Monday, February 6, 2012

Top six tips for using the new library catalog


Your Account
Logging in to your library account allows you to renew books, place holds, create lists, view your search history, and more. Your account has already been created, so all you need to do is log in with the first part of your Ripon email name (everything before the @ sign) and your email password.

Lists
The list function provides a way to save lists of items for future reference, or to share lists with others. Once you've created a list, you can print, email, or link to it.

Cart
The cart is a similar function to lists.  With the cart, you can collect lists of books and other items to print or email.  The difference between Lists and the Cart is that items in the cart won't be saved in the catalog for future use after you have closed the catalog.

Tags
Tags in the library catalog work just like Twitter hashtags or tags on a blog post. Anyone who is logged in can tag an item, and clicking on a tag brings up a list of everything with that tag.

Virtual Shelf Browser
Academic libraries arrange their bookshelves based on the topic of the book, so browsing the shelf can be a good way to find related items. The library catalog mimics this experience: from the record for an item, click on the “Browse Shelf” link next to the call number to browse a virtual bookshelf.

RSS
If you use an RSS reader, you can subscribe to an RSS feed for any search you run in the catalog. For instance, the “New Books” list on the main page of the catalog pulls from an RSS feed based on a search for all books. You could do something similar to track new films, or new books on a particular subject. 


Have questions or suggestions about the new catalog? Leave a comment below, or email library AT ripon.edu.

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