HELP in using The Catalog

Overview of The Catalog

The Catalog allows you to:

• Search for titles and items in the eiNetwork catalog
• Look at item holdings information of each of the eiNetwork member libraries
• Use hypertext links to look at similar works
• Search for and display journal and periodical information
• Place holds on materials
• Display your borrower information to see what you have checked-out, and if you owe any fines, and if you have any materials on hold or request
• Access text, image, sound and video files locally or across the Internet.

Searches can be conducted on The Catalog, and eiNetwork online databases.

The Catalog allows you to search by Author, Title, Subject, Keyword, Call Number, ISSN, ISBN, LCCN and other library numbers. Clicking on the appropriate search type button will link you to a search page with a dialog box. After you type in your search in the box and click on the search button, the results will be displayed in a list of highlighted matches or links.

From there you may choose a link, click on it, and connect to the specific record details such as citation, holdings, and full text information.

Things to know:

• The Catalog is not case-sensitive (you can type in capital or small letters).
• Punctuation is ignored; therefore, you do not have to include it within the search.
• Author, Subject, Title and Numeric searching is automatically right-truncated, which means that if you do an author search on Heming the list returned will include Hemingway. Or if you do a title search on Cat, the return title list will include Cat, Cataclysms, Catacomb, Catlan etc.
• When doing a Title search, do not include the initial articles (a, an, the). For example,
  the novel The Firm should just be searched for as Firm.

The Very Basics of Getting Around the Web

Web pages are displayed and viewed on computer screens through software called Web browsers. There are several types of Web browser software but most of them perform similar functions. The most popular types of browsers are Microsoft's Internet Explorer and Netscape. Most of the computers connected to the eiNetwork use Netscape. The instructions below assume that you are using Netscape. However, the functionality described below will work using Explorer.

(If you are using a dial-in connection you are using Lynx, the text based Web browser. You will use the up and down arrow keys in lynx to move from one link to the next on a page and the right and left arrow keys to connect to a new link or to go back to a previous web page. Remember that the mouse will not work. In general, you should have the same functionality but you will have to get used to using a text-based interface.)

To Begin:

Slide the mouse gently around the pad to move the arrow around the screen. (This arrow is also called the cursor.)

When the arrow changes to a pointing finger , it is pointing at a "link" to an information source.

A link may be a photo or graphic "icon," a "button", or colored text.

To follow a link:

With the pointing finger on the link, press the left button on the mouse one time.

This is called "clicking" the mouse button

Once a link is activated, the pointer will change into an hourglass , this shows you that the system is making a hypertext connection to another page or Web site.

To return or go back to a previous screen:

Click on the browser's button near the upper left-hand corner of the screen.

To span multiple screens:

Place the arrow pointer on the vertical bar at the right side of the screen. Next, hold down the left mouse button. While holding it down, "drag" the vertical bar toward the top of the screen. You will see the page move up. Release the mouse button where you want to stop the page.

To move up or down one line at a time:

Click once on the up or down pointing arrows above or below the vertical bar. Or use the up or down arrow keys on the keyboard.

To get back to the home page or screen:

Click once on the browser's button near the upper left-hand corner of the screen.

Navigating This Page

Some of the pages in The Catalog have a button called "Navigating This Page." When activated this link provides detailed descriptions of how each button or link on that page works. For more detailed information on how to search the catalog, you should use the "St. Bernard Help" button that will link you back here to the main help pages. And of course, you should ask a librarian if you need more help. They are here to help you.

Searching The Catalog

Author, Subject, or Title Searching:

1. Click on The Catalog icon or button.

2. Click on the Author, Title, or Subject icon.

3. Click inside the dialog box to activate the cursor and type in the search terms.

[ When doing a Title search, do not include the initial articles. For example, the novel The Firm should just be searched for as Firm . ]

4. If desired, limit by Type of Materials or by Language by clicking on the down-arrow in the boxes under the search.

5. Click on the Search Button.

• If there are no records for the search, a message reports that there were no results.

Hit Lists and the Brief Record

• If more than one record matches the search, the search term(s) will display at the top of a list of highlighted titles that make up the Primary Hit List.
• If the search results include more than twenty-five hits, a hypertext link "(next)" appears at the bottom of the page.
• If the search results include only one record, the title displays in the Brief Record format rather than the Hit List format.

Click on a highlighted title in the Primary Hit List.

