2. Outline FIRSTSEARCH OCLC What is OCLC FirstSearch? Databases Access
Interface features and functions
Enhancements
Further information
OCLC
FIRSTSEARCH

3. What is OCLC FirstSearch?

4. The OCLC FirstSearch Service
A Web-based online reference service
Provides a single interface to many databases
Supports research in a wide range of subject areas with well-known bibliographic and full-text databases in addition to ready-reference tools such as directories, almanacs & encyclopaedias
Integrates access to reference databases with:
online full-text (ASCII) and full-image (PDF) articles
links to reliable, authoritative Web sites
holdings of OCLC member libraries world-wide
OCLC
FIRSTSEARCH

5. Which databases are available?
OCLC
FIRSTSEARCH

6. FirstSearch databases available to Czech libraries
The FirstSearch Base Package
with H.W. Wilson Select Full Text
Selected from more than 75 possible databases
Includes 13 databases
8 general OCLC-produced databases
3 subject-specific databases from other leading information providers
1 general full text database from H.W. Wilson
1 almanac
OCLC
FIRSTSEARCH

7. OCLC databases FIRSTSEARCH OCLC ArticleFirst ContentsFirst
Electronic Collections Online
NetFirst
PapersFirst
ProceedingsFirst
WorldCat
Union Lists of Periodicals
OCLC
FIRSTSEARCH

8. ArticleFirst FIRSTSEARCH OCLC
Index of articles from approximately 12,600 journals in science, technology, medicine, social science, business, the humanities and popular culture.
Over 11 million records
Covers Jan
Updated daily
OCLC
FIRSTSEARCH

9. ContentsFirst FIRSTSEARCH OCLC
Complete table of contents page information from the same 12,600 journals.
Over 700,000 records
Jan for most journals
Updated daily
OCLC
FIRSTSEARCH

10. Electronic Collections Online
Large & growing collection of scholarly electronic journals
Currently 3,135 titles online (February 2001)
Over 3400 contracted from 55 publishers
Title list at
1995 -; dates vary by journal. Updated daily
Cross-journal searching, browsing within journals
Bibliographic information for all journals
Abstracts and full text from journals to which you subscribe
PDF format preserves original layout and images
Archiving of full text
OCLC
FIRSTSEARCH

11. NetFirst FIRSTSEARCH OCLC
Bibliographic citations describing over 170,000 high-quality internet-accessible resources
Resources are selected according to a collection development policy that emphasises quality, authority and durability
Regularly verified and updated with items' current locations on the Internet
Records include abstracts, Library of Congress subject headings, and Dewey classification numbers for controlled subject access
Updated daily
Coming soon - New version will include records from the OCLC Cooperative Online Resource Catalog (CORC) and internet resources from WorldCat
OCLC
FIRSTSEARCH

12. PapersFirst FIRSTSEARCH OCLC
Provides access to individual papers presented at conferences worldwide.
A major research aid covering every congress, symposium, exposition, workshop, and meeting added to The British Library Document Supply Centre's (BLDSC) vast proceedings collection
Over 3.7 million records from 74,000 sources
1993-
Updated biweekly
OCLC
FIRSTSEARCH

13. ProceedingsFirst FIRSTSEARCH OCLC
Provides tables of contents of papers presented at conferences world-wide.
Each record contains a list of the papers presented at each conference.
Also based on The British Library Document Supply Centre's vast collection of conference proceedings.
Over 113,000 records from more than 12,500 sources
1993-
Updated biweekly
OCLC
FIRSTSEARCH

14. WorldCat FIRSTSEARCH OCLC
The OCLC Online Union Catalogue - a comprehensive bibliographic database of over 44 million unique records covering the collections of OCLC member libraries world-wide
Monographs in multiple formats - books, videos, films and slides, sound recordings, maps, musical scores, newspapers, computer data files and programs, manuscripts etc.
Internet resources - includes records from the OCLC Cooperative Online Resource Catalogue (CORC)
Materials in 400 languages, from the 11th century to the present day
Growing at a rate of 1 million records every 6 months - every 15 seconds a new record is added
Updated daily in FirstSearch
OCLC
FIRSTSEARCH

