Information on Libra WWW system

Libra WWW is a module which is used to publish library's on-line catalogue on the Internet, which was computerized by Libra system.

Apart from fundamental, typical functions of on-line catalogues of libraries like browsing the catalogue and advanced searching, Libra WWW offers a possibility of a personalized access to resources of the library by user profile. Those users who are logged in are able to make request for a particular book marked as available for loan. Among all system functions readers can find collections – a place in which library publishes materials on current and interesting issues.

Browsing the catalogue

This is an elementary way of searching information in the catalogue. Despite of its simplicity this way of searching should be effective in most cases.

You can browse the resources with five catalogues-indexes:

• Author – contains names of authors typed in the following order: Last name, First name (with comma after the last name)

• Title – contains all titles, including titles of related volumes and titles of co-published books
• Series – contains names of series
• Subjects – includes names of subjects (keywords) used in the catalogue
• UDC – contains symbols from Universal Decimal Catalogue which create keyword, hierarchical classification

To begin browsing a chosen catalogue you'll need to click on its name in the menu. We search chosen catalogue by clicking on a character – this will show you all items that begin with this character. For example: in case of choosing author catalogue, after clicking on letter M system displays all authors, whose surnames begins with this letter.

Results can be viewed by using <<Previous and Next>> buttons at the bottom of the page.

Clicking on the title of a chosen item will show you a full description of this item along with a list of all copies.

Searching

This functionality is similar to browsing the catalogue but gives you more chances to find particular, known items.

Similarly to browsing you can search in five catalogues-indexes:

• Author – contains names of authors typed in the following order: Last name, First name (with comma after the last name)

• Title – contains all titles, including titles of related volumes and titles of co-published books
• Series – contains names of series
• Subjects – includes names of subjects (keywords) used in the catalogue
• UDC – contains symbols from Universal Decimal Catalogue which create keyword, hierarchical classification

In order to start browsing those catalogues you'll need to choose one of them from the drop-down menu and accept your choice by clicking on the Search button.

Searching can also be limited to the given type of a document. By default system searches through all types of documents as it is shown in the filed Document type, which is set to All types. In case you want to limit your search to a specific type of a document just choose one from the available List

Before clicking on the Search button you can type in a query in the text field. Its a good idea to start with a query that includes only a beginning of the phrase e.g.:

• in the author catalogue use a last name or even first letters of a last name,
• in the title catalogue use a first word or just a few first words from the title.

You can also query the chosen catalogue to find phrases included in some part of a filed. For example any word from a title of a book or any word which may be used in a subject. In order to use this functionality you must tick a checkbox labeled Any part of field.

Advanced searching

Advanced search is used in those cases when the basic search gives us too many inappropriate results. The bigger library catalogue is the more often that kind of situations take place.

Typically in an advanced search one uses more then one search term to create a query. Those terms may be combined with logical operators such as: “or”, “and”, “not”.

• or – use it when you want to find at least one of search terms that you combine,
• and – use it when you want to find all of search terms that you combine,
• not – use it when you want to find the first term but not the second one of which you combine,

The advanced search form enables reader to find books by browsing all indexes accessible also in browsing the catalogue. Additionally there is a possibility of searching in a full description (All fields option). It permits e.g. to search for books of a specified publisher.

A list of results can be additionally narrowed down to years in which books were published (field Year of publication). Searching can also be limited to the given type of a document. By default system searches through all types of documents as it is shown in the filed Document type, which is set to All types. In case you want to limit your search to a specific type of a document just choose one of the available types:

• Books
• Sound recordings – includes mainly music records on traditional storage devices such as: vinyl records, cassettes and compact discs (CD).
• Film materials – includes films recorded on tapes, cassettes or DVD discs.
• Electronic materials – here you can find various things stored on computer devices such as: multimedia publications, applications and computer games, information databases; also here: bibliographic descriptions of WWW pages with hyperlinks to those pages.
• Musical prints – bibliographic descriptions of printed music, if library collects such type of publications.
• File – this part of the catalogue contains mainly bibliographic descriptions of articles from various magazines, but you can also find things such as references to parts of books. The aim of creating the file is to provide up to date and detailed information, based mainly on content provided by magazines, that could be interesting for readers.
• Magazines – list of magazines subscripted by the library, including a list of copies in the collection.

Advanced searching has following characteristics:

• Possibility of searching through the whole bibliographic description and not just through one index.
• Searching in the whole bibliographic description (“All fields”) means also searching in all available indexes.
• The search system is case-insensitive (treats in the same way small and capital letters).
• When searching for authors you'll need to place a comma after the last name (e.g. Twain, Mark).
• Search phrase can be matched inside a chosen index and not only at the beginning.
• It is possible to search through all of the documents or just one chosen type.
• Additionally searching can be limited only to given years of publication. Given range may be opened from one side e.g. writing “2000” in the from field and living to field empty will match anything that was published no sooner than in 2000.

Advanced search gives a list of short descriptions much like the basic search. And as in the basic search you can go to a full description of a chosen item along with a list of all copies.

Full description and copies

After choosing particular item form the list of short descriptions the application will show a full description of the item along with a list of copies. In addition to the default view you can chose two other ways of displaying the description:

• Catalogue card – classic view which was used in paper card catalogues,
• MARC – description in technical format called MARC, which is used in modern catalogues of libraries.

Subjects are presented as active hyperlinks, which you can use view descriptions other description on given subject.

The list of copies contains the following information:

• inventory number
• call number (also known as a “classification number”)
• information on item's availability (status)

If the item is already loaned, the system informs about the date of return.

Additionally, if the library uses a system of electronic requests, you can order available items by clicking on the Request button. Loan rules are depend on a particular library and should be described in its regulations.

Index

Clicking on the Collections button will give you a list of collections prepared by librarians and made available to readers by the Libra WWW system.

After clicking on a name of a collection you will be redirected to a list of descriptions divided in pages. Similarly to the other lists of descriptions, it can be viewed by using <<Previous and Next>> buttons at the bottom of the page. And similarly clicking on the title of a chosen item will show you a full description of this item along with a list of all copies just.

The number of available collections, their titles are strictly depended on librarians. Therefore collections differ between libraries and can frequently change. In particular collections may be used to present the latest books acquired by the library.

User profile

After clicking on the User profile button you will be asked for giving your user name and a password. User name is your first and the last name given in the same manner as it is shown in the list of users of the library. Which means that if on this list, apart from the first and the last name, appears also e.g. your initial of the second name (e.g. to distinguish two readers with the same name and surname) also this initial has to be typed in. Note that, unlike the password field, the user name field is not case-sensitive (you can freely use small and/or capital letters to write you name).

Please note, that if you have a card with a barcode then you can type this number in the user name field instead your name. A barcode usually is an 8-digit number like 90001234. If it will be in that format, you can also omit the first “9” and any following zeros (e.g. use 1234 instead of 90001234).

After logging in you will have access to the following functionalities:

• Current loans – list of your current loans with dates of return
• All loans – history of your loans
• Overdues – list of overdue loans
• Change password – password change form (note that you'll have to type in the old one)
• Log out – log out from the system

Additionally, if a library uses a system of electronic requests, it is possible to choose a list of current requests, by pressing the Request button.