• The heading from the Primary Hit List displays at the top of the Secondary Hit List, which is made up of Brief Records.
• If activated, Holdings information displays under each Brief Record, including call number, material, and the status of the item.

The Full Record

Click on the Brief Record, (all of which is highlighted and makes up a single hypertext link to the Full Record.)

•  The initial title heading displays at the top of the Full Record.
•  Additional hypertext links in the full record activate new searches for the highlighted text.

Keyword Searching

Searching Rules:

The Boolean operators AND, OR, NOT can be used to combine two or more search terms or phrases. AND searches for both terms in a record; OR searches for both or either term in a record; NOT excludes a certain term or phrase from the search.

If a search term is also a boolean operator, surround the term with double-quote marks (" "). For example, if you want to retrieve the title War and Peace but not all records containing the word war and the word peace, enter War "and" Peace as the search.

Parentheses can be used to nest terms. For example, entering

(united states and politics)not government

will retrieve all records containing the term united states and the term politics, but will exclude all records which contain the term government.

The question mark symbol " ? " and the pound sign symbol " # " are the only truncation symbols used in The Catalog.

The " # " sign can stand for any ONE character, and it can be used more than once within the search term. For example, entering "wom#n" would find both woman and women . Or, entering theat### would retrieve theatre, theater, theaters, but not theatrical.

The question mark " ? " can be used to stand for any number of characters, including zero. For example, entering "psycholog?" would find psychology, psychologist, psychological etc., and entering "colo?r" would find color and colour.

Searching with Keywords:

1. Click on the Search the Catalog link.

2. Click on the "Search By Word" link on the resulting page.

3. Click on the dialog box and type in the keyword search. Qualifiers and Boolean operators may be used.

• Operators are AND, OR, NOT.
• Qualifiers are AU (for author), SU (for subject), TI (for title), UT (for uniform title), PU (for publisher), SE (for series), and NT (for notes).
• An example search might look like this:

This search would retrieve M. Twain's The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn but not The Further Adventures of Huckleberry Finn.

4. If desired, choose to display the search results as Citation, Summary, or Full and number of records to display at once by clicking on the down-arrow in the box under the search.

5. Click on the Begin Search button.

The rest of the search works the same way as an author, title or subject search.

Numeric Searching

1. Click on the Search the Catalog link.

2. Click on the Search by Other Number link on the resulting search page.

3. Click on the dialog box to activate the cursor and type in the number in the format recommended on the screen.

4. Indicate what type of number it is by clicking the appropriate white circle.

Searching the Online Reference Center

The Online Reference Center search will link back to an eiNetwork page called "Online Reference Center." And it is here that you will find the many database links.

1. Click on the "Online Reference Center" link.

2. Click on the database of your choice.

Searching Magazines & Newspapers

Search Magazines & Newspapers to find regional, national, and international online magazines and newspapers. This link is a connection to the "Magazines & Newspapers" page of the Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh.

1. Click on the "Magazines & Newspapers" link.
2. Search this site, choose the region and format (newspapers or magazines), and click on the desired choice.

Searching for Large Print Books

Catalog records for large print materials usually include the subject "Large Type Books". That subject currently retrieves 13,000 catalog records. You can limit your search to a particular year. A subject search limited to 1998, for example, retrieves over 200 records. You can also do a Word Search using subject terms "large" and "type" and the last name of an author. For example in a Word Search:

retrieves 125 records for large print books by Agatha Christie. Or, you could do a Word Search using title (ti) as the third element to find a specific title in large print.

Renewing Material Online

To renew a book online, go to the About My Account link from the first page of The Catalog. Type in your library card's barcode number and your PIN (generally the last 4 digits of your phone number) and click "display account information". If you have done this correctly, you should see a list of the items that you have out, the fines that you owe and any outstanding requests that you have.

To renew an item, click on the box to the right of the title. Then reenter your PIN number and click "Renew Selected Items". The resulting page will tell you whether the items were successfully renewed and the new due date. Items that are overdue or requested by another user cannot be renewed.

Reserving Material Online

* The term Boolean refers to the various algebraic gates or connectors such as AND, OR, and NOT, which are used to distinguish between searching operations and solutions. The term Boolean is named for George Boole, a British mathematician and logistician who developed ways of expressing logical processes using algebraic symbols, which led to the creation of a branch of mathematics known as symbolic logic.
(Return to Keyword Searching help.)

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The eiNetwork is a collaboration of the Allegheny County Library Association and the Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh.