What's New » MELVYL Catalog: New and Improved!
 Introduction: What
is Melvyl & What is New?
Request
a Melvyl Workshop
Faculty
and Graduate Students: Contact
a Subject Librarian for Assistance
Ask
a Librarian for Help
Learn
the New Melvyl Catalog Yourself
Remember
to Change Your Profile and Recreate Your Saved Searches!
Create
a New Profile
Set
User Preferences
Use
the Update Feature
Request
Interlibrary Loan Service
Comparison of
Old & New Melvyl Catalog Features
Try
Searching the New Melvyl
Catalog
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Introduction:
What is Melvyl & What is New?
The Melvyl Catalog is the UC-wide library catalog that provides information
for all of the books and journals that are owned by the UC campus libraries,
Hastings College of the Law, the California Academy of Sciences, the California
Historical Society, the Center for Research Libraries, the Graduate Theological
Union, and the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. In addition to records
for books and journals, the online catalog contains records for movies, maps,
music scores and recordings, computer files, dissertations, government documents,
etc.
Due to technological enhancements, the Melvyl Catalog has a new look and improved
searching capabilities.
The "new" Melvyl replaced the existing Melvyl Catalog and Periodicals databases
on August 1, 2003. A comparison
chart between old and new versions of the Melvyl Catalog is provided below,
but key enhancements to the Melvyl Catalog include: a "My
Workspace" within the catalog for personal customization and storage space,
keyword searching ability, and multilingual character support. Over all, Melvyl's
greatest improvement is its ability to search across all UC libraries for both
books and journals from one database.
If you have questions about the new Melvyl Catalog, please contact the UC
Irvine Libraries for assistance. Subject Librarians are available to
make office visits to assist Faculty and Graduate Students with the new catalog.
Help Guides are also provided below for self-learning.
We invite you to try searching the new Melvyl Catalog on the Web at http://melvyl.cdlib.org
Melvyl Workshops are now available upon request.
The single session (90 min.) covers the basics of searching Melvyl, the combined
catalogs of all UC libraries, focusing on the "Advanced" search mode.
It typically includes simple and complex searching, how to improve/refine searches
that retrieve too few or too many records, how to create a Profile, save records
to a list, Request records (via InterLibrary Loan, a service available to currently-enrolled
UCI students, faculty, and staff), create an Update, and where to get help.
For users experienced in searching the previous version of Melvyl, comparisons
will be made with the new Melvyl.
The Melvyl instructor will hold the workshop in the Langson Library or Science
Library, depending on room availability and class/group size.
The UCI Libraries offer many free Workshops & Classes.
Subject Librarians are available to make office visits and provide demonstrations
of the new Melvyl Catalog. They can help you set up your personal profile (My
Workspace) so that you can make the most efficient use of the features of the
new system. Note: Your user name, ID, Profile, Saved Searches and Update
Information do not automatically transfer from the old Melvyl Catalog to this
new version of Melvyl. The first time you use My Workspace, you must create
a new Profile in order to save searches across sessions, use the Update
service, or pre-set personal information when using Request (for InterLibrary
Loan).
Reference Librarians can help users learn the new Melvyl and explain its
features. Contact them via chat, e-mail or in-person at the References Desks
in the Main, Science, or Grunigen Medical Libraries.
Learn
the New Melvyl Yourself with Any of These Guides
A Tour of the
Basic Melvyl Search Features: Screen shots illustrate the elements of
the search screen, a Basic search, and how to interpret the results of a
search.
Melvyl Brief Guide: HTML - PDF - DOC:
A brief two-page guide on searching the Melvyl Catalog. Focuses on the Basic
search, working with results, and quick limits
Melvyl Intermediate Guide: HTML - PDF - DOC:
A five-page guide, covering basic and advanced searching, command searching,
and creating personal workspace and automatic e-mail updates within the catalog
Melvyl Practitioners' Guide: PDF - DOC:
A nine-page guide intended for library staff, but also useful for experienced/frequent
searchers. Covers details of search commands, proximity and truncation searching
options.
MELVYL
Help Content At the top right of every Melvyl screen is a Help
link. The online help in the new Melvyl Catalog is extensive. Help topics
and content address searching, browsing, commands, manipulating large result
sets, setting up your personal My Workspace and an automatic email Update
service. See the Melvyl
FAQ list (under "Overview") for questions from real users that may
have also puzzled you. The answers are from the California Digital Library
staff. Finally, the Help screen also contains a privacy policy.
Remember
to Change Your Profile
Power/experienced users of the "old" Melvyl will notice these differences
between the old and the new system
- You must re-enter your personal profile and saved searches. Personal information
did not automatically carry over from the old to the new system
- If you need to re-create your Profile, Updates, Saved Lists, and/or Search
Histories from the now-retired Melvyl Catalog, please see your subject
librarian or contact Christina Woo before
December 20, 2003.
- You will now have to save items retrieved in a search one-by-one rather
than in batch mode
How to
Comparison
of Old & New Melvyl Catalog Features
| Function/Feature |
Old Melvyl |
New Melvyl |
| Command-line Searching |
Yes |
Yes |
| Save |
Yes |
Yes |
| Request |
Yes |
Yes |
| Automatic e-mail updates of new items |
Yes |
Yes |
| Combined Melvyl Catalog and Periodicals Titles |
No |
Yes |
| General keyword search |
No |
Yes |
| Call number searching |
No |
Yes |
| Limit search to electronic resources |
No |
Yes |
| Phrase and proximity search |
No |
Yes |
| Sorting results |
No |
Yes |
| Multilingual character support (e.g., Chinese, Korean
and Japanese characters) |
No |
Yes |
| Combined Author Title Index |
No |
Yes |
| Browsing heading searches (author, series, subject) |
No |
Yes |
| Name and subject cross references |
No |
Yes |
 |
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