Notes From The Library, Issue No. 22

Issue No. 22 November 1996

,

--Document Supply Service

Document Supply Service is a new name given to Interlibrary Loan, to more accurately reflect the range of services provided. During the 1995/96 academic year, they processed 13,505 requests from 1,024 faculty, staff, and

students. Of these, almost 12,000 were

requests for photocopies of journal articles, conference papers, technical reports, patents, or copies from electronic sources. Only 1,692 involved borrowing an actual item.

Document Supply is far more than obtaining documents from other libraries. When items requested by faculty or staff are found to be available in our collections, they will be sent to Photocopy Service or retrieved from our full-text image databases. Last year 2,495 requests were filled from our own collections. This service can be requested by using the 'Request Item' function in the Reference Databases on the Library Online Catalogs. These databases include ABI/ INFORM, Periodicals Abstracts, and INSPEC. This service is available only to faculty and

Document Supply -continued on page 3

I

COLLECTION SPOTLIGHT: Hong

Kong Newspaper Clippings Index

Since September of this year, the Hong Kong Newspaper Clippings Index database has become available on the campus network. It has quickly become very popular among students and staff -the database was used over 500 times in the first month of its

introduction.

The Library of the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology

http:/ /l'l ary.ust.hk

Hong Kong Newspaper Clippings Index database provides headlines of selected articles from two English language and seven Chinese language Hong Kong newspapers. These include the South China Morning Post, Hong Kong Standard, Ming Pao, Hong Kong Economic Journal, Hong Kong Economic Times, Sing Tao Daily, Hong Kong Daily News, Wen Hui Pao, and Kung Kao Po. It covers from 1980 to the present with monthly updates.

To access the database from a PC, select Online Databases in the Library Online System menu. Then choose Subject DBs: CD

-NET, followed by Multi-Disciplines.

To search, click on Newsindex and choose a time period. You may search by keyword/phrase, category, or date. Entering keyword/phrase in one language will retrieve article headlines in that language only. For example, searching with" chief executive" in 1996 will retrieve over 200 headlines in English. Using

"t

'¥1:®:11·

~

-Bt'§

to search in the same year will result in over 500 Chinese headlines. The records found can be printed out to an attached printer. Full images of the articles are available on microfilm in Media Resources on LGl. More search tips may be found in the database's search guide available at the Reference Counter.

I

Library System Updates

Several enhancements have recently been made to the Library Systems. The most obvious change is the addition of the "REPEAT

Previous Search" option in the Library Catalog. Your most recent ten searches are

I

now stored, and can be retrieved, modified, and redone. This is something that a number of users have requested in the past, and we are quite pleased that it is now available.

HK Baptist University and the University of Hong Kong have been added to the Z39.50 options. The "Search HONG KONG Library Catalogs (via Z39.50)" grouping also includes these two Universities, and now lets you search the catalogs of six of the seven HK tertiary institutions simultaneously. This option is available under the" OTHER Library Catalogs" menu.

A less obvious change is the improvement of the Library Catalog's "Attached Printer" option. This is especially good news for all Macintosh users, who are able to use this option successfully for the first time! In many cases, this option will also now allow both Macintosh and PC users to print to a networked laser printer.

I

INTERNET: Mailing Lists

While spending all your time surfing Web sites, you may be missing out on the more well-established aspects of the Internet.

Mailing lists and newsgroups don't have

graphics, but they are a highly interactive way of exchanging information. Chances are there is at least one which is devoted to any topic you can think of.

Simply put, they are collections of messages exchanged between people on the Internet who are interested in a specific topic. The big difference between them is that mailing lists send messages directly to your e-m ail box, and newsgroups collect the messages on a central computer which you connect to to read. This issue I'll focus on mailing lists, and next issue on newsgroups. Every mailing list has to have a home -some particular computer -somewhere to keep track of who the subscribers are, route

2

messages, and perform other management tasks. This computer (often called the LISTSERV) usually controls two e-mail addresses: one for instructions, and the other for sending messages to the list itself.

The largest searchable database of Internet mailing lists is at http:// www.liszt.com/. You can try just putting in keywords and seeing what lists are available in your areas of interest.

Once you find out what list you want to join, you need to send this computer a subscription message. That will usually be a one-line message like "subscribe ethics-I Edward Spodick" ( or whatever your name is). The computer will send you an e-mail saying you have been added to the list, or that the list is closed and you have to apply to get in.

You should also receive a message with information about the list and instructions for using it. Make sure you save that message!

Otherwise you may lose the subscription address and have trouble UN subscribing later. And you will want to unsubscribe -after all, how many of us want to have all those messages arriving and filling up our e-mailboxes when we are on vacation?

One very helpful service offered by most mailing list programs is the ability to combine several messages into one large digest, and send it to you as a single message. If you are feeling overwhelmed by the number of messages arriving, consider sending a message to the LISTSERV to change your settings to DIGEST mode (see, I told you to save those instructions). For a more detailed explanation of mailing list commands, look at http://l 98.109.161.108/listexplain.html

I

MEDIA: Art in the Sci-Tech World

The Chaotic Universe, Crisis of Perception,

From Fragmentation to Wholeness, The Shifting

~ ; ~ ----T .~-- - • - -~ - - • • • • -... - - ... -.--..----.-~~i,'~ - - • :.· • ~

~' - - ' " ~ ~ - - , : -"_'._._ . _·' ·-.- ... , .. _ ; . } > . _ ~ ~ ~

a group of artists, scientists, spiritual leaders, and economists at the Stedelijk Museum in

Amsterdam. The conference: Art meets science

and spirituality in a changing economy (N72 .S6A77 1992), was convened by those who felt that" artists have a responsibility to inspire a broader vision of our changing world. 11 This attitude has inspired us to acquire a variety of art-related media materials, currently consisting of more than 640 videos and some 10,000 slides.

