Help (using the catalog)

• Bowie State University
• Center for Environmental Science
• Coppin State College
• Frostburg State University
• Salisbury University
• Towson University
• University of Baltimore
• University of Baltimore Law Library
• University of Maryland Baltimore County (UMBC)
• University of Maryland, College Park
• University of Maryland Eastern Shore
• University of Maryland Health Sciences and Human Services Library.
• University of Maryland Law Library
• University of Maryland University College

• Morgan State University
• St. Mary's College of Maryland

Registered users can sign in at any time. When signed in, additional services include my account, saved items, and saved searches.

If you are not signed in, ending the session will erase the items you added to saved items folders during this session.

Help is available wherever you see the icon.

• Microsoft Internet Explorer version 5.0 or higher
• Netscape version 6.2 or higher.

• Use the navigation buttons of your browser to move between web pages.
• Use the persistent top menu to choose catalogs to search, choose search modes, access your account, get help, and select other options.
• Use and to move between records.
• Use and to move within a list.
• Use "jump to rec#" to go to a numbered record in a list.
• Use "jump to text" to move within an alphabetical list.

Basic character sets that come with some browsers may not be able to display the full range of characters in the catalog. The special characters either do not diplay at all or display in a standardized manner (for example, you may see boxes or numbers where the characters should appear).

If you want to see special characters (such as a Polish "I", a musical "flat", Hebrew, Cyrillic, Chinese, Japanese, Korean), you will need a current browser and an appropriate font.

• Microsoft Internet Explorer version 5.0 (or higher)
• Netscape version 6.2 (or higher).

• Publisher 2000
• Office 2000 Professional
• Office XP

If you do not own the Arial Unicode MS font, there is a free alternative available. You can download the Bitstream Cyberbit font.

1. Download CyberBit.zip.
2. Follow the directions outlined in the Bitstream Cyberbit Installation and Usage Guide.

Provides access to your personal library account where you can see what items you've checked out, renew items you want to keep and view your list of requests.

You may use lower- or upper-case letters (case does not matter).

DO NOT use initial articles: a, an, the
or their non-English equivalents: l', la, le, les, un, une, il, el, lo, las, los, uno, un, unos, unas, das, Der, ein, eine, die, gli, gl', i.

Right truncation is assumed, when browse searching.

You may use the Boolean operators "and" (or "&"), "or," "not"; with "and" being the default. For example, you could type "(heart or cardiac) and surgery" to retrieve all records having "heart" or "cardiac" in them, together with the word "surgery". DO NOT use a Boolean operator as a term in a word search.

You may use truncation and wildcard characters with your search terms.

3 types of searches are provided: word search, browse search and command search.

You can conduct word searches from the basic or advanced search screens, but only the advanced search screen allows searching by different words in different fields at the same time. For example, you can search by author and subject or title and year.

A word search from the advanced search screen also allows you to limit your results by format, language, named collection, or years.

Choose the index you want to browse (for example: author, title, subject, etc.) then enter your search term/s.

"...beginning with" searches will display a browsable list that begins with your search term/s. For example, choosing to search by "title beginning with... " and using the term "great" gives you an alphabetical list starting from "Great". You can then scroll down to entries such as "Great Britain" and "Great Danes".

USE BROWSE WHEN:

• You have an exact title, or the beginning of the title
• You have the author's last name and first initial (or full name)
• You are looking for works on a subject and know the correct subject heading
• You have the call number of an item and want to find other items on the same subject

DO NOT USE BROWSE WHEN:

• You want to search different words in different fields at the same time (e.g. if you want to search both the title and the author). In this case, do a word search in the Advanced Search option
• You have some words from a title, subject heading, etc. Do a word search instead.
• You don't have an exact spelling of a word or a name. Do a word search and consider using truncation or wildcard characters.

Use or to broaden your search.

Example: search words in title for "hardware or software" to find all records containing the word "hardware" as well as all the records containing the word "software" in the title

Example: search words in title for "hardware and software" to find all records containing BOTH the word "hardware" and the word "software" in the title.

Example: search words in title for "hardware not software" to find all records containing the word "hardware" but not if they also include the word "software" in the title. Be careful, you may eliminate records containing the term "hardware" that are of value to your research!

Use ( ) parenthesis to create complex searches. Statements enclosed in parenthesis are performed first by the system. If there are no parenthesis around sets of terms, the system will process first all your and ideas and then the or ideas and then the not ideas.

