IHE Materials

6. Checklist and Hints & Tips

Have you:

asked the Subject Librarian?
tried using the Web? Alta Vista? Lycos?
tried using a thesaurus to find alternative terms?
tried looking at a relevant article or an abstract to find alternative terms
tried a citation search?
tried a citation search on the Web? (use Alta Vista)
tried asking a lecturer?
tried asking a friend?
tried asking the person next to you? (you could offer to help them in return)
tried thinking about how someone might have classified an article related to the area you are interested in
tried reviewing what you have done so far?
- did you get side-tracked by a promising line of enquiry and fail to finish the main search?
tried doing a simple experimental search to better understand a system or an advanced feature you are not very sure about and compare that result with your normal way of working?
tried getting up and going for a coffee! Seriously, you can often be more creative at solving a problem if you take a short break. Make sure you save as much of your work as possible though.

Don't forget:

the Library doesn't take all journals - if you bring back 5 hits from BIDS it may be that none of them are here at Lancaster. If you brought back 15, from different journals, you would stand a much better chance of finding one of them in the Library.
computers are pretty stupid - they will look for exactly what you type, whether that is what you meant or not!

So a search on global wrming won't yield very much (typo)

Computer systems don't search by what the words you type mean, but just whether it can find a record that has exactly the set of letters that you type.
It is easy to get confused between what you intended to search and what you actually did. Maybe you have three good ideas for how to search for what you want, you start searching, this leads to four more ideas, you try some of these, which leads to a couple more and then you forget what you were going to do next. Try to write down good ideas for future searches (such as other keywords or authors to try) rather than trying to remember a long and ever changing list of things you might try next.

unless (or until) you really need them - turn the graphics off (Options menu) and things will be much quicker
remember the time difference. If you are using American sites do it in the morning (all sites ending in .com, .edu, .mil, .gov, .net, .org, .int, .nato, .ca, .mx, .br, .co, .ar etc)
use Alta Vista - it seems to be the best search engine.
use the bookmarks feature - it saves lots of time
- Remember to save your bookmarks onto a disk if you aren't using your own machine
ensure you are using a proxy cache server (Options menu, Network Options)
persevere - things often don't work the first time or have been moved elsewhere
learn how to progressively take off the end of the URL to cope with filename changes
be sceptical about the quality and reliability of things you find
try running separate browser windows at the same time - search in parallel doing something else while you wait for a slow page to load
don't forget other sources: BIDS, FirstSearch, CD-ROMs, Library etc.

truncation searches and wildcards (histor*) are essential
try out your search combinations on a small year range then expand to the full range when you have got a good search expression
you can re-use a search expression in the ISI databases by switching between them (using Options)
author names are inconsistent: PERSON_A and PERSON_AB are often the same person! (Remember to omit Hyphens for double barrelled names: Griff Rhys-Jones would be RHYSJONES_G)
get an email address (if you haven't already got one) to send back the results
use the keywords field to find other search terms
use citation searching - if you have at least one good reference
use all the relevant databases: ISI, IBSS, BL Inside Information, Uncover
BIDS slows down as more people use it - try not to work between 2pm and 4pm
prepare as much as possible of your search beforehand
don't forget other sources: FirstSearch, Web, CD-ROMs, Library, etc.