Roger, Two-Ten, and Out: Access and Display of Abbreviated Journal Titles In OPACs

[Karen Harker]

I am not too terribly familiar with the variety of OPACs, but I believe
that we can search by abbreviated serial title in the Words & Phrases
function of SIRSI's package.  However, there have been instances when this
function did not perform well, but maybe I just was not using it
correctly.

I believe it is very useful in the academic medical setting here.  Often,
the abbreviated title is all the client has.  Being able to search by this
saves the step of guessing or looking up the full title.

Karen R. Harker

On Mon, 11 Aug 1997, Gerry McKiernan wrote:

>                Roger, Two-Ten, and Out:
>       Access and Display of Abbreviated Journal Titles
>                       In OPACs
> 
>    For my other ever-ending review of Data Mining and
> Knowledge Discovery in Database (KDD) [which I am
> interpreting technically as well as theoretically,
> philosophically and in practice], I am interesting in
> learning about online public access systems (e.g
> OPACs) that offer users the ability to search and/or
> browse/scan journal title abbreviations in the local
> OPAC. I have  identified one OPAC and one paper
> relating to this functionality. The paper is by
> Kathleen Pratt who describes the LANL OPAC in her
> spine-tingling [:->] article
> 
>     "Accessing abbreviated journal titles in the online
> catalog at Los Alamos National Laboratory"  _Serials Review_
> v .22 (Summer 1996): 57-59. [Our copy of this issue is
> currently on vacation, so I have not been able to read it {:->]
> However ....
> 
>    If one, [if one?], accesses the LANL OPAC and
> browses the title field with an abbreviated journal title
> (e.g. Ser Rev) one finds the abbreviated title listed
> alphabetically in order with other 'SER' titles. Please
> find below a (modified) screen shot for
> 
>      Sequential test procedures for detecting protracted materials losses (1)
>      Sequential tests of statistical hypotheses (1)
>      Sequential trigger procedure for use in monitoring nuclear power plant
>      The sequestration of metals; theoretical considerations and practical
>      Sequoyah Unit 1 Charge Converter Examination Results (1)
>      >>> SER. REV (1)
>      Seramikku detabukku '86 (1)
>      SERBER SAYS ABOUT HIGH ENERGY PROCESSES AND NUCLEAR FORCES (1)
>      SERBER SAYS ABOUT MESOTRONS (1)
>      Serber-Wilson method formulae and computation methods (1)
>      SerboCroatian-English dictionary (1)
> 
>    I am particularly interested in:
> 
>    A> Existing or Current Vendor plans for this functionality
>    and
>    B> Personal and/or Professional Views on the Value
>       and Usefulness of the functionality!
> 
>   BTW: The Two-Ten above refers to the MARC 210 field.
> With regards to abbreviations in general, I'd recommend
> that these be ISO and/or ANSI and that there be the
> ability to add additional standard abbreviations [e.g
> those established and accepted by an professional society
> or an abstracting and indexing service] in additional
> 210 fields]
> 
>    Citations to any and all related work would also be
> of great interest!
> 
>       <strong> Thanks ! </strong>
> 
>      Regards,
> 
> Gerry McKiernan
> Curator, CyberStacks(sm)
> Iowa State University
> Ames IA 50011
> 
> gerrymck at iastate.edu
> http://www.public.iastate.edu/~CYBERSTACKS/
> 
>         "The Best Way to Predict the Future is To Invent It!"
>                               Attributed to Peter Drucker
> 

".....Want to know the rest, hey, buy the rights." - OMC
******************************************************************************
Karen R. Harker					214-648-2001
Librarian I					214-648-3007 (fax)
The University of Texas				
Southwestern Medical Center at Dallas
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harker at medcat.library.swmed.edu
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