Open access secondary sources
for better access to scientific information
1
2
****
Types of online access information
systems: “free” versus “fee”
Public access information sources
free of charge
= “open access”
Paul.Nieuwenhuysen@vub.ac.be
Vrije Universiteit Brussel
+ Information and Library Science, University of Antwerp
Belgium
Presented at the bi-annual conference
organised by EURASLIC,
in Split, Croatia, May 2005
Fee-based online information services
(NOT free of charge)
3
****
Primary versus secondary
computer sources / systems / services
4
****
Dictionaries and encyclopedias
through the WWW: introduction
• Primary sources /systems /services
• Dictionaries and encyclopedias are the first choice among
many types of information sources,
directly useful
»when we do not need detailed information on a common
topic
• Secondary sources /systems /services
»when we want to prepare a more detailed search on an
unfamiliar topic, by searching for the right spelling,
synonyms, context…
»helping to access / use the primary services
»“travel agencies”, “navigation services” ...
• Some dictionaries and encyclopedias are available
through the WWW free of charge.
****Example
Dictionaries accessible through
Internet and the WWW: example
• The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English
Language
»Over 200,000 entries,
70,000 audio word pronunciations,
900 full-page color illustrations
»Available free of charge from
http://education.yahoo.com/reference/dictionary/
5
****Example
Dictionaries accessible through
Internet and the WWW: compilation
• A compilation/collection of dictionaries can be searched
simultaneously and free of charge:
http://www.onelook.com/
6
****Example
7
****Example
Encyclopedias accessible through
Internet and the WWW: examples
8
Encyclopedias accessible through
Internet and the WWW: examples
• Encarta Concise Free Encyclopedia
• Encyclopædia Britannica
only a small part is available free of charge
+ links to selected WWW sites
»http://encarta.msn.com/
»Available in English and in some other languages
»http://www.britannica.com/
• Encyclopædia Britannica Concise
»http://education.yahoo.com/reference/encyclopedia/
****Example
9
****Example
Encyclopedias accessible through
Internet and the WWW: examples
10
Encyclopedias accessible through
Internet and the WWW: overviews
• The Canadian Encyclopedia
(in English and in French):
• A list / overview of encyclopedia on the Internet:
http://www.internetoracle.com/encyclop.htm
»http://thecanadianencyclopedia.com/
• Other lists of encyclopedia on Internet
can be found as a part of more general directories of
Internet-based information sources.
11
****
Internet: subject-oriented metainformation offered via WWW
Information about information sources: in the form of
»subject guides = texts with references
»classified subject hypertext directories = subject guides
»key word indexes, generated automatically, for searching
»collections of links or forms to the systems mentioned
above
»multi-threaded search systems = meta-search engines
12
****
Internet global subject directories:
introduction
• They are virtual libraries with open shelves, for browsing.
• They are manually generated, man-made by many
people.
• They can be browsed following a tree structure or a more
complicated variation.
• The most famous of these systems belong to the most
popular and most visited sites on the WWW: e.g. Yahoo!
13
****
14
Internet global subject directories:
structure
Internet global subject directories:
pros and cons
The structure corresponds to a classification that is in most
cases specific for the particular overview.
In other words: the well-known and classical universal
classification systems are not used in most Internet
directories.
• They cover a small number of selected WWW sites,
in comparison with the total number of sites that are
accessible Æ
+ Browsing is possible (formulating a query is not needed).
+ The selected, included sites should be better than average.
- They are not suitable for deep, detailed, specific searches
with a high coverage.
15
Internet global subject directories:
why use one?
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****
Internet global subject directories:
searching directories with a query
• They are suitable mainly for broad searches that can be
difficult to formulate in words,
but NOT for more specific searches that require
combinations of several concepts.
• Many of the Internet directories include an index to
search their contents with a query.
• However, then the assisting classification structure is not
well exploited and the user should be aware of the
problems and difficulties of information retrieval with
natural language queries.
• Furthermore, the possibility to use the system in this way
may be confusing, as these directories are not real fulltext Internet indexes, like those provided by other search
tools.
****Example
Internet global subject directories:
Yahoo!
17
***-Example
Internet global subject directories:
Yahoo! and full-text search engines
• A hypertext global subject directory can be found at
http://www.yahoo.com/
• The company Yahoo! started and became famous by
offering a WWW global subject directory.
and at many other sites, including
http://www.yahoo.co.uk/
• Afterwards it has offered many other services and has
become one of the mostly used WWW portals.
