Author Archives: Ann Z

Coming soon! Virtual browse

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There is a update to the Catalyst interface that will be coming soon, and it has some features that we’re really excited about.  One of those features is the Virtual Browse, which lets you browse through books that would be shelved near the book that you’re looking at.  This is especially cool since our collection shows you books from multiple libraries.  Because our books are arranged by call number, books that are shelved near each other will have similar topics.  This is why we often encourage our patrons to browse the shelves around books that are of interest. The virtual browse takes this one step further: it will allow you to browse titles of books with similar call numbers regardless of which library they’re housed at.

For instance, let’s say I’m interested in bird watching.  I can do a search in Catalyst for birds and find a book that looks good:

[visual description: screen shot of the Catalyst record for the book "Birds of the World" with the location of St. Olaf Science Library highlighted.]

[visual description: screen shot of the Catalyst record for the book “Birds of the World” with the location of St. Olaf Science Library highlighted.]

If I want to see other books that would be shelved near that oen, I can scroll to the bottom of the record to the virtual browse:
[visual description: screenshot of the Catalyst virtual browse showing 6 books. The location of three of the books is highlighted: Carleton, Carleton & St. Olaf, and St. Olaf]

[visual description: screenshot of the Catalyst virtual browse showing 6 books. The location of three of the books is highlighted: Carleton, Carleton & St. Olaf, and St. Olaf]

Download our Catalyst brochure

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Our Catalyst brochure is available as a pdf download.  It explains the top 5 things to know about Catalyst:

  1. Using filters to target in on the best results.
  2. The difference between an “Everything” and a “Local” search.  NOTE: “Local” was recently renamed “Carl/Ole Catalog”
  3. Signing in to your account
  4. Changes that we’re expecting in the coming months as the system continues to improve
  5. Ask Us! If you have any questions or concerns!
[visual description: brochure introducing Catalyst and listing 5 things to know about it: Filters; Everything vs. Local; Your Account; Changes; and Ask Us for help.]

Click on the image to download a pdf version of this brochure. [visual description: brochure introducing Catalyst and listing 5 things to know about it: Filters; Everything vs. Local; Your Account; Changes; and Ask Us for help.]

How to: Get to the full text of an article

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When following a “Find It” or “Full Text” link from an external database (like one from EBSCO or from Google Scholar), you will be taken to a Catalyst record for the article.

The link to follow to correctly resolve to full text is the link that will mention the name of the database, like this one:

full-text-link

[visual description: screen shot of Catalyst screen for online access to an article. A red arrow points to the link for full text, which says “Full text available from Elsevier SD Freedom Collection”]

New interface for Catalyst for the new academic year!

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If you’ve been using Catalyst, the libraries’ catalog this summer, you’ll have noticed that the interface changed dramatically mid-August.  The new interface should be easier to use, more intuitive, and work well on mobile-devices.

With that interface upgrade, we’ve revised our

Top 5 things to know about Catalyst…

5. Use filters on the results screen to target in on the best results

Let’s say you’re interested in scholarly articles about birds.  One of the quickest ways to do that is to simply search for the word “birds.”

[screen shot of the Catalyst search box from the libraries' website with a search for the word

[screen shot of the Catalyst search box from the libraries’ website with a search for the word “birds”.]

This gives us more than 17,000 results that include books, articles, films, and more.  The filters along the left-hand side of the results page let you narrow down the results.  For instance, clicking on “Scholarly Articles” will show you only the 1500 scholarly articles in the results.  If you click the small red checkmark with the slash through it, that will instead exclude the scholarly articles from your results.  You can click on multiple filters to further refine your results.
[screen shot of Catalyst result screen with "Scholarly Articles" highlighted.]

[screen shot of Catalyst result screen with “Scholarly Articles” highlighted.]

4. Local Catalog vs Everything vs Course Reserves…

Just as before, the new interface lets you choose at the beginning of your search which set of materials you want to search.

