LISA

LISA: Library and Information Science Abstracts
Database Guide




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July 2006














Table of Contents:
LISA Library and Information Science Abstracts 3
What is LISA: Library and Information Science Abstracts? 3
10 Reasons to Use LISA: 3
Selection Policy 4
Sample Record: 5
Searchable field codes: 6
Language: 8
Boolean Operators and Other Search Tools Supported by the CSA Interface 9
QUICK, ADVANCED, OR COMMAND SEARCHING 10
Advanced Search 11
Command Search or Professional Search 12
LIMITS 12
SORTING 13
SHOWING RECORDS 13
PRINTING, SAVING, and E-MAILING RECORDS 14
THESAURUS SEARCH 14
BROWSE INDEXES 16
The Research Process 17
Contact us: 19






LISA Library and Information Science Abstracts

What is LISA: Library and Information Science Abstracts?

LISA is an international abstracting and indexing service designed for library professionals and other information specialists. LISA provides bibliographic information about past and present developments in librarianship, information science, online retrieval, publishing and information technology. This database covers around five hundred periodicals from over sixty countries. It also includes unpublished academic and institutional research from the IRWI - Information Research Watch International database.

10 Reasons to Use LISA:

1. Keep abreast of the literature on Information Science.
2. Access to over 280,000 records
3. Backfile coverage dating to 1969
4. Advanced searching capability of 17 indexed fields
5. Searching via Browsable Indexes
6. Thesaurus Searching capability
7. Ability to cross- search with other CSA Illumina databases using a de-duping feature
8. Lateral searching through Authors and Descriptors
9. Provoked searches of the Recent References and Web Resources Related to the Social Sciences
10. Easy citation formatting via QuikBib





Selection Policy

LISA has an international perspective, and a diverse audience including researchers, students, library staff, and information professionals. Since its inception in 1969 LISA has been interested in a broad range of library and information science (LIS) theory and practice, now taking in developments facilitated by information and communications technology and LIS-related fields such as archives, records management, publishing, information design and technical writing. Consequently, LISA covers a great variety of publications.
In considering candidate journals at the scholarly end, the editor takes account of a range of standard criteria, eg publishing standards, timeliness, editorial content, peer review, international diversity of authorship and citation data. The editor also needs to have an eye for current trends and growth points within the field - at the moment, for example, in developments in Web-based distance education and electronic government.
LISA is also interested in important but more topically-oriented journals and magazines, such as the CILIP "Update" in the UK or "Bibliotecche Oggi" in Italy, and in smaller, more limited publications which deal with specialist areas of interest to the library community (eg "The One Person Library").

There are around 500 titles on CSA Illumina, 26 of which are e-journals.
For most of these journals, all articles are indexed and abstracted, but for a few fringe titles, the editor selects only those relevant to the information community.
Around one third of current journals are published in the UK another third in the USA. The rest come from a variety of countries including 14 titles from Germany, 12 from Japan, 6 from South Africa, 5 from France, 4 from India.
For a complete current serials source list please go to: http://www.csa.com/factsheets/supplements/lisa.php

The subjects covered would include:



Library management
Collection development
Cataloguing and classification
Library technology
Information retrieval
Digital libraries
Evidence based librarianship
E-learning
Knowledge management
Information literacy
Freedom of information
Electronic publishing
E-government

Taxonomies and ontologies
The semantic web
Scholarly communication
Open access
Digital preservation
Search engines
Social inclusion
E-commerce
Copyright
Digital rights management
Consumer health information
Intelligence and national security
Professional development



Sample Record:





Searchable field codes:

