Beginning Your Search

 

 

ALEX is the online catalog for Alexander Mack Memorial Library. Here you can search the library’s collection of books, DVDs, CDs, Periodicals, and E-Books. On the library’s homepage, ALEX is the first link on the left hand side. Clicking it takes you to the main search screen, where you can choose your search weapon, as it were. You can either search by subject, author, title, call number or keyword. You also choose where you want to type your search terms; you can either choose the option in the drop down menu, or you can click on the link (Which will take you to another screen.)

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Different Ways to Search

Subject – searches the standardized subject terms assigned to each entry, bringing up a list of subjects that either match your search term or a list of possibilities if your term is not found.

 

Author – brings up all the materials by a specific person(s). Always remember to enter the name: last name, first name.

 

Title – you can either type in a full title, or type in part of a title. Either way, the search will bring up all entries that match the title or begin with those words.

 

Call number – materials in our collection are cataloged using the Dewey Decimal System. Searching by call number allows you to find all the books on a specific topic that are cataloged together.

 

Keyword – a keyword search looks for every instance of the search term(s) anywhere in the entry. That means the term could be in the title, author, subject, or any other field.

 

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Executing a Search

 

 

Now that you have a feel for the search screen, it’s very simple to do a basic search. You simply choose the area you would like to search (e.g. title) and then type your term(s) in the field (e.g. Great Gatsby) and click “go.” The next screen lists the results of your search.

 

 

Results Screen

 

The blue buttons on the results screen allow you to manipulate either your search or the results.

1.       “Start Over” – this button takes you back to the main search screen, so you can start you searching over.

2.       “Extended Display” – clicking on this button shows the call number for each entry and whether or not the item is available (a very useful trick)

3.       “Return to Browse” – This takes you back one screen to your original results.

4.       “Limit/ Sort” – allows you to limit the results by year, location, or material type. It also allows you to sort by year, instead of alphabetically.

5.       “Another Search” – takes you back to one of the main search screens, however it keeps previous searches saved in the “search history” drop down menu.

 

What about the other options on the page?

 

A.      Allows you to perform another search without going to the main screen, simply choose the criteria from the drop down menu, type in your search term(s) and hit the “search” button.

B.      By selecting the results you can save them for either printing or emailing.

Clicking on this button gives you the option to search your terms in a number of our eResources, or on the web (Google or Yahoo!) without going to another search screen. (Very efficient!)

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Item Record

Once you review your search results, you need to view each item record to decide if the material will be helpful. When you click on the link for one of the titles (like number five) it brings you to the screen that contains all the information on that particular item. It will tell you the author, call number, whether it is available, the subjects assigned to that book, and maybe even a picture of it.

 

 

            A.          “Export” – This is another way to save the record to print/email later

B.          “Export Saved List” – Takes you to a list of all the material saved during your session

C.          The author’s name is hyperlinked to automatically allow you to search for other material by him/her.

D.          The call number is hyperlinked so you can electronically browse the books located nearby on the shelves

E.           The subjects are hyperlinked so you can (you guessed it) search by those terms for other records containing those subjects.

 

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Exporting Records

Exporting the records allows you to do a few things. Saving the marked records allows you to keep a list of the useful materials found during a number of searches. That way you do not have to keep performing a search, or guessing what search terms brought up that book you wanted. When you click on the “Export Saved List” button, it takes you to that list and gives you the option to:

·         emailing the list

·         viewing the list on the “screen” (e.g. printing it out)

·         saving it to a flash drive or your network space.