Issue 6

Austguide

I received Austguide 1993 towards the end of April.

The databases on the Austguide CD-ROM have been selected with school libraries in mind, The databases include Guidelines and Pinpointer, bibliographic indexes of popular (mostly but not exclusively Australian) magazines and some statistical data from the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS). Guidelines is cumulated to December 1992, Pinpointer to May 1992 (it is currently being updated.) ABS data ranges from 1990-1992. The shareware software which was on the previous disk is no longer available, presumably as a response to the questionnaire sent out by Informit towards the end of 1992.

Guidelines and Pinpointer, like the rest of the Informit family of disks operating on KA ware search software, provide an easy and familiar method of searching. (If you've used one you can use them all.) Students find them simple to use.

It is possible to search by author, title, descriptions, journal or to use CROSS-SEARCH to search across all fields. The 1993 version of Guidelines now also allows searching by year of publication. This overcomes the need to use ALT-J to jump to the last record in the search to see the most recent records. This change will make it much easier for students to locate the most recent articles in the search set.

There are also some changes to searching by DESCRIPTIONS which necessitates searching separately by descriptor and subheading and then combining the sets. As most students search by the default CROSS-SEARCH, this change will have little effect on their search strategies. It is, however, useful to note for use in more difficult search situations.

Like the other CD-ROM products from Informit, the installation procedures have been streamlined. If you own several of their products the new set-up will save space on the hard drive of your computer by allowing all KAware CD-ROMs to share the same search software, instead of each disk requiring its own.

The Austguide: getting started handbook provide with the CD-ROM is much expanded. It now provided a handy list of all periodicals indexed on Guidelines and Pinpointer, draws attention to changes on the disk and provides a comprehensive and user friendly step through search. It is even indexed.

The Austguide disk is a boon to secondary school libraries. Students at my school use it with great ease and success. My wish is that the up-dates were more closely aligned with the school year. Austguide is available from Informit, GPO Box 2476V, Melbourne 3001, Victoria. Cost $220.00

THORPE ROM

Australian and New Zealand Books in Print on CD-ROM

THORPE ROM contains over 70,000 records from Australian Books in Print and New Zealand Books in Print. Australian books published since 1990 also have the addition of annotations from Guide to new Australian Books.

The installation procedure was simple. I had it up and running within a few minutes. It operates on BRS search software which I had not used before. Even without recourse to the detailed user manual, I found the disk easy to use and very user-friendly. It is possible to search using a menu level search or command level search. I opted for menu.

It is possible to search by AUTHOR, TITLE, PUBLISHER, SERIES or CLASSIFICATION (over one hundred classification areas such as CHILDREN'S FICTION, TEENAGE FICTION, EDUCATION. SCIENCE - a detailed list is in the user manual). One can search by keyword within any of these fields or by any combination. It is possible to search for TEENAGE FICTION (classification) and FANTASY and obtain a list of annotated titles. Obviously this feature will become more valuable as the percentage of annotated records increases. Records can be displayed on a variety of formats including the default short format and single format (which shows the annotation).

Records can also be shown in MARC format. Once a search has been made, it can be refined. Certain records within a search can be tagged. These records can be sorted and printed out or down-loaded to disk.

In the short format, records are marked to show whether they contain an annotation and whether or not they are in print. The single format shows all publication information, including price.

When searching, it is possible to browse through an index to check on the thesaurus of terms used. One must do this before commencing the search. Once the required term is located a function key will move it into the search mode without needing to re-key. Searching will permit truncation and the use of wildcard symbols. It is also possible to do a fast author/title search using up to four letters from each term, eg WINT-LOCK yields the records for Lockie Leonard, Human Torpedo by Tim Winton.

The disk is quite intuitive to use and contains excellent on-line help. I found that I had mastered all of the features that I have described within 30 minutes.

THORPE ROM is available on a special quarterly subscription for schools for $400.00. Thorpes are offering the disk for three weeks on approval.

D.H. Thorpe 18 Salmon St, Port Melbourne, 3207

It is an excellent product which would be particularly helpful to schools that do not have access to a good bookseller and who are wealthy enough to afford it.