• Entries are NOT rated.
• Since 2003, Yahoo! also owns 3(!) Internet databases and
search engines that were among the biggest and the most
powerful:
All the Web, AltaVista, Inktomi
• Accessible free of charge.
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**--Example
19
Internet global subject directories:
Britannica
**--Example
20
Internet global subject directories:
BUBL link
• A hypertext global subject directory can be found at
http://britannica.com/
• Entries are rated.
• A hypertext global subject directory to more than 10 000
WWW sites for the higher education community can be
found at
http://bubl.ac.uk/link/
• Accessible free of charge.
• Accessible free of charge.
• Combined and integrated with a great encyclopedia.
****Example
21
Internet global subject directories:
Google directory
• Based on the Netscape DMOZ
Open Directory Project.
• With added value:
the ranking of links in the Google version of the directory
is based on link analysis by Google.
• Accessible free of charge.
• Do not confuse this with the famous Google WWW text
search engine.
Internet global subject directories:
Open Directory Project
• A hypertext global subject directory can be found at
http://www.dmoz.org/
• The contents is also used in other systems,
such as Google Directory and Webbrain.
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Internet global subject directories:
Google directory
• A hypertext global subject directory can be found starting
from
http://www.google.com/
****Example
**--Example
23
***-Example
Internet global subject directories:
Resource Discovery Network
• A collection of hypertext subject directories that focus on
academic information sources can be found at
http://www.rdn.ac.uk/
• Together these lead to more than 30 000 selected WWW
sites.
• Accessible free of charge.
• Accessible free of charge.
24
25
***-
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***- Examples
Internet subject directories:
non-global, more specific systems
Internet subject directories focusing
on a specific subject domain
“Specialised subject directories” or “gateways”
a directory limited to
sources in/of a country or region
a global
subject
directory
can lead to
Examples:
the
complete
WWW
• Educational materials in the USA:
»http://www.thegateway.org/
• Marine science and oceanography:
a directory restricted to
a specific subject domain
(“portal”)
»http://oceanportal.org/
= http://ioc.unesco.org/oceanportal/
27
***- Examples
Internet subject directories focusing
on a specific subject domain
Internet indexes:
automated search tools
• Engineering, mathematics, computing:
• Several systems allow to search for and to locate many
items (addressable resources) in the Internet in a more
systematic, direct way than by only browsing/navigating.
»http://www.eevl.ac.uk/
»http://www.ub.lu.se/eel/
• Civil engineering:
• These systems do NOT search the contents of computers
through the real Internet in real time and completely
when a user makes a query.
Searching in that way would be much too slow due to
limitations in the technology.
»http://www.icivilengineer.com/
• Fishing:
»http://www.onefish.org/
29
****
Internet indexes:
scheme of the mechanism
User searching for Internet based information
Internet client hardware and software
user interface to a search engine
Internet index search engine
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****
Internet information source
Internet crawler and indexing system
database of Internet files, including an index
30
****
Internet indexes:
description of the mechanism
Each of these search systems is based on:
• a database of links to pages / URLs that can be retrieved
by searching with queries through a big index that is built
machine-made on the basis of the contents, the texts, of
these pages
(to build this database and to keep it up to date, pages are
continuously collected from the Internet by a “robot”
computer software system)
• a search system with a user interface in a WWW form, to
allow the user to search through that database
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**--
32
**--
Internet indexes:
AltaVista
Internet indexes:
AltaVista and Yahoo!
• The primary search interface can be found in the US.
The following addresses all lead to the same information:
• Since 2003, AltaVista
--as well as the other leading Internet database and
search engine Alltheweb and the Internet database
Inktomi-are owned by one U.S. Internet company: Yahoo!
»http://www.altavista.com/
»http://www.av.com/
»http://av.com/
• Mirror site in UK:
»http://uk.altavista.com/
»http://www.altavista.co.uk/
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**--
34
****
Internet indexes:
All the Web
Internet indexes:
Google (Part 1)
• The search interface can be found at:
http://www.alltheweb.com/
http://alltheweb.com/
• http://www.google.com/
• One of the most popular systems in
2001, 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005…
• The database was one of the biggest, at least until early
2004.
• Not only HTML and plain text files, but also the full text
of many Adobe PDF files is indexed.
• Offers also a module to search for pictures/images.
• Offers spelling suggestions in the search interface.
35
****
Internet indexes:
Google (Part 2)
• Full-text searching is possible of many files that are
available through the WWW.
• Not only HTML and plain text pages are covered, but
also the first part is indexed of many files in other file
formats, such as
»Adobe PDF,
»Microsoft Word, Microsoft Excel, Microsoft PowerPoint
»Rich Text Format…
36
****
Internet indexes:
Google (Part 3)
• Also the contents of some databases can be searched.
In other words, not only static WWW pages are harvested
and made searchable.
• Many other search systems on all kinds of WWW sites
are based on Google.
37
****
38
***-
Internet indexes:
Google (Part 4)
Internet indexes:
Google refers to a thesaurus
• For retrieval, an algorithm is used that takes into account
the links between WWW pages.
A retrieved page is ranked higher when
• In Google, the words used in a search query are returned
to the user with hyperlinks to a dictionary and to a
thesaurus on the WWW, that can be used partly free of
charge.
»many sites/pages point to it
• The thesaurus can of course show the user synonyms,
narrower terms, related terms for the word.
In this way, this system can be used to expand a search
query, so that the query better covers the search concept.
»“important” sites/pages point to it
• (Google WWW search was limited in the sense that
maximum 10 words could be used in a query, up to 2005.)
***-Example
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40
***-
Internet indexes:
from Google into a thesaurus
Internet indexes:
Google can expand a query: how?
• If you want to retrieve more documents, then you can
request Google to include synonyms of one or several of
the words in your query in an automatic way.
• This works since 2003.
• You can do this by putting a tilde
~
in front of the selected word.
• Example of a query:
word1 ~word2 word3 word4
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***-
Internet indexes:
Google can expand a query: comment
• Of course, this is only a “quick and dirty” method.
The system does not really understand your information
need.
Manual, intellectual expansion of a query should yield
better results.
• This method does NOT work with most or all other
retrieval systems.
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***-
Internet indexes:
Google Scholar
• Google Scholar allows us to search for more scholarly
information sources, including journal articles.
• A beta (test) version has been available since 2004.
• The system is accessible starting from the home page of
Google as one of the additional services.
• The online manual explains the system:
http://scholar.google.com/scholar/about.html
• The information is harvested in a more or less automatic
way from the public WWW and from databases of some
scholarly publishers.
43
****
44
**--
Internet indexes:
Google additional features
Internet indexes:
Google as a company
• Besides a system to search for WWW pages,
Google offers also
»a subject directory
»its own big database to search for images/pictures
• The important competitors of Google are
»The well-established, classical Yahoo! subject directory
system
»The Yahoo! search engine, new since 2004
»searching an archive of Usenet messages +
posting to Usenet groups
»All the Web and AltaVista,
well-established Internet search engines
»searching for news
• These are all owned by the same U.S. company, Yahoo!,
since 2004.
»Google Scholar to search for more scholarly information
sources
»Google Print to search in the contents of books
45
***-Example
Internet indexes:
Scirus
Internet indexes:
MSN Web Search
•
•
•
•
Offered free of charge by Microsoft.
You can search for WWW content.
Since 1998.
Famous system,
»because the search interface can be found with the search
functions that have been built into one of the most
widespread Internet browsers,
Microsoft Internet Explorer, and
»because it is offered by http://search.msn.com/
• The search interface: http://www.scirus.com/
• Offered free of charge by Elsevier.
• Is partly based on the Fast WWW search system.
• Offers access to information ordered according to some
classification system / taxonomy.
• Offers not only access to files in html format, but also to
files in PDF.
47
***-Example
Internet indexes:
Scirus features
• Allows you to search for manually selected scientific
information (only) on the WWW.
This includes
»the peer-reviewed articles in the journals that are published
in ScienceDirect by Elsevier, that can be downloaded in
full-text format, only when a fee has been paid to the
publisher
»scientific open archives files, that contain scientific
research articles that can be downloaded free of charge
»since 2005: more than 10 million patent descriptions
46
***-Example
48
**--Example
Internet indexes:
Teoma
• Allows you to search for information on the WWW.
• Offers a feature that is not offered by most other search
systems:
categorization = classification = refinement
= categorization = clustering
of search results,
to help the user coping with the problem of ambiguity of
meaning of the search query that was made
• The search interface: http://www.teoma.com/
49
***-Example
50
****
Internet indexes:
Yahoo!
Internet indexes:
coverage
• An Internet search system is offered through
http://www.yahoo.com/
•
Internet indexes do not cover all static documents on
the WWW.
• This is offered besides the well-established, classical
Yahoo! subject directory.
•
Most indexes grow and their “size ranking” is variable.
•
If exhaustive results are desired, then more than one
Internet index search system should be used.
• Before 2004, the search system was provided by an
external company, most recently by Google.
Since 2004, an independent system is offered that is
competing with other similar systems.
51
****
52
**--
Meta-search systems:
terminology / vocabulary / synonyms
Internet indexes:
coverage of each index in 2004-2005
•
Most indexes grow and their “size ranking” is variable.
•
The biggest unique systems that rely on their own,
unique Internet index/database in 2004-2005:
“multi-threaded search systems”
=
“multiple search systems”
=
“multi-search systems”
»
Google
=
“meta-search systems”
»
Yahoo!
=
“intelligent search agents”
»
(Systems based on the Inktomi / Yahoo! database,
such as All the Web, AltaVista…)
=
“federated search systems”
=
“portals” (but this word has also other meanings)
...
53
**--
54
**--
Meta- search systems:
relations
Meta-search systems: server-based:
scheme
Client
computer
+
WWW
client program
WWW
server
computer
Internet
WWW
User
an Internet meta-search system
Internet search system 1
WWW
server
computers
with Internet
search
systems
User
In
Out
Internet search system
collected database 1
Internet search system 2
Internet search system
collected database 2
WWW pages
55
**--Examples
Meta-search systems: server-based:
example: Vivisimo
Meta-search systems:
server-based systems
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
56
**--Example
http://www.all4one.com
http://www.bytesearch.com
http://www.cyber411.com
http://www.dogpile.com = http://dogpile.com/
http://www.go2net.com = http://www.metacrawler.com
http://www.kartoo.com
http://www.mamma.com
http://www.museseek.com
http://www.profusion.com
http://www.search.com
http://www.vivisimo.com = http://vivisimo.com/
**--Example
57
58
**--Example
Meta-search systems: server-based:
example: Vivisimo
Meta-search systems: server-based:
example: Vivisimo
• Vivisimo adds value by analysing the retrieved
results / hits / links / WWW documents,
in order to
cluster / group / categorize / classify / map
these under headings / classes / categories,
to make further selections by the user / searcher easier
and faster.
• In the test search for a family name, Vivisimo succeeded
in clustering documents related to different persons with
the same family name.
For comparison:
the clustering search engine Teoma did not accomplish
this.
• Vivisimo can accomplish this on the fly, that is
WITHOUT pre-processing the documents before the
search.
**--Example
59
60
**--
Meta-search systems: server-based:
example: Dogpile
Meta-search systems: client-based:
scheme
Internet
WWW
• The clustering software of Vivisimo is also used on other
systems.
• Example: http://dogpile.com/
WWW
server
computers
with Internet
search
systems
User
Client
computer
+
Multi-threaded
Internet search
client program
In
Out
61
**--Examples
62
**--
Meta-search systems: client-based:
example
Meta-search systems:
advantages
Example:
Copernic
+ Saves time when otherwise more than only 1 Internetbased information source would have to be used one after
the other;
for instance when searching for specific information that
is hard to find in any single source.
In other words: for the same time spent, more sources can
be covered.
http://www.copernic.com
+ Only 1 user interface must be learned for many sources.
63
**--
64
**--
Meta-search systems:
advantages
Meta-search systems:
disadvantages
+ Some meta-search systems provide a useful integration of
the results they get from the various primary search
systems, with a removal of repeated results.
- It is not always clear through which Internet indexes the
meta-search system will search.
- Not all meta-search systems can search all the major
primary search systems; for instance the famous Google
Internet index is normally NOT included.
- The systems are often slower than a direct, primary
search system.
- Only a limited number of the results that can be obtained
from the various Internet indexes are shown.
65
**--
Meta-search systems:
disadvantages
- Some specific or advanced features of the individual
search systems cannot be used through all the metasearch systems, such as:
»Boolean searching,
»proximity searching,
»field searching,
»categorization / clustering of search results,
»...
66
****
Global Internet search tools:
a comparison
Global Internet
directories
Global Internet
indexes
Multi-threaded
search systems
• Only a limited
selection of Internet
sources
• About 1/3 of the
• These get information
Internet is covered by
from directories
an index
and indexes
• Browsing
• Searching requires
information sources
some skills and
is easy
knowledge
• Searching requires
some skills and
knowledge
• Good for broad
searches
• Good when even 1
index does not yield
information
• Good for specific,
narrow searches
67
***-
Internet indexes cover only a part of
the Internet: introduction (1)
Internet indexes cover only a part of
the Internet: introduction (2)
Why can Internet indexes find only a part of what is in fact
available through the Internet?
The “visible” part of Internet
1. Quantitative technical limitations:
Each Internet search system has indexed only a part of
the static WWW pages that are available for indexing.
The “deep, hidden, invisible” part of Internet and the WWW,
(that is not searchable using a global index like Google, Yahoo!...)
69
***-
2. Qualitative technical limitations:
Besides the static WWW pages that Internet search
engines try to cover, many other, quite different sources
exist, that are also available through the Internet, but
that are not incorporated in those search engines.
***- Example
Internet
WWW
70
Databases accessible over the
Internet: examples
Internet indexes cover only a part of
the Internet: scheme
telnet
telnet
ftp
ftp
......
68
***-
Databases
and
file archives
accessible through
the Internet
CGI,
CGI,ASP,...
ASP,...
• Medline/PubMed offers
bibliographic descriptions
of publications on
medicine, free of charge.
Static texts in the WWW that can be indexed Information accessible only
when passwords are used
( = on HTTP server computers)
covered partly by Internet indexes
Rapidly changing information,
such as news
Word
files
PDF
files
71
***-
Internet indexes cover only a part of
the Internet: conclusion for users
When you want to retrieve information about a particular
subject from the Internet, use not only WWW indexes,
but use also other sources accessible through the Internet
»databases!
(book and journal bibliographies, library catalogues,
archives of group messages, directories, atlases,…)
»rapidly changing information, such as news
»information accessible only when passwords are used
»anonymous ftp file archives
»e-mail based interest groups; Usenet newsgroups
72
***-
Gateways to Internet databases
accessible free of charge
• Most Internet search engines search classical, static
WWW pages and not databases accessible through the
WWW.
• However, some systems offer a gateway to search
databases on the Internet. Examples:
»http://www.completeplanet.com/
»http://www.invisible-web.net/
(See also other more general directories/overviews/lists of
Internet information sources.)
73
***-
74
***-Example
Hybrid systems to find information on
the Internet
Hybrid systems to find information on
the Internet: Ask Jeeves
• Some systems require a search in words from the
searcher, but they do not rely on classical Internet
indexes.
• Ask Jeeves tries to “answer questions” of searchers,
by analysing the natural language queries and
by referring to selected sources on the Internet.
• Example:
• Available from:
Ask Jeeves
»http://www.askjeeves.com/
»http://www.ask.com/
»http://www.aj.com/
75
**--
76
****
Guides to searching the Internet
available through WWW
Internet:
who owns the search tools?
• Searching the Internet:
recommended sites and search techniques. [online]
Available from:
http://www.albany.edu/library/internet/search.html
In 2004, 2005
• The products of the company Yahoo! include
»the most famous global Internet subject directory
»4 (!) Internet full-text databases / search engines:
All the Web, AltaVista, Inktomi, Yahoo! Search
• The RDN virtual training suite. [online]
Available from:
http://www.vts.rdn.ac.uk/
offers training for users with a specific academic or
professional interest.
• The products of the company Google include
»the most famous Internet full-text search engine
»a gateway to old and new Usenet news messages
77
***-
***-Example
Current awareness services focusing
on WWW pages: introduction
Current awareness services focusing
on WWW pages: Google Alert
• Tracking changes in one or more public access pages on
the WWW or
finding new pages, is possible in an automated way,
• Can discover relevant changed or new WWW pages for
you in the future.
»by using one of the available, suitable, programs loaded on
your client workstation!
example: the advanced version of Copernic that is not
available free of charge
»through “alert” services based on a server on the WWW
—that track updates for the user/subscriber
—and send alerts by email to the user/subscriber
• Is based on the external Internet index Google.
• Works with search queries given by you that are stored
on their server computer.
• Free of charge, at least up to 2004.
• http://www.googlealert.com/
78
***-Example
79
Current awareness services focusing
on WWW pages: directly from Google
Public access book databases:
introduction
• Since 2004.
• Can discover relevant changed or new WWW pages for
you in the future.
• Is based on the popular Internet index Google.
• Works with search queries given by you that are stored
on their server computer.
• Free of charge.
• Available at http://www.google.com/
and then see the page with additional services.
• 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.
81
****
Public access book databases:
which one to use?
• (Databases by publishers.)
• For years, the market of bibliographic information
on books was limited to the services and databases of
subscription-based bibliographic providers.
• (Fee-based databases by commercial providers)
• (Databases of computer-based versions of books.)
• Nowadays, the WWW provides a key to unlock many
possibilities to find bibliographic information.
• Catalogue databases
by book distributors / bookshops!
• Which book database should be preferred for
particular applications is not clear for most
librarians or end-users.
• Online public access catalogue databases of libraries
• Databases of scanned book pages (since 2004)
83
Public access book databases
by commercial producers
• To find currently available books, some databases
assembled by commercial producers can be
interesting.
82
****
Public access book databases:
an overview
****
80
****
84
****
Public access book databases
provided by bookshops
• To find currently available books, the bibliographic
databases assembled by big bookshops are interesting.
• Example: Global Books in Print
• Several offer a good coverage and
are accessible free of charge.
• These databases offer formal descriptions of books,
prices of the books, short descriptions of the contents
with subject terms…
• 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.
• However, access to such a database is not free of
charge and can be expensive
(in comparison with alternatives).
• Some provide a current awareness service,
also free of charge.
****Examples
85
Book databases accessible free of
charge: examples in U.S.A.
• Barnes and Noble (US):
http://www.bn.com/
87
Book databases accessible free of
charge: examples in Europe
• For books in French
http://www.chapitre.com
• Boeknet - De Nederlandse Internet Boekhandel (Dutch)
http://www.boeknet.nl/
89
• 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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To find
used,
secondhand,
rare,
hard-to-find, and
out-of-print
books around the world:
abebooks
http://www.abebooks.com/
• VLB for books in German
http://www.buchhandel.de/
Free public access bibliographic book
database + price comparisons
***-Examples
Book databases accessible free of
charge: for old books
• Blackwell’s on the Internet
(International, academic books):
http://www.blackwell.co.uk/
****
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Book databases accessible free of
charge: examples in U.S.A.
• Amazon.com (US):
http://www.amazon.com/
http://www.amazon.co.uk/
note: amazon, NOT amazone
Subject description is poor.
http://a9.com
Both systems allow full text searching in the contents
of a selection of recent books, free of charge.
Besides searching in books, a9.com also retrieves
WWW pages through the Google web search
database.
***-Examples
****Examples
***-Examples
International public access
dissertation database: example
• The dissertation database of UMI is available from:
http://wwwlib.umi.com/dissertations/
• The most current two years are available without charge.
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***-
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**--Examples
Full-text databases
of scanned books
Databases of links to the
full text of many books
• Some organisations have scanned the contents of
thousands of books to make them searchable through the
Internet.
Databases
(accessible free of charge )
of links to the full text of many books:
• Examples, since 2004:
• http://digital.library.upenn.edu/books/
»http://www.amazon.com/ and choose BOOKS;
incorporated in the search engine A9
• http://wordtheque.com/
»http://print.google.com/ learns us that search results that
lead to a book are incorporated in the normal, classical
Google system.
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**--
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****
Current awareness services
for books
Online Public Access Catalogues of
libraries
• Some systems can alert the user that a new book has been
published when this fits the interest profile of the user.
• Mainly to find older books, the catalogues of libraries can
be useful.
• Such an interest profile can be stored on the server of the
system in the form of
• Most are accessible online and free of charge.
»keywords, or
»subject categories / subject fields
• Example: http://www.amazon.com
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***-
Online Public Access Catalogues
of the big famous libraries
• For instance:
British Library, Library of Congress (USA)
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***-
Online Public Access Catalogues:
catalogues of national libraries
• National libraries are first of all an outstanding source for
the local publications.
• 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.
• The national libraries are the most reliable source for
bibliographic searching and verification.
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***-
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**--
Online Public Access Catalogues:
union catalogues of libraries
Online Public Access Catalogues:
simultaneous searching
• Some systems offer access to the merged catalogues of
several libraries, so-called ‘union catalogues’.
• Some meta-search services allow simultaneous, parallel
searching in one search action over several databases of
libraries and bookdealers.
• Example:
Copac
http://www.copac.ac.uk/
is accessible free of charge.
• 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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**--Examples
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***-
Recommended book databases
Online Public Access Catalogues:
simultaneous searching: examples
• Infoball
http://www.infoball.de
AIM
RECOMMENDED SYSTEMS
To find book titles about a
specific subject / topic
Library of Congress, British Library,
(Amazon)
To search for book titles
published before 1990
• Karlsruher Virtueller Katalog
http://www.ubka.uni-karlsruhe.de/kvk.html
• Simultaneous access to catalogues of libraries related to
water, organised by IAMSLIC, using Z39.50
national libraries, Barnes&Noble,
Infoball, Alapage, Abebooks
Book title search
in general
Library of Congress, British Library,
Infoball
To find the price
of a book
Global Books in Print, Infoball,
online bookshops
To be informed regularly about Amazon, Alapage, Bol
new books
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***-
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.
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****
Online access databases
about journal articles: overview
• Thousands of fee-based online access databases offer
bibliographies or full-texts of journal articles in
particular subject domains and published by many
publishers.
• Many publishers offer searchable bibliographies, but only
of their own publications.
(for instance Elsevier, Emerald, Sage)
• Only few large databases offer access to bibliographies of
articles published in journals from many publishers, free
of charge.
****Example
103
****Example
Online access databases
about journal articles: Ingenta (1)
Online access databases
about journal articles: Ingenta (2)
• Ingenta Journals allows you to search a bibliographic
database of millions of journal articles,
including titles, authors, in many cases abstracts.
• Payment is required to receive the full text of an article.
• Available from
»http://www.ingenta.co.uk/
»http://www.ingenta.com/
• Searching is free of charge.
• Ingenta has acquired Uncover in 2000.
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****
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****
Online access databases
about journal articles: Article@INIST
Online access databases
about journal articles: Infotrieve
• Article@INIST allows you to search in a bibliographic
database, NOT full-text, (Journal articles, journal issues,
books, reports, conferences, doctoral dissertations)
at the Institut de l'Information Scientifique et Technique,
France.
• Infotrieve allows you to search free of charge in a
bibliographic database of the articles of more than 20 000
journal titles and conference proceedings, NOT full-text.
• Does not offer usage of classification or thesaurus.
• Current awareness services are also offered free of
charge:
the table of contents of new issues of the journals that you
have selected are sent to you by email.
• Available from http://www3.infotrieve.com/
• Payment is required to receive the full text of a document.
• Searching is free of charge.
• Available from http://form.inist.fr/public/eng/conslt.htm
• Payment is required to receive the full text of an article.
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****
Online access databases
about journal articles: Scirus
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***-
Online access databases
about journal articles: Google Scholar
• This is a specialised Internet index that allows you to
search for selected scientific information (only) on the
WWW.
This includes the peer-reviewed articles in the journals
that are published in ScienceDirect by Elsevier.
• Google Scholar allows us to search for more scholarly
information sources, including journal articles.
• An article can be downloaded in full-text format only
when a fee has been paid to the publisher
• The online manual explains the system:
http://scholar.google.com/scholar/about.html
• The search interface: http://www.scirus.com
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• A beta (test) version was available since November 2004.
• The system is accessible starting from the home page of
Google as one of the additional services.
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***-
Online access databases
about journal articles: DOAJ
Online access databases
about journal articles: Google Scholar
• The Directory of Open Access Journals
started in 2003 as a directory/database
of titles of electronic journals that can be accessed by
anyone free of charge.
• http://www.doaj.org/
• More recently, this system allows deeper searching
(down to the level of the titles and even abstracts of
journal articles)
for an increasing number of the journals that are
included in the directory.
• The information is harvested in a more or less automatic
way from the public WWW and from databases of some
scholarly publishers that publish
»full-text, primary, electronic journals
»bibliographic, secondary, abstract databases
(including some databases of the company CSA)
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****
Online access information:
evolution and future trends
• An increasing amount of information becomes available
online.
• A growing amount of this online information becomes
available free of charge (= open access)
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***-
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****
Online access information:
conclusion
• In the case of simple information needs, the WWW and
the search tools can work like “magic”.
• However, in the case of more complicated information
needs, there is still is no “magic button” that brings you
immediately to all the required information.