• Field Name Label Search Examples Indexing Policy
Abstract AB= AB=library automation 50% of abstracts are written by the indexers.
Author abstracts will be recognised by the following at the end of the abstract (author abstract)or (author abstract-amended) or even (Quotes from original text)
Accession Number AN= AN= 337749 Accession number is the unique number of the record in this particular database
Author AU= AU=Corti, Louise,
AU= Goswami, P R All Authors are indexed as they appear in the journal
Descriptors DE= DE=Library Management Descriptors are terms from the thesaurus enriched by additional non-thesaural terms. (See section on thesaurus below)
Features FE= FE=refs The feature describes extra information that you will find in the fulltext. It may inlcude one or more of the following
il : Illustrations
ports: Portraits
refs: Cited references
maps: Maps
tbls: Tables
music: Music
ISBN IB= IB= 1873671318 This is the ISBN (International Standard Book Number). This is the unique number for a book
ISSN IS= IS= 0306-4573 An ISSN (International Standard Serial Number). This is the unique number of a journal.
Journal volume JV= JV=34 This is the Volume number of a journal.
Journal Issue JI= JI=4 This relates to the issue number of a journal.
Journal Name JN= JN=Information Today This field is word indexed. This information is displayed under the header called Source
Journal Page JP= JP=129 This will retrieve either the start page or the end page of an article.
KeyWords KW= KW=library management The KeyWord field is searching Title, Abstracts and Descriptors fields together. It is the best way to search all the subject fields altogether.
Language LA= LA=French See the section on language to see which languages are covered in LISA
Publication Type PT= PT=Journal Article LISA only contains Journal article,
Publication Year PY= PY=2003 Four digit numeral which describes the year of publication of an item.
Resource Location RL= RL=firstmonday
This contains the URL where the document has been posted.
Shelfmark SH= SH=4496.373700 British Library shelfmark.
Very useful if you want to know where to find an item within the British Library
Source SO= SO=Information today near 21 This field contains the journal name (JN), volume, issue, year and page number. You can search all of the above mentioned information using a proximity operator.
Title TI= TI=fear factors
TI=La Bibliotheque Orientale: histoire, conservation et numerisation. The Bibliotheque Orientale: history, conservation and arrangement The full title is found. If the article is published in another language than English, the original title will be displayed first followed by a translation in British English
Update UD= UD=200412 This is the date when the record was uploaded to CSA Illumina. YYYYMMDD





Language:

Articles in any of the following languages are indexed in LISA


Afrikaans
Arabic
Bulgarian
Catalan
Croatian
Czech
Chinese
Danish
Dutch
English
Finnish
French
Gaelic
German
Hebrew
Hungarian
Icelandic
Indonesian

Italian
Japanese
Malay
Norwegian
Persian
Polish
Portuguese
Rumanian
Russian
Serbian
Slovak
Slovenian
Spanish
Swedish
Turkish
Urdu
Yugoslav
Welsh




Boolean Operators and Other Search Tools Supported by the CSA Interface



Boolean operators help define the relationships between words or groups of words.
AND Use to narrow a search and retrieve records containing all of the words it separates
OR Use to broaden a search and retrieve records containing any of the words it separates
NOT Use to narrow a search and retrieve records that do not contain the term following it
( ) Use to group words or phrases when combining Boolean phrases and to show the order in which relationships should be considered
Proximity operators identify the number of words to come between the search terms.
WITHIN "X" Use to narrow a search by specifying a proximity relationship of fewer than “X” words between search terms.
NEAR Use to narrow a search by specifying a proximity relationship of fewer than 10 words between search terms
Special symbols can expand the scope of your search.
* Truncate using the wild card symbol. This expands a search term to include forms of a root word, e.g. catalog* retrieves catalog, catalogue, catalogs, catalogues, cataloguing, etc.
? Find alternative spellings. The ? represents any single character; ?? represents two characters and so on. Use within or at the end of a word, e.g. wom?n finds woman as well as women
Note: Search queries containing several operators search in the following order: ( ), NEAR, NOT, AND, OR


QUICK, ADVANCED, OR COMMAND SEARCHING



On CSA Illumina, search strategies can be applied using one of three approaches.

Quick Search restricts your search to anywhere. An anywhere search looks across all of the available fields in a record. Multiple words entered into the search field, will be treated as a phrase.






Advanced Search
Advanced Search gives you the advantage of being able to select any of the 19 field codes from a pull-down menu. The separate search boxes are formatted to include the Boolean Operators to help guide you in formatting your search.



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Command Search or Professional Search

Command Search or Professional Search may be preferred by advanced users who are comfortable with entering search strategies without the aid of a template.




LIMITS
Search strategies may be refined by using the following limits (available in ‘Advanced Search’ and ‘Command Search’):

Latest Update limits your results to include only the most recent records that were added to the database. LISA is updated twice monthly.
Journal Articles Only limits the search to only include the publication type of journal articles
English Only limits retrieval to only records that are available in English.
By Publication Date limits retrieval to a specific date range.

SORTING

The sorting features give you the opportunity to order your results based on the publication date or relevancy.

Most Recent First displays the records in order beginning with the most recent.
Relevance Rank displays records in order based on relevancy. Relevancy is determined through a rating system that weighs the records based on the number of times the term(s) appear in the record and where they appear.

SHOWING RECORDS

Select how to display records from the ‘Show’ pull-down menu. Options include displaying the short format, full format, full format-no references, and custom format.

The ‘de-duplication’ feature automatically removes any duplicate records that appear in your set of results, which is especially useful when you are cross-database searching. You can also use the ‘Show Duplicates’ feature to display the duplicates.

