WISER Science:SOLO (Search Oxford Libraries Online)

Juliet Ralph and Isabel McMann

Radcliffe Science Library

SOLO (Search Oxford Libraries Online)

SOLO is a new search tool for our collections. It encompasses: OLIS catalogue, ORA (Oxford Research Archive), OU E-Journals and OxLIP+ (interface to electronic databases). This session will show you how to find books and journals and search across collections.

Key resources and services

• SOLO: Search Oxford Libraries Online http://solo.ouls.ox.ac.uk

• OLIS Oxford University’s union catalogue• http://library.ox.ac.uk • Other electronic resources, including access to

databases http://oxlip-plus.ouls.ox.ac.uk• E-journals catalogue

http://ejournals.ouls.ox.ac.uk

SOLO (Search Oxford Libraries Online) http://solo.ouls.ox.ac.uk

• Offers a simple powerful search across OLIS (Oxford’s union catalogue) and ORA (Oxford Research Archive) with the potential for the inclusion of more special collections in the future

• Includes e-books, e-journals and databases alongside print material in results

• The Articles and databases sampler allows you to get a quick list of useful articles for your subject

http://solo.ouls.ox.ac.uk

The menu offers New search (can also use Clear search) and direct links to OLIS, OULS webpage, etc

http://solo.ouls.ox.ac.uk

Context-specific help available

Sign in to SOLO to add items to an e-Shelf, set alerts, access subscription resources, tag and review items

The default search will combine any words entered with AND ie all words need to be in the record for it to be retrieved

The default search tab is OLIS & other collections. Use this to find out if we have a book or journal, and which library it’s in.

To search for a specific book try the first few (or significant) words in the

title and the author’s surname.

• The GetIT option

“Get It” takes you through to OLIS holdings as well as showing you a link “Additional services” which include full-text if available eg for e-journals.

Click on title to see library

holdings

Location shows which libraries have it. (NB Stack or

Bookstack means you need to request)

Call Number indicates where it’s shelved.

Status tells you if it’s Available

“Patron Functions” (such as renewing books) is only available in OLIS and you will need to login using your University card number and OLIS password not Oxford SSO

Reservations (Holds) and Stack Requests have to be placed in

OLIS not SOLO

More about search options…

You can restrict your search to Books, Articles,

Journals, Images or Audio-visual material

Change to “with my exact phrase” to combine words in

your results eg “global warming” not global and warming

You can choose to look for words in the title, as a

author/creator, a subject or in

user generated tags

You can choose to look for your search term in a specific

library, in OULS or limit to Online resources. Online

resources are included in the results for specific libraries.

IMPORTANT: you need to

clear the search to

remove these limits.

Choose Advanced search

to combine searches and for

more options

SOLO offers spell-check

Results display

You can choose to sort your results by relevance, date or

popularity.

Results display

An icon tells you at a glance what

kind of record you have eg Book,

Journal, Database

Results displayClick on View details to see

the full record for a reference from the results

list

Results displayThe Details display gives you options such as (if available),Table of contents, Abstracts and “Snippets”

Results display

Results are grouped in SOLO so that different

editions are pulled together. It is worth

clicking through to see all versions.

Results display

Limit your results by topic, library, date, author or resource

type

Results display

Scroll to the bottom of the results page to see what to do if your search hasn’t worked and suggestions for further searches

Results display

If you choose to Add to e-Shelf you can email the reference, save it or push it to a reference management system such as RefWorks. Sign in to save your selections

Click on Sign in and then choose University of Oxford and when prompted enter your University of Oxford Single Sign-On (SSO) user name and password.

For more information on SSO see: www.ouls.ox.ac.uk/sers/resources/ssoathens

Click on Guest e-Shelf or e-Shelf [if logged in] to see your selections.

View of e-Shelf Guest

If you login to SOLO you will see this option at the top of your results list.

You will need to name your query and decide whether you want to set up an alert as well as save the search.

