MnLINK VDX Blog

When you are placing requests on the MnLINK Gateway it is important to understand some of the basics of our searches.

If you are using the Basic search it is a Keyword search. It will search for your term(s) anywhere in the bibliographic records of your chosen Search Profile. Let's say you want to find the title Beauty and the Beast. It often works best to pick out 2 or 3 main words when using the Basic Search. Keyword searching tends to work best when you drop the less important words like conjunctions and articles. In this case it would be best to search for the 2 words Beauty Beast. If you are sure of a title phrase you can search for that by putting quotation marks around your search terms and the MnLINK Gateway will only look for those words in sequence. In this situation you would enter the terms like this, "Beauty and the Beast". Even though I am using them here, upper and lower case characters do not make a difference in searching.

Posted by Nick at 2:57 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Did you know that you can perform a search by OCLC number? The only database that is indexed for OCLC numbers is WorldCat, so you must have that in your search profile. In the Advanced Search Field option select Local Number and enter the OCLC number as the search term. This is a good way to select a specific edition for placing requests.

I’m trying to start a regular feature on this list with ideas and explanations about how to make our ILL duties easier. I’m trying to focus on VDX and ZPORTAL, but I’m certainly willing to venture beyond if there are important ideas that need to be shared. My problem is I don’t have a good name for this feature. So for the time being it will be referred to in the email subject as “Ideas for improving my VDX life”. If you have any wonderful ideas about what this feature should be called, please let me know. Also if you have any questions about what functions you would like to perform but aren’t sure how, please let me know. You can respond directly to me or on the list.

Posted by Nick at 9:19 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)