Wednesday, September 24, 2014

Activity 9: Catalog Tips and Tricks

Well, there was certainly a lot to this activity, but it was a good reminder and informative as well because I did pick up a few things.

 
 
One thing is extended display when you do an author search, it is good to see the titles listed along with the authors' names. This makes it easier to pick out which author record you need.

Another thing that I found interesting is the reminder that you can click only available titles and limit it to a specific location to hone in on those titles that should be available at your agency.
I have used the Book Bag features of the catalog before, especially when making lists of materials to pull for displays, class visits, etc. and it's nice that I can e-mail it to my work address and then print it out.


I'm not sure I knew about saving preferred searches or if I did I had forgotten this. I will have to remember that you seem to have to be logged in to do this which makes sense since you are saving it I do like that you can check "mark for e-mail" and then click update list and be notified if there are updates to the collection that match your search terms. This is cool.

I did know about linking to records and searches..I have used this in blogs and other postings It is good to have a reminder about e-book records. There is an e-audio book record that I'm confused about. I looked up an author like-Stephanie Bond and I found a record for:

library record for Got Your Number
 
 
but when I click on this I am taken to an entry in One Click Digital but there is no way (I can see) to request it. When I login it refreshes the page and I no longer see this entry and when I try to look it up by title or author I can't find it. To which I say..wah! I don't know whether anyone actually reads my ramblings, but if they do I wouldn't mind listening to this e-audio book if we have it/could get it, etc. etc.
 
Learning about how to request issues of magazines was news to me...have to remember that to get a specific issue you click on the request button, log in, choose the pick up location, click submit and then you have a page where you can click on a bubble next to the various issues available.
 
I am supposed to tell about some tricks I use with the catalog. Can't think of any. I do like the Popular Searches as these make things easier for customers as a rule. Sometimes there are links that lead to nowhere or items that should have been cleared from the catalog but aren't or sometimes someone clicks on the wrong button and something says it has arrived, but it hasn't really..., but otherwise the catalog seems mostly good. As far as promoting it I know that staff offer training to people who ask for it or as part of answering questions when it seems appropriate. I think we may be working on some online training. Another thought is maybe posting catalog tips from time to time on the website and/or Facebook as reminders to people of what can be done in the catalog.


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