  • Everything: includes articles, books, movies, images, and more.  This gives you the broadest search with the most results.
  • Local Catalog: records of items in the Carleton and St. Olaf libraries. Close to a traditional library catalog, it includes the items the libraries have selected for the collection: books, e-books, movies, journal titles, and government documents.  It will not find articles or other content from databases that we subscribe to.
  • Course Reserves: exactly what you’d think! Use this to search for course materials that faculty have put on reserve for a specific course.
    Carleton e-Reserves note! At Carleton and looking for e-Reserves? Click here to get to our e-Reserves, or use the Reserves tab on our website.

Read more about the differences between Everything and Local Catalog.

3. Log in to renew books, see your account, and request books from the other library

In the upper right corner of the Catalyst screen, you should see the word Guest (if you see your name, you’re already logged in!).

[screen shot of upper right corner that says "Guest"]

[screen shot of upper right corner that says “Guest”]

If you hold your cursor over the word “Guest” the words will change, and you can click on “Sign In” to log in to the system using your Carleton or St. Olaf username and password.  Now you should see your name where it used to say “Guest.”  You can hover there again and click on “My Library Account”.  This will show you what you have checked out (so you can renew), what you’ve requested, and any messages or fines on your account.

[screen shot of Catalyst that shows the "Sign in" option that appears when you hover over "Guest"]

[screen shot of Catalyst that shows the “My Library Account” and “Sign in” options that appears when you hover over “Guest”]

Once you’re logged in, you can also requests books from the other Bridge libraries.  Click the title of the item you want to request and scroll to the “Physical Copies” section.  Click “Request” and enter your preferences about where you want to pick it up.
[screen shot from Catalyst after you click the title of an item. "Request" is highlighted.]

[screen shot from Catalyst after you click the title of an item. “Request” is highlighted.]

2. The interface will continue to change

We are continuing to make improvements to the interface, and the vendor is upgrading the system as well, so you can expect the interface to change a bit.  In particular, watch for a new logo for Catalyst, and possibly a new color scheme.

1. We are here to help!

 The Carleton and St. Olaf library staff are here to help you.  If you have any questions or run in to any problems at all, please don’t hesitate to contact us (Carleton/St. Olaf or use the form on the right side of this page).
At the top of every Catalyst page is “Need Help?”, which will take you to this blog, where we’re collecting helpful information and tutorials about the system.  At the bottom of every Catalyst page, there is a “Chat with us” button that will get you in touch with one of our librarians if you have specific questions.
[screen shot of Catalyst with "Need help" and "Chat with us" highlighted]

[screen shot of Catalyst with “Need help?” and “Chat with us” highlighted]

How to: Find materials at your library

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  1. Start by clicking on “Local Catalog” to search for books, dvds, journal titles, and other items at the library.
  2. Enter your search terms
    [Screen shot of the Catalyst search form with "Local Catalog" selected]

    [Screen shot of the Catalyst search form with “Local Catalog” selected]

  3. From the results screen, click “Library” along the left side of the screen to choose your preferred library.
    [screen shot of Catalyst filter to narrow results to those at a particular library]

    [screen shot of Catalyst filter to narrow results to those at a particular library]

Frequently asked question: Why should I use Catalyst?

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Question: What is the purpose of searching Catalyst when I could just as easily use a database or search engine that I know and love?

Answer:

A lot of students start their searches with a general topic but not much else (unlike professors and other experts, who might have a specific author or work in mind, or know what the disciplinary terms are). Catalyst is designed to let searchers cast their nets in a big sea where they are likely to encounter useful results right away, without necessarily needing to be expert searchers yet.

While Google Scholar is an excellent tool that most of us (librarians and faculty) use frequently, Catalyst searches a more selective group of resources based on the library’s collections. Catalyst also provides more options for refining searches. Catalyst blends the library’s physical holdings with an online universe of articles, so searchers can start their research in one place.

 

Frequently asked question: What is in Catalyst?

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Question: What materials and resources are in Catalyst?  What things are not included in Catalyst?

Answer:

Catalyst includes hundreds of millions of journal articles, dissertations, reference entries, maps, scores, conference proceedings, ebooks, online videos, and much more from hundreds of scholarly publishers and database vendors like ProQuest, Sage, PubMed, JSTOR, and many more.

