Searching

A -  Different levels and approaches: 
   1. easy 
       1.1 expert
   2. menu/windows driven
       2.1 command driven
   3. browsing term lists/indexes directly pointing to records
   4. complex query expressions
   5. browsing record list

Short Record List browsing is default window, database dependent: one record per line, can choose any field to display in up to six columns. Quick Find: enter string based upon sort key. Sort on any displayed field by clicking the column field bar

Short Record List browsing is default window, common to all databases: one record per line; can handle up to eight (8) columns and use any field to display. Quickly move to record by directly entering a string belonging to first sort field key (no special windows is displayed). Sort (A/D) on any displayed field by clicking the column field bar. Cannot use term lists here to point to records. Cannot toggle between short list and search result: one or the other. Can show preview of one highlighted record 

Short Record list browsing is default window, not database dependent -and can apply to all lists (retrieved, imported, duplicates etc.): one record per line, can choose any field (up to 37); sort on any displayed field by clicking the column field bar. Quick retrieval lets select terms but only from Term Manager and launch <F12> a search (AND or OR)

B - Term lists derived from indexes useful for browsing and searching

Reference Manager:3 predefined lists (authors, kw, journals) + 1 generic "Phrase" list; useful to search : (pick-up lists or faster access via Term Manager; not useful to browse: you never see term lists and record together, but select one or more terms and do a Quick retrieval: different terms can be combined (AND | OR) 

C -   Browsing term lists (indexes) to search
    1. entries show number of related docs
    2. relationships (e.g. x-refs) between entries are displayed
    3. direct selection of index terms and display of related documents

D - Length of indexable keys
N.b. usually it's around 250 chars or "unlimited", also Total Index size and Number of entries per list are usually practically unlimited: only restrictions are mentioned here

E - Thesaurus (structured dictionary with relationships among terms)

F -  Query expressions

G -  Natural language queries

H -  Search strategy : can save and recall search expressions

I -  Shows hits of each search expression component

J -  Refine (search within search result)

K -  Advanced search features
    1. best match, weighted terms, ranking
    2. fuzzy, sounds like
    3. hypertext-like: navigating

L  -  Highlighting search terms in result (and jump to next occurrence of term)

M  -  Indexing operation
    1. real time
    2. batch

N  -  Scope of searching
    1. one or more distinct fields
    2. cluster of fields
    3. full text = any field (i.e. all the fields are indexed and searchable) 
    4. same occurrence

O -   Case sensitiveness

P -  Diacritics make difference (it is considered an unpleasant feature if it cannot be disactivated)

Q -  Can use and nest parentheses, create real query expressions

R -  Priority within search operators and queries

S -  Boolean operators
    1. AND
    2. OR
    3. NOT (unary)
    4. AND NOT (binary)
    5. XOR

T -  Relational operators
   1. contains 
   2. different <>
   3. less than     <
   4. less or equal    <=
   5. greater than     >
   6. greater or equal     >=
   7. range   
   8. equal

U -  Can combine boolean, relational operators, parentheses, truncation etc.

V -  Truncated search (wildcards are explicit or implicit?)
    1. explicit or implicit
    2. right
    3. left
    4. l/r

"contains" is like "=" equal, with implicit l/r truncation; whereas explicit l/r truncation ( *xxx*) is used with "=" e.g. AUTHOR contains ale, AUTHOR = *ale*, no: AUTHOR contains *ale*,)

W -  Search for not/empty fields

X -  Internal wildcards ("masking" e.g. ? * : m*ss, for miss mass mess mistress ..)

Y -  Z39.50 Searching

RefWorks (web based): yes

1. embedds BookWhere® search engine;
2. use special -simplified and limited- search interface (e.g.: cannot use parentheses: (A or B) and (C or D) will not be possible);
3. can search different databases simultaneously;
4. automatically converts and saves result in db, separate folder;
5. can save search expressions; 
6. modify or add new hosts and configure; 
7. configure conversion filters which are separate files but many connections can share the same filter (e.g. MARC21); one single file contains all the different hosts configurations and properties;
8. cannot specify text characters set (ANSEL, Latin-1...)

1. embedded proprietary software built upon the Yaz toolkit;
2. use same interface as normal searching function (with less options but it can also search in command line mode: \\[search-term]&/attribute type/attribute value ...);
3. cannot search different databases simultaneously, but can launch more than one parallel search session; 
4. automatically save result in db without asking for conversion;
5. can save search expressions; 
6. modify or add new hosts and configure; 
7. configure conversion filters; host configuration, connection properties in individual files so that many connections cannot share the same conversion filter (e.g. MARC21) but copies or adaptations of it; 
8. can specify text characters set (ANSEL, Latin-1, Unicode UTF-8, Unicode UTF-16...etc.) and > 20 record format syntaxes. 

1. embedds BookWhere? search engine;
2. use same interface as normal searching function (cannot use parentheses);
3. can search different databases simultaneously;
4. automatically converts and saves result in db, separate folder;
5. can save search expressions; 
6. modify or add new hosts and configure
7. configure conversion filterswhich are separate files but many connections can share the same filter (e.g. MARC21); one single file contains all the different hosts configurations and properties; 
8. can specify text characters set (ANSEL, Latin-1...)
9. in addition to Z39.50 hosts and PubMed search (which is not Z39.50), an "ISI" option lets -password required- search ISI databases, such as : Science Citation Index Expanded, Social Sciences Citation Index, Arts & Humanities Citation Index. Resulting records can be donwloaded, automatically converted and linked back to records in ISI's database

Z - Number of Z39.50 targets/connections