Online access information sources and services

1
Online access information sources and services

• Public access book databases

2
Public access book databases introduction

• Even in this age of Internet-based information
  sources, a lot of information is still
  distributed in the form of printed books.
• The contents of most books is (still) not
  available on the Internet.
• Most general Internet search tools do NOT allow
  you to find out about the existence of books
  that may be interesting for you.
• So, specific search tools to find books can be
  useful.

3
Public access book databases an overview

• (Databases by publishers.)
• Fee-based databases by commercial providers
• Databases by book distributors / bookshops!
• Online public access catalogues of
• local libraries,
• national libraries (which produce and offer
  normally their national bibliography)!
• big, famous libraries!!
• (Databases of computer-based versions of books.)

4
Public access book databases which one to use?

• For years, the market of bibliographic
  information on books was limited to the services
  and databases of subscription-based bibliographic
  providers.
• Nowadays, the WWW provides a key to unlock many
  possibilities to find bibliographic information.
• Which book database should be preferred for
  particular applications is not clear for most
  librarians or end-users.

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Suitable book databases?
-

6
Public access book databases by commercial
producers

• To find currently available books, some databases
  assembled by commercial producers can be
  interesting.
• Example Global Books in Print
• These databases offer formal descriptions of
  books, prices of the books, short descriptions of
  the contents with subject terms
• However, access to such a database is not free of
  charge and can be expensive (in comparison with
  alternatives).

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Public access book databases provided by
bookshops

• To find currently available books, the
  bibliographic databases assembled by big
  bookshops are interesting.
• Several offer a good coverage and are accessible
  free of charge.
• The added price information can be useful for the
  acquisition and accounting department of a
  library or if an individual user wants to buy a
  book.
• Some provide a current awareness service, also
  free of charge.

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Book databases accessible free of charge
examples in U.S.A.
Examples

• Amazon.com (US)http//www.amazon.com/
  http//www.amazon.co.uk/ note amazon, NOT
  amazoneSubject description is poor.
• Barnes and Noble (US)http//www.bn.com/

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Book databases accessible free of charge
examples in Europe
-Examples

• Blackwells on the Internet (International,
  academic books)http//www.blackwell.co.uk/
• VLB for books in Germanhttp//www.buchhandel.de/
• For books in Frenchhttp//www.chapitre.com
• Boeknet - De Nederlandse Internet Boekhandel
  (Dutch)http//www.boeknet.nl/

10
Book databases accessible free of charge
examples in Belgium
-Examples

• Proxis (Belgium)http//www.proxis.be/

11
Book databases accessible free of charge for old
books
-Examples

• To find used, secondhand, rare, hard-to-find,
  and out-of-print books around the
  worldabebooks http//www.abebooks.com/

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Free public access bibliographic book database
price comparisons

• Even comparisons of the catalogues of shops of
  books (as well as of music, movies and many
  other goods) are available free of charge.
• See for instance
• http//www.bookfinder.com/
• http//www.dealtime.com/

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Example of an international public access
dissertation database
-Examples

• The dissertation database of UMI is available
  from http//wwwlib.umi.com/dissertations/
• The most current two years are available without
  charge.

14
Database of links to the full text of many books
--Examples

• A database (accessible free of charge ) of links
  to the full text of many bookshttp//digital.lib
  rary.upenn.edu/books/

15
Collection of links topublic access book
databases
--Examples

• See for instance Internet directories like Yahoo!
  that lead to information about books.

16
Current awareness services for books
--

• Some systems can alert the user that a new book
  has been published when this fits the interest
  profile of the user.
• Such an interest profile can be stored on the
  server of the system in the form of
• keywords, or
• subject categories / subject fields
• Example http//www.amazon.com

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Online Public Access Catalogues of libraries

• Mainly to find older books, the catalogues of
  libraries can be useful.
• Most are accessible online and free of charge.

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Online Public Access Catalogues OPACs
definition
-

• Online Public Access Catalogue
• a term used to describe any type of computerized
  library catalog offered to the public by online
  login

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Online Public Access Catalogues Internet
protocols used for access
--

• telnet
• (WAIS)
• Z39.50
• WWW / http / html
• WWW / http / html Z39.50 !

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Online Public Access Cataloguesdirectories
--

• The most up-to-date directories and pointers to
  online access library catalogues are offered
  online by many WWW servers.

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Online Public Access Catalogues of the big
famous libraries
-

• For instance Library of Congress (USA)
• Their coverage is good.
• They offer the best subject descriptions.
• Access is free of charge.
• So they form excellent sources to find books
  about a particular subject/topic.

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Online Public Access CataloguesThe British
Library
-Example

• Accessible online via WWW Since 2000
  http//blpc.bl.uk/
• Access free of charge

23
Online Public Access CataloguesThe British
Library screenshot
-Example
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Online Public Access Cataloguesbenefits and
aims for the reader
--

• To use the catalogue of your institute from your
  desk.
• To use a remote library collection as a
  complement to the collection of your
  own institute.(first search OPAC, then visit or
  interlibrary loan)
• To find descriptions to make book orders.
• To use a specialized database (music, maps, ...).
• To download descriptions of documents for your
  own database.
• ...