Catalyst does not include detailed citations from EBSCO. Unless you specify otherwise, Catalyst searches things our library owns in some way, either on our shelves or through paid subscriptions, or that are freely available to be searched (like Hathitrust). If you already know you only want articles from a specific discipline, or you know detailed descriptions of the articles and books is really important to your search, you are better off searching a disciplinary database (Carleton databases | St. Olaf databases).

Frequently asked question: What is the difference between “Everything” and “Local Catalog”?

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Question:  What is the difference between the choices of “Everything” and “Local Catalog” when I start my search?

October 17, 2016 update: “Local Catalog” was renamed to “Carl/Ole Catalog” to clarify what was being searched.  This text of this post has been updated to reflect that, but the images have not.

[Screen shot of the Catalyst search box with "Everything" and "Local Catalog" outlined in red.]

[Screen shot of the Catalyst search box with “Everything” and “Local Catalog” outlined in red.]

Answer:

Generally, the “Carl/Ole Catalog” [formerly “local catalog”] searches for works (books, journals) that the Carleton or St. Olaf libraries own. Typically, these are things you’ll find on our library shelves. But to keep you on your toes, the local catalog search also includes some electronic stuff like ebooks and streaming videos.

Searching “Everything” expands your search to include not just stuff on our shelves, but also all the electronic articles and indexes that the library has via subscriptions (e.g. the articles in our JSTOR collection or the citations in our MLA subscription). It’s kind of like searching across almost all the databases the library has access to, all at once.

Finally, you have the option to check a box and search for articles from other libraries, too, but you have to choose this option after you have done your search.

ExpandMyResults

[Screen shot of the Catalyst results page with “Expand My Results. Include articles at other libraries” outlined in red.]

This lets you search not just our subscriptions but articles from lots of journals that we might not even own ourselves. This is obviously the most comprehensive search you can do, but also the way you are most likely to come across articles for which we might not have easy full-text access. It’s still a useful search, but you might need to use interlibrary loan to get the full text of what you find.

You can see an illustration of relationship between the different searches below.

[Illustration of a triangle demonstrating the types of searches you can do through Catalyst. The tip is "Course reserves" which brings back the fewest results. "Local Catalog" includes course reserves and items in our local collections. "Everything searches the local catalog and reserves, as well as articles and chapters from subscriptions. "Include articles from other libraries" includes everything noted above plus articles beyond our subscriptions, this brings back the most results (over 100 million potential results).]

Click to see larger version [Illustration of a triangle demonstrating the types of searches you can do through Catalyst. The tip is “Course reserves” which brings back the fewest results. “Local Catalog” includes course reserves and items in our local collections. “Everything searches the local catalog and reserves, as well as articles and chapters from subscriptions. “Include articles from other libraries” includes everything noted above plus articles beyond our subscriptions, this brings back the most results (over 100 million potential results).]

 

 

How to: Request items from another Bridge library

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Updated: Oct. 25, 2016 with screenshots from new Catalyst interface.

As part of the Bridge consortium (that is, the Carleton and St. Olaf libraries) we have access to items from all of the libraries, no matter which campus you’re currently on.  Read on for steps to request an item from another library:

  1. Click on the title of the item you’re interested in.
  2. Click “Sign In” in the yellow box in the middle of the screen and choose to log in with your college Username/Password.

    [visual description: screen shot of the Catalyst record for a book with "Sign In" circled.]

    [visual description: screen shot of the Catalyst record for a book with “Sign In” circled.]

  3. You’ll be brought back to the screen for a book, and now should see a “Request” link under “Request Options”.  Click the link.
    [visual description: partial screen shot of Catalyst screen for a book with "Request" circled.]

    [visual description: partial screen shot of Catalyst screen for a book with “Request” circled.]

  4. Choose where you’d like to pick up the item and click “Request”. You’re done!

You will receive an email when the book has arrived at your chosen pick up location.

Once you’ve logged in to request one item, you’ll be logged in for the rest of your session, so you can skip step 2 for any subsequent items that you want to request.