LIBRARY CATALOGS & [OTHER] DATABASES

Joy Garretson & Jennifer Nabzdyk, MLC

Technology Academy: Session 4

January 5, 2014

*Technology Academy content originally developed by the collaborative efforts of the MS State University Extension Service and Mississippi Library Commission.

OVERVIEW

What is a Database? Common Features

Access Points Basic Searching vs. Advanced Searching Boolean Searching Truncation/Wildcards

Library Catalogs LearningExpress Library Mississippi Digital Library Digital Public Library of America (DPLA) MAGNOLIA

WHAT IS A DATABASE?

“A large, regularly updated file of digitized information (bibliographic records, abstracts, full-text documents, directory entries, images, statistics, etc.) related to a specific subject or field, consisting of records of uniform format organized for ease and speed of search and retrieval and managed with the aid of database management system (DBMS) software.” -ODLIS

Simply – Digital collection of information that can be searched.

EXAMPLES OF DATABASES

Library Catalogs Academic Databases

EBSCO Primary Search Novelist Consumer Health

Search Engines Google Yahoo Bing

COMMON FEATURES OF DATABASES

ACCESS POINTS

BASIC VS. ADVANCED SEARCHING

All Words vs. Specific Phrases Unwanted Words or Word Combinations Language Limitations File/Format Type Limitations Year Limitations Domain Limitations*

*Search Engines

BASIC

ADVANCED

BOOLEAN SEARCHING

What is Boolean Searching?Boolean searches allow you to combine words and phrases to limit, widen, or define your search.

Boolean Operators: AND, OR, and NOT The Boolean search operator OR is the

default setting of any search engine

BOOLEAN SEARCHINGCat – 334 Results•Classified as murder : a cat in the stacks mystery•Scratch the surface : a cat's lover's mystery•The cat sitter's pajamas

Dog – 441 Results•A dog named Boo•Dog eat dog •The redhead from Sun Dog

Cat AND Dog – 31 Results•Home-prepared dog & cat diets•Cat to the dogs•Raining cat sitters and dogs

Cat OR Dog -744 Results•Classified as murder : a cat in the stacks mystery•Scratch the surface : a cat's lover's mystery•The cat sitter's pajamas•A dog named Boo•Dog eat dog •The redhead from Sun Dog •Home-prepared dog & cat diets•Cat to the dogs•Raining cat sitters and dogs

1. OR – More results will be found because dog or cat are in the descriptions

2. AND- Less results will be found because both dog and cat are in the descriptions

TRUNCATION/WILDCARDS

Truncation — a symbol added to the end of the root of a word to instruct the database to search for all forms of a word. Librar*= Librarian, Library, Libraries, Librarians,

etc. Wildcards — a symbol used to represent any

character. Wildcards can usually be used at the end of a word or within a word. You can use this symbol to search variant spellings of a word. You can use more than one pound sign to stand in for more than one character. Each pound sign represents 0-1 characters. Example: Wom#n = Women, Woman, etc.

LIBRARY CATALOG EXERCISE

Go to a library catalog and list the number of results for the following:

Conduct a search using the term “computer” ________

Conduct a search using the term “technology” ________

Conduct a search using the Boolean phrase “computer AND technology” ________

Conduct a search on using the Boolean phrase “computer OR technology” ________

Conduct a truncation search using the term “computer” ______

LEARNINGEXPRESS LIBRARY

DIGITAL PUBLIC LIBRARY OF AMERICA (DPLA)

MISSISSIPPI DIGITAL LIBRARY