Beyond the many "biographical" or "individual artist" videos such as Matisse

(ND548.M3M3 1987), Degas (ND553.D443

D44 1988), or i:p~!g-~J!J,'Gl,~,1

~

.t,

1i1~X

(ND1293.C6C57 1980); the literary in-dined

might prefer Great tales in Asian art (N7230 .G743 1995) to the technical

J:f

ll

•tt1!

(ND1040.K36 1989). For the serious art

scholar, the series Art history is presented in three categories: modern art (N90.A768 1988), Western world (N90 .A7691989), and

multi-media (N90.A771 1992). Or, one can

review the 20th century's social history in Shockofthe new (NX456.S4 1990); and, what better way to traverse history than travelling Along the ancient silk routes in 260 slides (N8193.A3N4A5 1990).

WEB: ERL and FirstSearch

FirstSearch is a collection of about thirty research databases covering the sciences, technology, business, social sciences and humanities. For the past year, access to these

databases has been available only through a

plain-text terminal interface. You can now

search them with a Web interface from any

computeron-campus. Gotohttp://library.ust

.hk/info/db/firstsearch.html for a list of the databases available, and links to access them.

ERL (Electronic Reference Library)

technology provides a platform-independent

interface to many of our CD-ROM databases.

Earlier this year a Macintosh client was put on the "Library Lab Server", enabling Mac

users to search a growing number of CD

-ROM databases. A Web interface has recently

been rolled out which extends this access to

Unix users, and may become the preferred access route for Macintosh users as well.

From http://library.ust.hk/info/db/

webspirs.html on-campus computers can search eighteen of the Library's databases on

CD-NET. This number will grow as more

databases become compatible with the ERL technology. Databases available now include Medline Express, MathSci, EconLit, the Social Sciences Index, and more.

You may want to make bookmarks for each of these pages, as the list of databases available will continue to expand. Do not forget the master Library Resources page at http://library.ust.hk/res/resource.html which has a number of other links as well.

Document Supply -continued from page 1

staff who are authorized to have their department accounts charged for the requests.

Another service is the verification of citations using local and overseas catalogs and bibliographic tools. Document Supply staff have accumulated considerable expertise in this from checking out requests which do not have correct or complete citations. If you need this service, please contact the Document Supply Service. For faculty and staff, remote online bibliographic sources will be searched if necessary.

To provide a convenient alternative to

submit requests, the Library has just rolled out electronic request forms on the Library Web Server. You can access these forms from the Library Services page at http://library.ust

.hk/service.html#form. Requests are read

twice each day. Using these forms will save

both you and our staff a great deal of time

and effort, as well as paper. Be sure to bookmark them for future use.

I

Service Notes

Personal book orders for faculty members Have you had difficulty in getting English language books? Are you aware that you can order personal books through the

University Library? Approximately a year

ago, the Library launched a personal book ordering service for the faculty of the university. On a trial basis for one year, the Library has been ordering books for faculty free of service and shipping charges and with moderate vendors' discounts.

Over 50 faculty members took advantage of this service in the past year and more than 300 books were ordered on their

behalf. The average turnaround time from

ordering to receipt of the books is about two months. We are delighted to report that in most cases, we have been successful in obtaining the required items and in general the faculty are very pleased with this service.

If you are interested in knowing more

on this service, see http://library.ust.hk/info/

order.html or email [email protected].

In-Process Items

Can users place holds on items "In Processing"? How long does it take to obtain items marked "In Processing"? Similar to placing holds on checked out items, you can also place holds on in-process items. Once a hold is placed, this item will be moved up in

I

Who to Contact

the cataloging queue. The turnaround time

for getting these materials to the users, however, varies from item to item. In general, it takes less than two weeks to deliver regular materials to the users. Items with certain

problems may take a bit longer. These

problems can include incomplete sets,

items missing from the shipment, and the

wrong edition received.

Although there is extra staff time involved in rush processing, if there is no appropriate title in our collection to address

your research and teaching needs and you

need the items urgently, you can place a hold on an item "In Processing". We will try our best to expedite the delivery of these items to you.

I

-Library LG3 Quiet Floor

The Library recognizes that there is a need for a quiet environment for focused study. While we wish all of the library could be such a quiet study area, LG3 has been specially

designated as a QUIET FLOOR. We are

asking patrons not to hold discussions, and as much as possible, to avoid talking anywhere on LG3. Please remind others to be quiet as well.

University Librarian 2358-6702 MINMIN

LBMKWONG LBHOLLIN LBDONW LBCAROL LBLTLEE LBJOTSUI LBPCHU LBDIANAC LBLKT

Min-Min Chang

Ming Kan Wong Richard Hollinger Don Wassink Carol Liheng Linda Lee Josephine Tsui Patrick Chu Diana Chan Acquisitions 2358-6 711

Archives & Special Collections 2358-6785

Bibliographic Services & Projects 2358-6709

Cataloging 2358-6737 Circulation 2358-6771 Collection Development 2358-6 704 Media Resources 2358-6 786 Reference 2358-6765 Systems 2358-6741 K. T. Lam 4