When viewing records on CSA Illumina, both the author and descriptors are hot linked. Clicking on the hot-link will search the database for each occurrence of the selected author or descriptor.


PRINTING, SAVING, and E-MAILING RECORDS

Printing, saving, and e-mailing records can be done by using the ‘Save, Print, E-mail’ function. This function also includes an exporting feature to a number of bibliographic managers such as RefWorks and the use of our output format editor, QuikBib.



Value-Added Features

CSA Illumina offers a number of value-added features to help with the search process and maximize the relevancy of search results.

THESAURUS SEARCH

Using a thesaurus is a more powerful way to identify relevant descriptors, along with related terms.
The Thesaurus is a search aid that helps you select appropriate terms, ensuring the most comprehensive retrieval. In LISA, the thesaurus allows you to browse terms in a hierarchical index and helps you define more accurately what you are looking for.

LISA Thesaurus may be searched directly from the Thesaurus tab, using the Thesaurus Search Feature.

There are 3 ways of searching the thesaurus:

1. The Alphabetical display presents an alphabetical list of thesaurus terms. This can be compared to an Index
2. The Hierarchical display shows a term and its hierarchy. You will find additional information in this view, including its Scope and History Notes, any Use For (UF) or Use directions, and its hierarchical relationships with Broader Terms (BT), Narrower Terms (NT), and Related Terms (RT). (see screenshot below).
3. The Rotated Index displays all thesaurus terms or phrases that contain the search term used. You should only enter one word in the box. For example if you search for the word “libraries” you will display libraries as a descriptor term but also “Academic libraries”, “Digital libraries” etc.

This example illustrates the hierarchical display:



"Online catalogues" may be referred to in English language documents by a number of terms, such as:

- online catalogs
- online public access catalogues
-OPAC
- OPACs

The LISA Thesaurus gives one permitted term or descriptor and that is "Online catalogues". The other synonymous terms are listed in the Thesaurus, with a UF (Used For) reference to the permitted term

Descriptor (DE): Online catalogues
Used For: Online catalogues, Online public access catalogues, OPAC, OPACs
Broader term BT: Catalogues
Narrower Terms NT Online union catalogues
Related Terms RT: Computerized catalogues, Online cataloguing

Marked terms can be searched from any of the displays, applying AND, OR, or Explode operators, and setting limits as defined above.

BROWSE INDEXES
Searches may also be activated through three browsable indexes: Author, Journal Name, and Publication Type.




The Research Process

I) How to begin the electronic research process

A. Determine your goals:
1. State your research question:
"??"
2. Set parameters for your search (eg, technology type, gender, geographical location,)



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B. Identify general concepts:
1. Which general terms relate to your search?

C. Choose the appropriate database
1. Are there specific journals that specialize in the your area of research?


II) Build your search strategy:

A. Quick search:
1. Enter phrase or multiple search terms separated by Boolean operators AND to link terms, OR to link similar words or synonyms:

in Quick Search box


B. Advanced Search:
The drop boxes allow you to limit the search by any of the searchable field codes including Keyword (KW), Author (AU), Journal Name (JN), Descriptor (DE), Abstract (AB), or Title (TI). You can also limit your search to specific publication years and choose the record format. The descriptor field (DE) and abstract field (AB) will allow you to narrow down your search even more by locating specific descriptors and key words in the abstract.
Example: If I wanted to limit my search to India.





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III) Analyzing Results

A. Good results:
If results are satisfactory, then Save, Print, E-mail citations or download them to a bibliographic manager such as RefWorks or QuikBib.

B. If results are not on target:
1. Check spelling of search terms and use thesauri or browsable indexes to drop unnecessary or misleading terms.
2. Increase precision: for example, if you want to emphasize the gender gap in access to Internet then you may have to search access as a descriptor (DE) or word in the title of the article instead of by keyword (KW). Also, sexual inequality may be more specific than just sex differences
3. You may need to rethink whether the database you selected is appropriate for your search.

C. Too few/too many results:
1. Increase retrieval by using fewer ANDs and more ORs

Example: KW=Internet OR information technology OR computers
Or...
2. Increase precision by using additional ANDs and fewer ORs (NOT can be used to exclude some terms)

Example: KW=(Internet AND information technology AND computers NOT telecommunications)


Contact us:

For Technical support issues: support@csa.com

For training requests: training@csa.com

For sales related questions sales@csa.com

For documentation please visit: http://www.csa.com/support/trainingmaterial.php

For a list of all available databases on CSA Illumina and any other products available from CSA:
http://www.csa.com/e_products/databases-collections.php