Despite the recent buzz in Library land about libraries that have gotten rid of call numbers, the library catalog is very much alive, and, in fact, ours has several new features.

This past spring a "New in the Catalog" button was added to the library catalog toolbar. A direct link to the same page is also featured on the library homepage as "New books & media." Unlike the previous new titles list that was assembled manually, this new titles list is automatically updated using the reports that are sent daily to a consortium server off-campus. A program looks at the create/update date fields in the book and media records, which means that newly purchased books and newly donated or newly classified books will show up in the list when the user clicks the "Search" button. Programmers at CARLI (the consortium of libraries to which we belong) headquarters in Champaign, Illinois, developed the new titles list using code written by Michael Doran of the University of Texas at Arlington.

 

 

Another new feature in the library catalog is a button in the magazine and journal records that lets the user know whether the journal is also available online. Try searching, for example, the journal Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists. Click on the title, and you will see the flashing “Seeking Full Text” button. Soon a clickable “Find It” image will appear. If the journal is available in full text online, the “Find It” button takes you to a list of databases that contain the journal online and/or to a link from which you can access the journal’s content. These links will give access to the journal even if you are off campus, provided you know the fourteen digit barcode number on your campus ID card.

 

 

Perhaps the most obvious additions to the library catalog are colorful book cover images for many of the titles. Offered through the CARLI consortium and marketed by Syndetic Solutions, this feature gives us not only cover images, but tables of contents, author notes, first chapters, excerpts, summaries, annotations, and reviews for those books for which the data is available. So the next time you are viewing a library catalog record, especially if it is a recently published item, be sure to click the "Click for more information on this title" link.

 

 

 

Would you like to be able to search the library's catalog from your browser at any time? Systems Librarian David Levinson has developed two search plug-ins for Firefox and Internet Explorer 7 which will let you do just that. Go to http://library.lakeforest.edu/plugins for more information and to install. Want Firefox too? There's a download link there too. Email David Levinson or call him at x5059 if you have any questions or need help with this.