Having saved a query it will be in your e-Shelf

SOLO includes the titles and descriptions of databases like Web of Science

Searching for e-books SOLO includes records for e-books. Search by title or try limiting a subject search to online resources.

To find Oxford theses in print try including “thesis” and the Department name in your search

To find Oxford theses in print try including “thesis”

and the Department name in your search

Searching for theses

Break and hands-on exercises

SOLO also offers the option to search across selected databases using this tab: Articles and databases sampler

Articles and databases sampler

This link allows you to see which databases have been selected by subject librarians for

the sampler for their subject.

Articles and databases sampler

Articles and databases sampler

Up to 5 databases

per set

Sampler searching• Can be used to quickly retrieve articles from a

range of databases• Over 200 of our 800 databases are cross-

searchable (ie nearly 600 are not and cannot be included in these sets).

• To see the full list of databases go to OxLIP+.• Key databases for particular subjects may be

excluded for technical reasons. • Cross-searching is slow because it is going out

to native interfaces. • E-journal packages eg JSTOR or Science Direct

are not included in sets because they are too slow to search (because they are so big).

Don’t forget to select a subject !

Articles and databases sampler

You can choose to see the results before the search is complete

Articles and databases sampler

Results look similar to searching OLIS & other collections but here we are looking at articles and other resources indexed in databases such as the Science Citation Index

Articles and Databases Sampler: Results

OLIS: Oxford LibrariesInformation System

• Use to renew your books or make a stack request or reservation

• Go direct or link through from SOLO• Offers access to catalogue indexes, cross-

references and full notes

http://library.ox.ac.uk/

Guides can be downloaded from: www.lib.ox.ac.uk/olis/documentation

OLIS: Library catalogue• OLIS provides an index to Oxford University Library

collections.

• Not all College libraries use OLIS and College collections are not open to all University members. Ask for reference access if they have the only copy.

• Some collections are not included in OLIS eg Chinese language materials, manuscripts and older material not yet catalogued.

http://library.ox.ac.uk/

OLIS catalogue

Browse Searching

• A browse search displays an alphabetical list of the headings in the selected index (title, author, subject, publisher, series etc.) that are closest to the word(s)/characters you enter.

• The closest match will appear in bold. •• OLIS allows keyword and browse searching• SOLO only allows keyword searching

OLIS v SOLO• OLIS is the union catalogue comprising books

and other items in OLIS library collections SOLO is a resource discovery tool. You can search across OLIS and ORA

• Use SOLO for personalised search alerts, downloading records into bibliographic management packages, tagging etc

Other library catalogues

• COPAC (UK research libraries)

• British Library Catalogue

• WorldCat

You can visit other libraries with relevant collections or ask for an inter-library loan

• Full text access to Oxford’s subscriptions• Check the list to see which titles and years we have access to• Download, email or print articles• Use Oxford SSO off-campus• Link through to possible full-text in databases when you see

this logo

e-Journals at Oxford

http://ejournals.ouls.ox.ac.uk

SOLO includes articles, theses and other material from the Oxford Research Archive – you can also browse direct from the ORA website

http://ora.ouls.ox.ac.uk

Oxford University Research Archive

OxLIP+ (Oxford Libraries Information Platform)

• Linked from SOLO or direct at www.oxlip-plus.ox.ac.uk

• Portal to our electronic resources• Allows resources (ie databases etc) to be searched

for by title or subject• Also allows cross-searching of selected databases to

find articles or other individual resources• Enables easy remote access to most resources

through signing-in with Oxford SSO.

Further help• Ask in any Library and we will be pleased to help• Contact your subject librarian see

www.ouls.ox.ac.uk/libraries/subjects/librarians• Online help and guides are available see

www.ouls.ox.ac.uk/guides or from individual libraries• Why not sign up for more WISER sessions? See www.ouls.ox.ac.uk/information_skills

Please respond to the request for feedback which will be emailed to you – we do value your input