Giving you a basic understanding
of the range of applications of computers to automating library
functions via database technology.
Understanding the basic
architecture of library automation systems and the central
importance of their underlying databases.
Most importantly and primarily:
Understanding
what a database is and
how to
search those databases that underlie most information functions
in libraries and other information environments,
including:
Online Public Access
Catalogs (OPACs).
Bibliographic databases for
such applications as cataloging, interlibrary loan, and
acquistions.
Common literature / article
databases.
Database utilities
providing access to hundreds of databases.
Internet Databases such as
Search Engines and Internet Indexes
Intangible
Goals
General
Providing you with a basic
understanding of the importance of database searching and
computer-based library automation.
Most importantly and primarily:
You
develop the confidence that you can learn any database tools
necessary to your work.
Your effective
utilization of your creative and intellectual abilities to gain
subject knowledge and to learn tools in order to do database
searching.
Your
understanding that information is truly "power," and that most
people do not have the information-location and acquisition
skills to be truly empowered.
Therefore,
your information skills are not only useful to your work but to
the assistance and betterment of those lacking those
skills.
Finally, our
recognition that you are information "professionals," no less
so than librarians with masters or doctoral degrees in library
science.
Application of
non-linear thinking.
Most of the
time we think in a linear manner, such as in terms of if "A"
and if "B" therefore "C."
Example: If
A, the sun is overhead, and B, we lie out in the sun for
several hours without sunblock, then C, we will get a
sunburn.
In thinking
about problems in a non-linear manner, we are responding to
situations in which there may be a range of potential answers
for a question.
Example: Is
bottled water safer than local water out of the tap?
There
can be a range of answers to this question depending upon
who supplies the answer, what "local" means, who has done
analyses on the water, and so forth.
In thinking
about questions for which there may be a range of potential
answers, we may have to search for the answer in a variety of
ways.
Example: Is
bottled water safer than local water out of the tap?
We may
have to research government documents, newspapers,
professional journals, and more.
We may
have to use a variety of words in different combinations
to find articles and documents that provide one or
another answer.
Application of
your creativity
Database
searching is an art as well as an inexact science.
It requires
that you understand:
The nature
of the people who write particular types of
articles.
The nature
of the people who abstract (create brief summaries) of those
articles and index (provide "keywords" or subject "terms" or
"headings" that help guide a searcher to finding those
articles.
The manner
in which words in articles are organized and tracked
("indexed") in databases.
The manner
in which we use language to express ideas,
concepts.
It requires
that you apply the understanding of this information in
combinations (often complex combinations) when
searching.
A last
thought
Unfortunately, in the limited
number of classes we have and the wide range of database types
we have to cover, we will not have sufficient time to explore
any particular type of database in depth.
So, take as many other library
automation-related classes as you can, including ones at San
Jose State's School of Library and Information Science (SLIS)
and Internet-related classes.
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