters.
For example, search the term "management" by All Fields. If you click on Filter you will be given a choice of four filters that will enable you to narrow your results. Click on Range on data and choose "Title" as the field to search, then enter the letter "a" in the "Text from" field and the letter "d" in the "Text to" field. This will limit the results to book titles starting with the letters a, b, c and d.
The Text filter allows you to enter an additional search term to your initial search query. For instance, entering the term "accounting" (by Title) in the "Type text" field will search for books which contain the words "management" and "accounting" in the title.
You can also filter your result list by Year. Entering the years "2005" and "2010" will search for records in the list published from 2005 through the end of 2010.
The Created after date filter will search for records which were inputted in library's online catalogue after a particular date. For example, if a student wants to filter the list to retrieve the list of books / material which was purchased by the library since the year 2008, s/he will input 20080101 in the "Records created since" field. This will produce a list of items catalogued in the system since the first of January 2008.
Refine allows you to broaden or narrow your search strategy by expanding your terminology or creating subsets of your search. You can also add terms using the drop-down options, or you can execute an entirely new search.
You can sort records using predefined sort options, that is, by Author/Year(d), Year(d)/Author, Author/Title, Title/Year(d), Title/Year(a), Year(d)/Title. Additionally, in the Brief view table, you can click on a column heading to sort the list (for example, clicking Author sorts records by Author, then by Year).