15. Union Lists of Periodicals
Displays over 8 million holdings for 750,000 serials records from WorldCat.
Volume and copy specific holdings information
Valuable for interlending to determine if a library holds a specific journal issue.
Updated twice a year
OCLC
FIRSTSEARCH

16. Other databases FIRSTSEARCH OCLC Major subject databases:
ERIC
GPO
MEDLINE
H.W. WilsonSelect Full Text
World Almanac
OCLC
FIRSTSEARCH

17. ERIC Subject Education Sources No. of records More than 1 million
Dates covered
Updated
Producer
Education
Contains annotated references to non-journal material issued in Resources in Education (RIE) and to articles from 1,016 journals issued in Current Index to Journals in Education (CIJE)
Includes approximately 2,100 full-text documents from the ERIC Digest
Includes the ERIC thesaurus
Order documents from the ERIC Document Reproduction Service
More than 1 million
1966-
Monthly
U. S. Department of Education

18. GPO Monthly Catalog Subjects Sources No. of entries Dates covered
Updated
Producer
U.S. government
U.S. government information resources including: Congressional reports, hearings, debates and records; judiciary materials; and documents issued by executive departments (Defense, State, Labor, Office of the President, etc.)
Approx. 520,000
1976-
Monthly
U.S. Government Printing Office

19. MEDLINE
Subjects
Sources
No. of records
Dates covered
Updated
Producer
All areas of medicine, including dentistry and nursing
9,077
Includes the MeSH thesaurus
More than 11 million (most with abstracts)
1965-
Monthly
U.S. National Library of Medicine

20. H.W.Wilson Select Full Text
Subjects
Sources
No. of records
Dates covered
Updated
Producer
Broad subject coverage including social sciences, humanities, general science and business
857 high-quality periodicals
Includes US and international professional publications, academic journals, and trade magazines
More than 508,000
1994-
Weekly
H. W. Wilson Company

21. H.W.Wilson Select Full Text
Enhancements
All records point to complete online full text
Full-text articles from this database link to citations throughout the FirstSearch service, thus providing full text to databases such as ArticleFirst, ERIC & MEDLINE
After subscription renewal on June 1, will be replaced by H.W.Wilson Select Plus Full Text
Covers an extra 495 titles taking the total from 857 to 1,352 at no extra charge

22. World Almanac Subjects
Sources
No. of entries
Dates covered
Updated
Producer
biographies, encyclopedia entries, facts, statistics
The World Almanac and Book of Facts
The World Almanac of the U.S.A.
The World Almanac of U.S. Politics
The World Almanac for Kids
The World Almanac Knowledge Source
More than 31,000
1998-
Annually
PRIMEDIA Reference Inc.

23. Further database information
Databases area of the FirstSearch web site
Descriptions and features of each database
Includes free access to a featured database of the month
March 2001 = PAIS International
Periodical Titles in OCLC FirstSearch
Find which FirstSearch databases index specific periodical titles or generate a list of titles for a particular database
OCLC
FIRSTSEARCH

24. Access
OCLC
FIRSTSEARCH

25. Access levels National Library of the Czech Republic
Moravian Library, Brno
State Research Library, Olomouc
Remaining 7 State Research Libraries
Ceske Budejovice
Pilsen
Kladno
Usti Nad Labern
Hradec Kralove
Liberec
Ostrava
3 ports
1 port
5 ports shared

26. Access FIRSTSEARCH OCLC Manual Logon
Enter a FirstSearch authorisation and password on the logon page at: OR
OCLC
FIRSTSEARCH

27. Access Automatic logon User clicks link provided on library web page
User does not need to know authorisation & password
IP address recognition
Range of IP addresses mapped to authorisation which used for logon
URL for link =
Webscript (CGI application for UNIX HTTP)
Authorisation and password embedded in script which sends them to FirstSearch

28. IP Address Recognition
Allows direct database linking
Provide links that connect directly to particular databases
Allows direct journal linking
Provide direct links to individual electronic journals in Electronic Collections Online via a web page listing your e-journals or from your catalogue records
Allows direct article linking
Provide direct links to the full text of particular journal articles available in FirstSearch databases using the link pickup feature

29. IP Address Recognition
Further details at
Details of direct article linking at
OCLC
FIRSTSEARCH

30. Availability FIRSTSEARCH OCLC 24 hours Monday - Saturday
20 hours Sunday
Not available 8 am - 12 midday in Central European Time Zone
OCLC
FIRSTSEARCH

31. Features and functions
OCLC
FIRSTSEARCH

32. Search modes FIRSTSEARCH OCLC Graphical Text Fill in forms
Drop-down menus
Point & click
Basic & Advanced
screens
Text
Command line au:orwell and ti:(animal or aspidistra)
Index labels and ln=English
Parentheses
Expert Search screen optimised for this approach
OCLC
FIRSTSEARCH

33. Search features FIRSTSEARCH OCLC Database selection assistance
Estimated number of hits indicated
Multi-database searching
Simultaneous searching of up to 3 databases
Search syntax includes:
Boolean operators AND, OR, NOT
Proximity operators W (with), N (near)
Character masking + plurals (s and es)
* right-hand truncation
# single wildcard
?N zero to N characters
OCLC
FIRSTSEARCH

34. Search features FIRSTSEARCH OCLC Proximity operator search examples:
W (with)
Type w between two terms to search for records containing both terms, in the order typed, with no words between them
e.g. aluminium w wiring searches for
records containing first aluminium and then wiring with no other words between them
W (with) and a number (1-25)
Type w and a number (1-25) between two terms to search for records containing both terms, in the order typed, with no more than that number of other words between them.
e.g. aluminium w2 wiring searches for
records containing first aluminium and then wiring with no more than two other words between them
OCLC
FIRSTSEARCH

35. Search features FIRSTSEARCH OCLC Proximity operator search examples:
N (near)
Type n between two terms to search for records containing both terms, in any order, with no words between them
e.g. chicken n egg searches for
records containing both chicken and egg with either word appearing first and with no other words between them
N (near) and a number (1-25)
Type n and a number (1-25) between two terms to search for records containing both terms, in any order, with no more than that number of other words between them.
e.g. chicken n3 egg searches for
records containing both chicken and egg with either word appearing first and with no more than three other words between them
OCLC
FIRSTSEARCH

36. Search features FIRSTSEARCH e.g. plant+ searches for OCLC
Character masking search examples:
+ plurals
Adds s s’ ‘s es es’ to word stem
e.g. plant+ searches for
plant, plants, plants’, plant’s, plantes, plantes’
* right-hand truncation
Adds all possible variations to minimum 3 letter stem
Currently set to read a limit of 50 index entries
e.g. econom* searches for
econometrics, economics, economist, etc.
OCLC
FIRSTSEARCH

37. Search features FIRSTSEARCH OCLC Character masking search examples:
# single wildcard
Any single character. A single character must be present
e.g. wom#n searches for woman, women etc.
? zero to 9 additional characters
e.g. colo?r searches for
color, colour, colonizer, colorimeter etc.
?N zero to a maximum of N characters
e.g. colo?1r searches for color, colour
but not colonizer or colorimeter
OCLC
FIRSTSEARCH

38. Search features Index browsing Thesauri - searching and browsing
Keyword and exact-phrase indexes
Thesauri - searching and browsing
ERIC Descriptors
MEDLINE Medical Subject Headings
WorldCat Library of Congress Subject Headings
Limit or Expand
Authors, Subject Headings selected from first 50 records
Publication year, Language etc. from complete set
Limit selects a subset from the current set of records whilst Expand initiates a new search

39. Search features FIRSTSEARCH OCLC
Relevance ranking and sorting of results
Author, Title, Date
Ascending or descending
Previous searches
Resubmit or combine
Retains all searches, even when made in different databases
Record capture
Mark, or Print up to 100 records
Mark records from many searches in different databases
OCLC
FIRSTSEARCH

