1399 Guide to the OhioLINK Central Catalog (12/9/97) For more information: info@ohiolink.edu http://www.ohiolink.edu WHAT IS OHIOLINK? OhioLINK is a statewide library and information network linking major university and research libraries in Ohio. The OhioLINK online system provides access to a variety of databases, a selection of Internet resources, and a central catalog of the holdings of a growing number of member libraries. THE CENTRAL CATALOG The central catalog maintains location and availability information for more than 24.9 million items held in OhioLINK's 56 member libraries. With it, you find and borrow items throughout the network. You have the option to borrow items online or on-site. HOW TO CONNECT 1. Access the OhioLINK Central Catalog from your local library system or telnet to OhioLINK: telnet cat.ohiolink.edu Login: ohiolink 2. Select "Central Catalog". Search the central catalog by these indexes: title author subject words in titles/contents notes medical subject call number other numeric indexes SEARCHING TIPS *At the bottom of each screen you will find additional options to apply to your search or to get you back to the OhioLINK Central Catalog main menu. *Press ESC to return to the OhioLINK Central Catalog main menu. *You can use upper or lower case letters. *You do not need to press ENTER or RETURN to activate menu options. *Help is available by choosing OhioLINK Information from the main menu. AUTHOR SEARCHES Enter author's name last name first, then first name. If you do not know the full first name of an author, use only the first initial. TITLE SEARCHES The title search function searches for the exact title of the item. If you do not know the exact title of the item, try the WORDS option. You do not have to enter the entire title of an item. Enter only the first 4 or 5 words of items with long titles. Searches generally work faster when you do not enter initial articles (a, an, the, or their foreign equivalents). However, if a title begins with the non-article "a" (such as A and B College Mathematics Series) add an additional letter "a" to your search to find it. This search would be entered as "a a and b college mathematics series". SUBJECT SEARCHES Subject searches are based on Library of Congress Subject Headings. Medical subject searches are based on National Library of Medicine Medical Subject Headings. If you cannot find an appropriate subject heading using the Subject or Medical Subject search, try a WORDS search. After identifying an appropriate item, use the "S>Show Items With Same Subject" command to locate other materials. WORDS SEARCHES Terms entered as WORDS are searched in the title, sponsoring organization, and contents notes without regard to order. WORDS searches are useful when you do not know the exact title of an item or the appropriate Library of Congress or Medical Subject Heading. Use AND between terms to create a more specific search; use OR between similar terms to get a broader selection of items to browse. LIMITING A SEARCH If you retrieve too many results, you can reduce the result set by applying more specific criteria. Using the "L>Limit" option from the bottom of the screen (you may need to select "O>Other options" to find "L>Limit"), specify criteria such as year of publication or words in the subject, author, or title. Specify all desired limits BEFORE selecting "F>Find". EXPORTING A SEARCH "Exporting a Search" means that you can save the results of your search on diskette or hard disk for later use. This feature requires that you are working on a workstation that has capture capability (e.g. Kermit, NCSA Telnet, etc.) and a floppy drive or hard disk. See the guide "Downloading Records from OhioLINK-I" for full instructions. These are the basic steps for exporting: 1. Choose E>Export from the bottom of any search result to place it in a temporary save file. You can save as many files as will fit on your diskette. 2. IMPORTANT: When you are finished saving files and are ready to exit the Central Catalog, choose E>Export/VIEW Save File from the main menu to send all of the saved files to diskette or hard disk. ONLINE BORROWING Online borrowing allows you to request items during your search of the OhioLINK Central Catalog. You can only request items that are not available locally. To borrow an item, select G>REQUEST ITEM from the bottom of the screen and fill in your name, institution and ID number. The item will be delivered to campus in several days. Contact the circulation or reference desk for pick-up information. See the guide "Online Borrowing through OhioLINK" for more information. NOTE: This option is available to users at fully-implemented OhioLINK sites only. Copyright 1997 Wright State University . 0