Thursday, August 28, 2008
The two Avery Indexes
The two Avery Indexes, Information from Kitty Chibnik:
The contents (the records) of the Avery Index via OCLC and via Wilson are the same. Honestly, I use and show students the OCLC version most of the time because *it includes our local call number (Avery No.)* at the bottom of the record itself. They can just note down the citation information and the call number and go to the stacks and get the volume. Quick and easy. This eliminates having to explain "E-Link" or the need going back to CLIO to search for the journal in order to get the call number Of course, it misses finding an e-article which students love, but that's hit or miss in the architecture field in any case.With both the OCLC version and the Wilson version, you can search multiple databases simultaneously, but each vendor offers a different lineup of databases, so depending on the question, you might pick one version over the other. Say the question is about work done by a contemporary artist who is working on a public art project in a park (for instance, Battery City) so articles might show up in art journals and in architecture journals. In that case, it is worth using the Wilson version because you can search the Avery Index, Art Full Text, Art Retrospective, and others in one shot. But you have to explain the call number bit.Similarly, you should at look at the lineup of databases in OCLC to see what combinations might be worth doing. For instance for a more real estate oriented or general question , you could combine an Avery Index search with ArticleFirst and ABI Inform. or for a artist/architect (say, Michelangelo) , you could search Avery along with the Bibliography of the History of Artt (BHA). Only the Avery Index records will have our call numbers included; any other results would need E-link.On the surface the interface in Wilson may be a bit easier to use in terms of doing limiting because it is boxes to click and dropdowns to choose. But, I don't think you can specify multiple illustration types (say, the student wants both elevations and drawings of a building) which you can do in OCLC by using keywords.
OCLC: http://www.columbia.edu/cgi-bin/cul/resolve?ALD2229
Wislon: http://www.columbia.edu/cgi-bin/cul/resolve?clio6383857
I (kdd) found that the results varied when I used the exact same words in each database, hence Ted Goodman gave this explanation:
Hi- it's very simple--I did both searches again and got your same results: negroes and housing.the reason is that in OCLC it only gives you results for the actual term negroes whereas in Wilson it gives you results that include negro (both the singular form as well as the spanish term for black), negroe and negroes.==thus 22. if you look at the Wilson results you'll see many that are not relevant because they are in spanish and refer to the black house, etc.In OCLC to get similar results you should truncate negr? and housing although even this only returns 19. It may also be bacause OCLC hasn't been updated since April. They have been having a loading problem which should be resolved this week.
The contents (the records) of the Avery Index via OCLC and via Wilson are the same. Honestly, I use and show students the OCLC version most of the time because *it includes our local call number (Avery No.)* at the bottom of the record itself. They can just note down the citation information and the call number and go to the stacks and get the volume. Quick and easy. This eliminates having to explain "E-Link" or the need going back to CLIO to search for the journal in order to get the call number Of course, it misses finding an e-article which students love, but that's hit or miss in the architecture field in any case.With both the OCLC version and the Wilson version, you can search multiple databases simultaneously, but each vendor offers a different lineup of databases, so depending on the question, you might pick one version over the other. Say the question is about work done by a contemporary artist who is working on a public art project in a park (for instance, Battery City) so articles might show up in art journals and in architecture journals. In that case, it is worth using the Wilson version because you can search the Avery Index, Art Full Text, Art Retrospective, and others in one shot. But you have to explain the call number bit.Similarly, you should at look at the lineup of databases in OCLC to see what combinations might be worth doing. For instance for a more real estate oriented or general question , you could combine an Avery Index search with ArticleFirst and ABI Inform. or for a artist/architect (say, Michelangelo) , you could search Avery along with the Bibliography of the History of Artt (BHA). Only the Avery Index records will have our call numbers included; any other results would need E-link.On the surface the interface in Wilson may be a bit easier to use in terms of doing limiting because it is boxes to click and dropdowns to choose. But, I don't think you can specify multiple illustration types (say, the student wants both elevations and drawings of a building) which you can do in OCLC by using keywords.
OCLC: http://www.columbia.edu/cgi-bin/cul/resolve?ALD2229
Wislon: http://www.columbia.edu/cgi-bin/cul/resolve?clio6383857
I (kdd) found that the results varied when I used the exact same words in each database, hence Ted Goodman gave this explanation:
Hi- it's very simple--I did both searches again and got your same results: negroes and housing.the reason is that in OCLC it only gives you results for the actual term negroes whereas in Wilson it gives you results that include negro (both the singular form as well as the spanish term for black), negroe and negroes.==thus 22. if you look at the Wilson results you'll see many that are not relevant because they are in spanish and refer to the black house, etc.In OCLC to get similar results you should truncate negr? and housing although even this only returns 19. It may also be bacause OCLC hasn't been updated since April. They have been having a loading problem which should be resolved this week.
// posted by karen @ 9:26 AM 
