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Personalising information
searching: beyond Google
Presenter: Emma Hurcombe
Traditional ways of finding information
Browse the Library shelves
Look through a printed catalogue of
resources
Use printed abstract and index services
to find relevant articles
Ask Library staff
Introducing technology to your searching
Use the online library catalogue
Allows for searching, locating, reserving and
renewing all in one place
Use of online databases to search for
relevant articles
Allows for searching and locating full text
articles quickly and easily
“But which database do I use?”
The University subscribes to a large
number of electronic services. This
benefits the user but:
Sometimes difficult to decide which one
to use
May need to search multiple services one
after the other – time consuming
“Can’t I just Google?”
In theory yes, the problems are:
The amount of results returned by the
search
Quality of the information returned
Lack of personalisation
Personalising your search
ISA and the Library have worked together
to implement new services to personalise
your searching:
A new Library System
Aston e-Library
Benefits of the new Library System
Ability to limit your search to a specific
collection
Ability to sort results by date, title or
relevance
Ability to limit results to available stock
only
Can keep a list of your reading history
Management of your own Library record
Benefits of Aston e-Library
Ability to search across all databases at
once
Ability to search for individual journals or
articles
Ability to tailor your search to look for
resources on your subject
Ability to save searches and resources,
to be retrieved and reused as and when
required
Making use of Google
Google scholar – specifically for scholarly
literature
Search returns more targeted results
Integrated with Aston e-Library’s Find it
@ Aston facility to further personalise
searching
Personalised searching in action
http://library.aston.ac.uk
Future possibilities for the Library System:
Ability to order Inter Library Loans online
Payment of fines online and integration
with the finance system
Ability to log on to your library record
using your LDAP login instead of barcode
and pin