LINUS July 1996

CD-ROM Highlights

BookFind on NUSNET

Teaching staff and members of the NUS Library can access BookFind on NUSNET. BookFind is a useful tool for searching bibliographic publication details, availability and cost information. Updated monthly, the database contains over two million titles from UK, USA, Europe, Australia, New Zealand, Canada, etc. Here is a quick guide to using BookFind.

Login

• Use Windows Shopping to buy CD-ROM Access.
• You will see the BookFind icon in the CD-ROM folder. Double-click on the icon to start.
• The BookFind logo appears. Press Enter twice to display the Database Menu.
• Select World Edition Database : All Titles to get the select search screen format.

  HEADFAST v2.60            National University of Singapore
		           WORLD EDITION Database: ALL TITLES
			              Main Menu

		           WORLD EDITION : Title Database

	  	        F3    -   Basic Search Screen

		        F4    -   Full Search Screen

		        F5    -   Bibliographic Search Screen

		        F6    -   User Defined Screen

		        F9    -   Return to Main Database Menu

  F1 Help	   F2        F3 Basic     F4 Full         F5 Biblio

  F6 User Def      F7        F8           F9 Main Menu    F10 Exit

  Press [Alt] for Database links and other functions      Esc Main Menu 

Use Basic search for fundamental searching and use Bibliographic search when you know some of the bibliographic details of the book. Full search offers a larger range of search fields and provides greater flexibility.

Basic Search

It gives convenient access to the fields most often used in a broad search.

   HEADFAST v2.60           National University of Singapore
		            WORLD EDITION Database: ALL TITLES
		                    Basic Search Screen

                Author-Title Code   ............................... +

	AND	Words in Titles     ............................... +

	AND	Series Title	    ............................... +

	AND	Author Names	    ............................... +

	AND	ISBN	            ............................... +

	AND	Publisher	    ............................... +

	AND	BD Classifications  ............................... +

	AND	*SELECT FIELD       ............................... +

	AND	*SELECT FIELD       ............................... +

			(Use Key [F5] to Select Fields)

			(Use key [F9] to Load/Save Search screens)


  F1 Help   F2 Browse Index   F3 AND,OR,NOT   F4 Search   F5 

  F6        F7 Clear Line     F8 New Search   F9          F10 Main Menu 
  Press [Alt] for Database links and other functions      Esc Main Menu 

Commonly used search fields in basic search:

1. Author-Title code
   Type the first four letters of the author's surname followed by a hyphen, then the first four letters of the first word in the title, excluding articles like a, an, the. For example, to search for The Mayor of Casterbridge by Thomas Hardy, type at the search field:
   

                  HARD-MAYO [Enter]

2. ISBN
   Type the ISBN number in the search field. For example, to search for ISBN 0-198-540-68-X, type:

                  019854068x [Enter]   

   (X can be upper or lower case; ignore the dashes)

3. Words in Title
   Type the key words in titles, subtitles, and series titles. For example, to search for The Mayor of Casterbridge, type at the search field:
   

                  MAYOR CASTERBRIDGE

4. Author
   Type the name of editors, illustrators and persons (excludes corporate bodies). The format to follow is surname, comma followed by name or initials. For example, to search for Thomas Hardy, type at the search field:

                  HARDY, THOMAS [Enter]
   
           or     HARDY, T  [Enter]
   
           or     HARDY, T* [Enter] 

   (where * is the truncation symbol)

Boolean search

Boolean operators (AND/OR/NOT) can be used to formulate searches involving more than one field. AND is the default operator, but you can change it to OR or NOT by using the F3 function key when the cursor is at the field. For example, to retrieve all works by Winton Churchill but excluding those titles published by Churchill Livingstone:

             Words in title:   CHURCHILL

     AND     Author:           CHURCHILL, W*

     NOT     Publisher:        CHURCHILL               

Browse index

All fields in BookFind are indexed. It is recommended that you use the Browse Index function for checking spellings of author names, or checking for occurrences of terms in a particular field. For example, to search for the keywords, computers and design in titles, with the cursor at Words in Titles field:

• Press F2.
• Type computer and press Enter to select the word from a list of indexed words and press Enter again to transfer the word to the search line.
• Press F2 and repeat the process for the word design.
• Press F4 to start search.

Subject search

BookFind uses special codes for subject searches and the codes are available at the Technical Services Division (Acquisitions) in Central Library. If you require them, please contact the Division at extension 2019.

Help

On-screen help is available on all screens except the initial Database Menu. Press F1 and explanatory text relating to the particular screen will appear. Cursor keys allow you to move up and down the text. Press Enter to return to the normal screen.

Viewing

BookFind will automatically display the bibliographic details when there is only one record retrieved. When more records are retrieved, a summary list of the titles is shown. Press Enter to display the highlighted item in short format. Press F6 for the full format which often includes useful annotation and readership level of the book.

Printing

Titles can be marked for printing using F8. A symbol will appear beside these marked records.

• Press F5 to Print file.
• Select one of the 23 report formats defined for printing.
• For Which records to be printed, the default is the current highlighted record. Use Backspace to select other options, such as All, Marked or Unmarked records.
• To start printing, press F5 twice.

Exit

Both F10 and ESC can be used to quit from the Search screen and to exit from BookFind.

Recommendation for Library purchase

If you wish to recommend titles for our Library collection, kindly:

• Print the titles in Bibliographic record format.
• Write your ID on the printout.
• Send them to the Technical Services Division (Acquisitions) in Central Library for Engineering, Architecture & Building, as well as Arts and Social Sciences titles. For other faculties, the requests should be forwarded to the respective Special Libraries.