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Online Public Access Cataloguesbenefits and
aims for the librarian
--

• To evaluate other collections and to avoid
  overlap.
• To locate items for interlibrary loan.
• To test and evaluate different OPAC software
  systems.
• To find descriptions to make book orders.
• To download descriptions of documents for the
  local catalogue.
• ...

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Online Public Access Cataloguesproblems due to
lack of standards
--

• L Different terminal emulations required for
  online communication
• L Different user interfaces for the various
  library systems (e.g. CD-ROM and other online
  information retrieval systems)
• L Different subject classification schemes
• L Different systems of added subject terms
• ...

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Online Public Access Cataloguescatalogues of
national libraries
-

• National libraries are first of all an
  outstanding source for the local publications.
• The national libraries are the most reliable
  source for bibliographic searching and
  verification.

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Online Public Access Cataloguesunion catalogues
of libraries
-

• Some systems offer access to the merged
  catalogues of several libraries, so-called union
  catalogues.
• Example Copac http//www.copac.ac.uk/ is
  accessible free of charge.

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Online Public Access Cataloguessimultaneous
searching
--

• Some meta-search services allow simultaneous,
  parallel searching in one search action over
  several databases of libraries and bookdealers.
• The result depends on the availability and
  functionality of the target systems.
• The coverage is very good.
• - Search options are rather limited.

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Online Public Access Cataloguessimultaneous
searching examples
--Examples

• Infoball http//www.infoball.de
• Karlsruher Virtueller Katalog http//www.ubka.uni
  -karlsruhe.de/kvk.html

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Public access book databases evaluation
criteria - desiderata (1)
-

• Is usage free of charge?
• Wide coverage? Specialized coverage of books
• in your preferred language?
• on particular subjects / topics?
• published in a specific country?
• published in a particular time period?
• of particular types (such as conference
  proceedings)?
• Up to date? Frequent updates?

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Public access book databases evaluation
criteria - desiderata (2)
-

• Does the database offer besides each formal book
  descriptions also
• an abstract / summary / description of the
  contents?
• a table of contents?
• the price?
• information about the publisher?
• titles of related books?
• reviews by readers?

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Public access book databases evaluation
criteria - desiderata (3)
-

• Full text indexing of each item (book
  description) in the database, so that full text
  searching is possible?
• Field indexing, so that searching limited to the
  contents of a particular field is possible? for
  instance
• the title
• the date of publication
• the author
• the publisher
• the language

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Public access book databases evaluation
criteria - desiderata (4)
-

• Does the database producer improve retrieval by
• adding subject terms, or
• by classifying the books in categories

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Public access book databases evaluation
criteria - desiderata (5)
-

• Powerful search options
• truncation of words in a query?
• stemming of words in a query?
• Boolean search combinations? combined field
  searching?
• proximity searching?
• spelling check of your search terms?
• suggestions by the system of spelling variations
  of the words in the query
• translation of your search terms in several other
  languages?

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Public access book databases evaluation
criteria - desiderata (6)
-

• Can the user browse through subject categories
  that are used in the book database?
• Is a user interface offered in your own language?
• Easy user interface?
• Relevance ranking of results?
• Possibility to combine Boolean retrieval with
  relevance ranking of results?
• Can results be limited to a certain time period?
• Short response times?

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Public access book databases evaluation
criteria - desiderata (7)
-

• Can the results be ordered according to date,
  size, origin...?
• Good presentation of each result?For instance
  Are search terms highlighted?
• Can search results be downloaded, well structured
  with field tags? (For instance to allow
  incorporation of the data in another database.)

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Public access book databases evaluation
criteria - desiderata (8)
-

• Does the system offer a current awareness
  service, sending information on new titles that
  may be of interest to you?

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Public access book databases evaluation
criteria - desiderata (9)
--

• Are other services offered from the same site or
  with the same interface? Is the system
  integrated with other services?Additional
  services can be
• searchable databases of videos, of music CDs,
  CD-ROMs, DVDs, all for sale also
• WWW-based e-mail and e-mail address directories
• auctions through WWW

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Public access book databases evaluation
criteria - desiderata (10)
--

• Is the database system accessible through the
  Z39.50 Internet database search and retrieve
  protocol? In other words, is the database Z39.50
  compliant?This would offer the following
  advantages
• The system can then be searched starting from one
  of the available Z39.50 client software packages.
• The database can be then searched simultaneously
  with other Z39.50 compliant databases and the
  results from the various databases can be merged.
  This is useful for rare, uncommon, special items
  that are difficult to find.

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Recommended book databases
-
42
General conclusion concerning book databases
-

• The
• one and only, international, complete, ideal,
• bibliographic database
• does NOT exist,
• but the united forces of the different available
  book databases should be satisfying.