MLA News Selected Articles

November/December 2000

Stretching the Rules: Improving Access to Electronic Resources in Online Catalogs

Edited by Emily Hull

Submitted by Laura Townsend Kane, School of Medicine Library, University of South Carolina-Columbia

Perhaps rules are not meant to be broken, but stretching them a bit can't hurt. Especially when it comes to cataloging and accessing electronic materials in an online catalog. Medical libraries today are struggling with the issues of how to identify electronic books and journals in their online catalogs and how to train users to effectively locate them in a search. These issues are particularly pressing when an online catalog boasts of a hot-link feature.

The University of South Carolina (USC) School of Medicine Library is addressing the issue of promoting online access. If you use INNOPAC, from Innovative Interfaces, Inc., you may find the following tips useful. If you use a different vendor, you will need to think creatively about how to translate these strategies to your online catalog.

• Limit by location: In your catalog profile, add a specific location at the bibliographic and item level for electronic books and journals. Insert that location into bibliographic and item records for every title in the catalog with a uniform resource locator (URL). Instruct library patrons to limit by location when searching for electronic materials. Use help screens in the public catalog to give detailed instructions on pre- and post-limiting.
• General material designation (GMD): Cataloging rules instruct that computer file be used as the GMD for all computer-related formats. This phrase is virtually useless today because of the numerous available formats. Stretch the rules by coining your own GMDs! Use terms that would be most beneficial to your patrons, such as "electronic journal," "electronic textbook," or "electronic resource." Instruct library patrons to use those terms in a keyword search to retrieve lists of electronic materials in the catalog.
• Call number: Use a call number with the word Internet or some other meaningful word at either the bibliographic or item level for all records that contain URLs. A call number search for Internet would then retrieve an alphabetic list of all the online materials in the catalog.
• Subject heading: Because there are no main headings in Medical Subject Headings (MeSH) that are friendly to electronic formats, you may need to invent some. Use electronic resource as a subject heading for electronic books and electronic journal for electronic serials or whatever makes the most sense to your users; just be consistent. Subject searches on these terms will retrieve alphabetic lists of the electronic resources in the catalog.
• Canned searches: At some point, your catalog will have far too many URLs to make browseable, alphabetic lists useful. Canned searches will come in handy at that point. Establish options on the main public catalog page for electronic books and electronic journals. Provide access to intermediary pages listing the alphabet, with each letter of the alphabet linked to a canned search that combines an electronic format location with titles beginning with that letter. Alphabetic lists are still retrieved, but they are more manageable in size.

To see these principles in action, link to Scarlit, the USC School of Medicine Library online catalog.

Telemedicine

Edited by Emily Hull

Submitted by Everly Brown, AHIP, Charles M. Baugh Biomedical Library, University of South Alabama-Mobile