Frequently asked question: Why should I use Catalyst?

Posted on July 21, 2016 by Ann Z

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?

Posted on July 21, 2016 by Ann Z

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”?

Posted on July 20, 2016 by Ann Z

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.]

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.

[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

Posted on July 14, 2016 by Ann Z

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:

Click on the title of the item you’re interested in.
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.]
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.]
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.

How To: See Your Personal Account and Renew Items in Catalyst

Posted on July 5, 2016 by kpartlo

Would you like to renew or check the due dates on some of the items you have checked out? Would you like to see the status of a request you have made? You can still do this in Catalyst, the process just looks a little different than before.

Step 1

Start on your library’s home page and click the “search” button. You do not have to enter any search terms.

Start at the Carleton Library home page.

Start at the St. Olaf home page.

Step 2

Once in the Catalyst system, find the Sign In link in the upper right corner. You may need to scroll all the way to the right to see it.

Step 3

Step 4

Once logged in, you will see your name at the top of the screen instead of Guest. Near your name is a link to My Account. Follow that link to view your list of items checked out.

You will see a list of items checked out with their due dates.

Step 5

To renew an item, click the box next to the item you want to keep and click the Renew Selected link.

Notice, too, the other things you can do in My Account, such as track requests, save search queries and items from your searches on the e-Shelf.

That’s it. If you have questions, contact your school’s circulation desk (St. Olaf Rolvaag 786-3224, St. Olaf Music 786-3209, St. Olaf Science 786-3389, Carleton 222-4260).

Unassigned and no_c_tag messages for periodicals

Posted on June 30, 2016 by Ann Z

When we migrated to Catalyst, our order records for some periodicals didn’t come through cleanly. This has led to some records saying “UNASSIGNED location” or “no_c_tag” in the location tab. We are currently cleaning these records up, but you may still see them for the next couple of weeks. They seem to be mostly occurring in journals that have microfilm or government document locations. If you have any questions about finding those items, talk with a librarian (Carleton/St. Olaf) and we’ll get you to what you need.

UNASSIGNED location example:

[screenshot of Catalyst record of “Outlook and Independent” showing an “UNASSIGNED location”]

no_c_tag example:

[screen shot of Catalyst record for “New York times book review” showing a “no_c_tag” location]

RESOLVED: Requesting items from St. Olaf to be delivered to Carleton

Posted on June 23, 2016 by Ann Z

Update — 7/14/2016: This problem has been resolved. Please see “How to: Request items from another Bridge library” for details on how to request an item. If you notice any problems with requesting items, or any other problem, please use our Catalyst Feedback form to report the issue. We are actively working to address all reported issues.

Continue reading →

“Due Date Change for Item(s)” emails

Posted on June 23, 2016 by Ann Z

If you currently have items checked out from any of the Carleton or St. Olaf libraries, you may have received an email from Library.Notices@bridgelibraries.org letting you know that the due date has changed (usually only by a few hours).

[Screen shot of a “Due Date Change” email.]

The new Catalyst system does not allow items to be due at times when our libraries are closed, which makes a lot of sense. So when we moved to Catalyst, it automatically shifted the due dates of any items that are due when the library is closed, and sent emails to everyone about that change.

Thank you again for your patience with these issues that arise from a complicated implementation that involves moving many records from one system to another. As always, please feel free to contact us with any questions, concerns, or suggestions (Carleton/St. Olaf or use the form on the right side of this page).

Catalyst is here! Five things to know about Catalyst

Posted on June 22, 2016 by Ann Z

The big day has arrived and we’ve gone live with our new online catalog and discovery tool, Catalyst! You can access the new system from either library’s website (Carleton Library | St. Olaf Libraries). You may notice a few quirks or hiccups as we work through issues related to the roll-out. Please let us know if you see something that doesn’t seem right.

Known Issues

We are posting a list of known issues that we have run into post go-live. We’ll include workarounds when possible and updates as needed. Please bear with us as we work through these issues.

We’re excited to have our new system in place. The basic functionality, however has not changed: you can still search for all of our materials and find the best way to access them using Catalyst.

Top 5 things to know about Catalyst:

5. Results of a search are combined into one list.

This may be the first and most obvious change that you’ll notice. Previously, we’d split the results of a search to have “Books and more” results in one list on the left and “Articles and more” on the right. We now give you all the results in one list. You can narrow your results in many different ways using the options on the left side of the results page.

[screen shot of the filters along the left side of the Catalyst results page]

[Screen shot of some of the filters along the left side of the Catalyst results page]

4. “Everything” vs “Local Catalog” vs “Course Reserves”

At the beginning of your search, you can choose to search “Everything”, “Local Catalog” or “Course Reserves”

[Screen shot of the Catalyst search interface showing the options to search “Everything”, “Local Catalog”, or “Course Reserves”]

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.

3. Find books at your library

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

2. The interface will change throughout the summer

There will be a major upgrade happening in August which will change how the interface looks. We’ll also be working throughout the summer on ways to make Catalyst work better for you, so that it’s at its best for Fall term. If you see anything that looks wrong, please let us know.

1. We are here to help!

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).

Exporting saved items and searches from Bridge2

Posted on May 17, 2016 by Ann Z

In June, our new catalog, Catalyst, will replace both Bridge² and Bridge Classic. If you currently have saved items (called “favorites”) or saved searches in Bridge² that you want to keep, you’ll need to export them from the system before June 19.

Do not worry about exporting the list of items you have checked out or that you have on hold. We will take care of those.

Librarians at both Carleton and St. Olaf are happy to work with you on this or you can export them yourself using the instructions below.