Tip 10 Libraries’ Catalog (also known as Classic Catalog). Before Scout came along, faculty consulted Classic Catalog to find books and journals in the UA Libraries. Classic Catalog is still a useful tool. In particular, Classic Catalog offers a convenient way to find out what journals are in the UA Libraries, both the archival print journals and the newer electronic journals. Note, Classic Catalog is not used to find specific articles.
Go to Classic Catalog.
Tip 7: Print Books & E-books. Rodgers Library has a substantial assortment of print books and e-books. Since about 2010, we’ve acquired e-books only, unless a faculty member specifically requests a print edition of a particular title. Our print books are on the 2nd floor of the library and for older and less used print titles in the Annex. For 2015 we will get all Wiley and Springer e-books, as well as titles from other publishers, such as ACS. Scout is an excellent tool for finding books. In Scout, execute a word search. In step 2, under the heading “Refine Results,” in the left-hand column, choose Source Types and then limit search results to just “Books.”
Go to print and e-books search.
The University Libraries lunched a new discovery interface this week. The interface, called DiscoverySearch, is based on a piece of software from AquaBrowser a leading vendor in the library marketplace. DiscoverySearch looks deceptively simple, but it offers a very powerful way to find and access books and other materials listed in the University Libraries’ catalog. The beauty of DiscoverySearch derives from faceted searching. Following a keyword search, often a huge number of items display. With DiscoverySearch, the search results can easily be refined. For example, if a search on engineering mechanics pulls up one-hundred books but you just want electronic books, a click on a facet labelled electronic books changes the results to e-format only. Other facets such as date, topic, series, and author work in much the same way. A word cloud on the left side of the screen helps you locate other related materials that may be of interest. It’s very nice and will improve your productivity. http://ab.lib.ua-net.ua.edu/