Examples:

1. Search words in title for "(hardware or software) and computers". The system will first combine all of the catalog records in which the word "hardware" or the word "software" appear in the title. Then the computer will limit that set of records to only those records that include the word "computers" in the title.
2. Search words in title for "hardware or software and computers". Since there are no ( ) parenthesis instructing the system which operation to perform first, it will perform the "and" search first. In this case, it will create a set in which BOTH words "software" and "computers" appear in the title. Then it will combine that set with records in which the word "hardware" appears in the title.

For all phrase searching, you may only search for two word phrases.

To search for phrases, use quotes around your string of search terms. For example: "red badge"

(When using Word Search on the Advanced Search screen, you can also search for a phrase by selecting "two word phrase" from the drop down box on the right side of the screen).

• You are looking for works on a subject but don't know the correct term/s for the subject
• You are looking for a specific item and have the subject heading, and some words in the title
• You are looking for a specific item and know the author's last name and the subject of the item
• You have the last names of two or more authors or editors of an item

After doing a browse search, you will find yourself in an alphabetical list of authors, titles, or other indexes; or a numerical list of call numbers, ISSN numbers, or other indexes.

In the display and to the left of each entry is the number of records available. Click on an entry to see the associated search results.

You can use one of these options to further modify your search:

• Use Boolean operators to narrow or widen your search results
• Years: Choose a span of years to reduce the number of records found (for example 1992 to 1995 will include all records in the list published from1992 to the end of 1995.)
• New records: Limit your results to only recently received records; you choose how far back to include.
• Available records: only see records for items on the shelf.

The location field will list your local campus first. Then all other USMAI campuses owning the item will appear.

To see the full view of the record click on the title.

Too many records? Too few records?

• Choose modify search to further limit your results, or to widen your search

Available Functions:

• sorting: the default sort is by Year/Author, with the ability to change the sort order by clicking on Author/Year, Title/Year, or Format/Author
• selecting & deselecting: you can select individual records by (click in box), or select all of the records. These choices can then be viewed as full records (view selected), or the brief records can be further manipulated.
• create subset: having selected some of the records from the list, create subset displays the shorter list of brief records
• add to basket: selected records are saved to a temporary basket while you do further searching.
• save/e-mail: allows you to save selected records on a local computer drive, or to e-mail the selected records.
• recent searches: search strategies are automatically saved temporarily.

Often, a button will appear on a browse list. The "view titles" link leads to another browsable list of entries. This is especially helpful with prolific poets, titles published frequently, or when seeking pieces of music.

For example: a search by "author beginning with..." using the terms "Dickinson Emily" results in a browse list display that includes "Dickinson, Emily, 1830-1886" with an option to view titles.

Clicking on the "view titles" button, leads to a list of titles for all items that cover materials by the author, whether noted in the record as title, content, serial, subject, etc.

The full view of a record gives you expanded information about an item.

Further searches ("search shortcuts") can be performed by clicking on the underlined text, for author or subject for example.

Other links lead to holdings and availability information.

The record you are viewing can be sent to basket, added to saved items, e-mailed, or saved to a local drive.

Time. ...
Location    Bowie State University General Stacks
Summary Holdings    v.49-151(1947-FEB.1998),v.153(1999)-

Available only to registered users.

Having identified an item, you can request that an available copy be sent to one of the USMAI campuses for pickup. Note that most libraries do not circulate their audiovisual materials off campus.

From the full view of record screen, click on any one of the "Availability" links. On the Availability screen, click on the yellow "request" button. If you have not already signed in, you must do so and provide your ID/barcode. Then follow the instructions. Available materials are shipped from the lending library to the pick-up location within two business days of your request. Delivery time varies based on the shipping method used by the lending library. In my account you can check the status of any requests made.

If no USMAI libraries own the title you are looking for, consult your library's interlibrary loan service. (Interlibrary loan is not available through the catalog.)

Printing: Use the print function of your browser

Save: Save to a disk or a locally available hard drive by clicking on save/e-mail. Note: you must change the file type from .sav to .txt.

E-mail: E-mail a list or a full record by clicking on save/e-mail. For example: from a results list, choose the titles you want then click on save/e-mail. Enter your e-mail address and the other information requested, then send the message off. To save these records, omit the e-mail address.

• Re-execute a search and view the list of records.
• Narrow or widen your search by combining sets.
• Delete sets from the list.
• Add to saved searches.

Saved items folder management allows you to create and name folders to sort your saved items. You must be signed in to save the folders created during your session.

Records in saved items may be sorted, download, e-mailed, printed, or deleted.

You must sign in for this function to appear.

From recent searches you can save searches for future access. At anytime you can re-execute these saved searches, even the next time you sign in.