PsycINFO and SiteSearch Interface Update

Presented by Dave Hoover
System Administrator
Rutgers University

Dave Hoover presented the new changes to PsycINFO and the new interface for SiteSearch and demonstrated some possible directions for future development of the interface.

The new interface should be up during the week of January 22nd. There was a delay in updating the PsycINFO database as APA, who provided the records, were doing a global reload and not distributing updates. The database should be current shortly and will go to weekly updates.

The most noticeable feature of the new interface is that it does not use frames and navigation is much improved. Check boxes replace the "save" button and saved searches are available via a "n searches currently saved" link on the left or from a button on the top right.

It was noted that one change not made was that tags on the drop-down menus on the Advanced Search screen do not match the tags on the records. The Interface Committee will look into this and try to adopt a standard terminology between the two.

PsycINFO now has a thesaurus, referred to the "Term Finder" in PsycINFO itself. Dave has made the thesaurus available separately, but users should be aware that the standalone version will only search the thesaurus. The "Term Finder" in PsycINFO itself lets users search for the proper term, then allows searches on that term as either a keyword or as a descriptor. The "Term Finder" button also appears in the stand-alone thesaurus but this may be removed if users feel it is redundant or confusing. There are 7,700 terms in the Thesaurus.

Handouts included:

1. New Interface
• Addition of messages regarding failed login attempts and use of proxies.
• Addition of NJ Links button pointing to locally developed databases about New Jersey
2. Local Database enhancements
• Stopwords stripped from searches
• Better error handling of corrupt records -only the bad record will not display, not the whole set
• Date range searching
• With and Near will work as expected.
• Non frames based interface
• Ability to Save and Unsave a set of records at one time.
• Context sensitive "Search" and "Browse" buttons instead of just "Go"
3. PsycINFO changes
• Addition of Thesaurus. Reachable from the TermFinder choice off the main PsycINFO search page. A user is presented a screen where they can enter up to 3 concepts (or search terms) that will be combined together with "or" and will be keyword searched against the PsycINFO thesaurus. A list of terms with checkboxes will be presented in response to the search allowing the user to still search the word by "keyword", to search the proper "descriptor" term found in the Thesaurus, or to choose to expand the term found in the Thesaurus to find Broader Terms, Narrower Terms, Related Terms and the Scope Note. The terms on the "expand" screen will be presearched and the number of records associated with each will be displayed. The Full record displays will also have a "tree" icon next to each of the Descriptor terms that will allow the user to move directly from the record into the Thesaurus entry for that term.
• Addition of a standalone PsycINFO Thesaurus. Allows for full keyword and phrase searching of all the Thesaurus Fields (Main Terms, Use Terms, Used For Terms, Broader Terms, Narrower Terms, Related Terms, Scope Notes). The User can also use the Browse search capability against all of these indexes. Note this is not directly integrated to search against PsycINFO and terms found here will have to be cut and pasted into PsycINFO search screens.
4. Test system -PsycINFO -jounal nursing, community health nursing (link to catchword)
• TRM 150 Main Term(postable)
• MAP 151 Main Term(non postable)
• USE 450 Use Term
• FOR 451 Used For Term.
• BRD 550 Broader Terms
• NAR 1350 Narrower Terms
• REL 1450 Related Terms
• SCN 680 Scope Note
5. Some current/future developments
• Addition of library catalogs searchable by Z39.50. Currently working with NJIT (DRA), Rutgers (Sirsi), St Peter's (Dynix).
• Adding holdings displays for the above catalogs where possible -dependent upon capabilities of the local Catalog system.
• Searching the current PsycINFO citation's ISSN against a local library catalog to find out holdings information.
Merged Database results. Cross Database Searches
• Cambridge illustrated medicine

Prepared by: Fred Nesta, Director
Saint Peter's College Libraries
2641 Kennedy Blvd.
Jersey City, NJ 07306
(201) 915-9387
nesta_f@spc.edu