40. Obtaining documents FIRSTSEARCH OCLC Online Full Text
H. W. Wilson Select database
Links from other databases to Wilson Select full text
Links to internet resources
NetFirst
WorldCat (records from CORC)
Holdings
International - OCLC member libraries
Local collection - if using OCLC cataloguing
OCLC
FIRSTSEARCH

41. Holdings FIRSTSEARCH OCLC International holdings Local holdings
‘Libraries that Own Item’ function
Lists OCLC member libraries worldwide that own a particular item
Local holdings
Available only if library catalogued holdings on OCLC; e.g. The National Library of the Czech Republic
A ‘My library owns’ icon in search results indicate items held in stock
Users may limit searches to ‘Items in my library’
Limit function available in ArticleFirst, ECO, ERIC, Union Lists of Periodicals, Wilson Select, WorldCat
With the new FirstSearch, one of the goals was to make library holdings more visible.
Databases linked to physical/electronic library holdings - The new FirstSearch integrates your physical and electronic library holdings by merging those holdings with the databases your users search. If your library has cataloged its holdings on OCLC, the new FirstSearch results lists will clearly indicate a user’s library holds an item. If your library doesn’t hold an item, then the holdings of your library’s Group Access Capability group (GAC); or Union List group (UL), or GAC/UL group may be displayed.
Ability to limit results… In addition, users can restrict results to items held by your library or members of your library’s affiliated group, increasing the value of your collection.
Search results immediately indicate availability of holdings - With the new FirstSearch the search results will immediately indicate if your library holds the item. By turning to local resources first, users will obtain needed materials faster and more economically than they would from ILL, and also avoid unnecessary use of library staff time and budget.
Union Lists of Serials… Finally, all holdings displayed to users will be expanded to link to serials union list holdings. Union Lists will be updated daily and linked to all FirstSearch databases.
OCLC
FIRSTSEARCH

42. Administration options
Web-based administrative module
Account information
System settings
Default search screen (Basic, Advanced, Expert)
Timeout periods (Session 5-30 mins, Full text mins)
Add your library’s logo to FirstSearch
Change passwords (Service, Administrative, Full Text)
Create custom topic areas to group databases
OCLC
FIRSTSEARCH

43. Enhancements
OCLC
FIRSTSEARCH

44. Enhancements
First half of 2001 concentrating on enriching database and ECO content
PAIS International - January 2001
New indexing & linking to full text from other FS databases
ATLAS - 1st half of 2001
American Theological Library Association Serials Database
Addition of full text of 31 key journals in religion and theology to the ATLA Religion database
CINAHL - End of May 2001
Addition of full text

45. Enhancements Electronic Collections Online Inbound Linking
Links from interfaces of other service providers to ECO full text
Starting with links from Cambridge Scientific Abstracts databases (January 2001)
Followed by links from ISI’s Web of Science
BioOne collection -
Aggregation of research journals in the biological, ecological and environmental sciences
40 journals initially
To be available through ECO from end of May 2001

46. Further information
OCLC
FIRSTSEARCH

47. FirstSearch information
Visit the FirstSearch Web site at
Subscribe to FIRSTSEARCH-L internet list at
Provides news about FirstSearch
There are several ways for you to stay up-to-date as we move closer to the full release of the new FirstSearch.
Information about the new FirstSearch will be regularly communicated through the FirstSearch-L Internet list. To make sure that your library doesn’t miss some of this important and timely information, please subscribe to this list. FirstSearch-L is a broadcast-only list, so your Inbox will not be flooded with messages as a result of this list subscription.
Also, for Z39.50 libraries there is a listserv to help them with the transition.
You will also want to periodically check the new FirstSearch Web page… to keep up-to-date.
OCLC
FIRSTSEARCH

48. Thank you for joining us here at ALA
Thank you for joining us here at ALA. There is so much to do and see at this year’s conference that we really appreciate the time you’re taking to learn about the new services and enhancements at OCLC.