TOPIC 3

Search Tools

Topic 3 covered some important information about Library Catalogues. Other than that, it is also covered under Search Tool which is information retrieval system which consist of Online Public Access Catalog (OPAC), Database and Internet.

LIBRARY CATALOGUES vs OPAC

A Library Card Catalogue is a file cabinet containing individual cards with bibliography information about specific items in the library. However, it has been replaced with a computerized catalog called Online Public Access Catalog (OPAC) which is an online database of materials held by library or group of libraries. Usually the users search a library catalog principally to locate books and other material physically located at a library. E.g. http://www.italic.aiu.edu.my

DATABASE

Database contains machine-readable records for information storage and retrieval.

v  Earlier databases were:

þ Bibliographic-descriptive inf. about a given source:

•      author, title, publishers etc.

þ Citations of articles, journal, date, vol., pages etc.

þ Directory-type:

•      name, addresses, etc. of persons, organs., etc.

þ Statistical

þ Legal:

•      citations to info about laws, court cases, etc.

v  Now, numerous new databases, including:

þ full texts,

þ abstracts,

þ illustrative materials.

þ (1975-301, 1991-7500)[1]

v  Major vendors of abstracting and indexing services:

þ DIALOG, ORBIT SEARCH SERVICE, OHIO COLLEGE LIBRARY CENTER (OCLC)

•      [1]Kathleen Young Maraccio, Computer-Readable Databases: A Directory and Data Sourcebook, 5th ed. (Detroit: Gale, 1992) xiii.

v  References online from a database:

þ Psychological Abstracts

þ The New York Times

þ McGraw-Hill Encyclopedia.

INTERNET

It is an electronic network that connects personal computers and organizational computers/others around the world. In order to use the internet, we must have to have a computer, connection and Internet Service Provider or can be called as Information Superhighway.

Internet as Information Environment

A web search engine is designed to search for information on the World Wide Web and there are few search tools on the internet that we can use such as: 

Search Engine

 Meta-search Engines

 Subject Directories

         Information Gateways

 Specialized Databases.