AustLit : Australia's Literary database - University of Tasmania Library

	AustLit: Australia's Literary database
	Logging on Searching with Basic Search Advanced Search Thesaurus Combining Search Words TruncationResults Saving Results History Alerts Logging off Printable version.pdf Introduction AustLit provides information on creative and critical Australian works of literature, Australian authors and literary organisations. It covers literature from 1780 to the present. It covers print and electronic sources and includes a growing number of full text critical articles and literary works. It aims for comprehensive coverage of the field of Australian literature. Logging on Warning: AustLit works best with Internet Explorer 5.5 or later. From the University of Tasmania Library’s Web page at http://www.utas.edu.au/library/ Click on Databases Click on A Click on AUSTLIT Searching with Basic Search Select Search from the menu on the left of screen. You have a very wide range of search options. Use the Search Tips link near the top right of the Basic Search screen to learn more about recommended ways of searching. The easiest way to start is to put a keyword in one or more of the search boxes. Example: here is one way to find information on Peter Carey’s novel “My life as a fake”. Enter carey in the Name box and fake in the Title box. Click on the Search button (near bottom center of screen). A list of relevant results will be displayed. Click on links on this results page to display full records. Return to this results page using your browser’s back button when you want to see other retrieved results. At the bottom of each record is a link entitled Show x works about: . This will lead you to citations of reviews and critical articles about the work. Advanced Search Near the top left of the Basic Search screen is a link: “Go to Advanced Search” The Advanced Search screen allows you to specify your own search options. You can choose any combination from over forty different search parameters. Warning: This option does not work well if too many different combinations are used in a search. Keep it as simple as possible. Thesaurus Select the Thesaurus button on the red toolbar of the Basic Search screen. The Thesaurus screen allows you to navigate from broad to progressively narrower subject concepts. This is a good way to: Find works on particular topics or themes Find works about specific places Find recipients of particular literary awards or prizes Combining Search Words AND : apple AND* tree* will retrieve records containing both those words. OR : apple OR tree will retrieve all records containing only one or more of those words. NOT : apple NOT* tree* will retrieve only those records containing the word apple but not tree. Use brackets when necessary : (migrant experiences AND asian People ) NOT children Note: Operators AND, OR and NOT must be in upper-case. Truncation - for any number of characters: Crim will find crime, criminals, criminality Womn* will find woman, women Petersn* will find Peterson, and Petersen Woloo* will find Woolloomooloo Results Search results are presented in a numbered list. Click on the box next to each entry you wish to mark. At the bottom of the list are options for exporting , printing etc. The following symbols help you assess your results Full text or electronically accessible items display the symbol. Click on the symbol to get full text. (Not always reliable!) Separately published works (eg. book and journal issue records) display the symbol Criticisms and reviews that have been rated highly by experts display the symbol Use the Show Holdings option to automatically search KineticaAustralia’s National Bibliographic Database to display Australian library holdings information. (Note: Not all UTas holding are listed on Kinetica) Saving results Printing Print, save or email records in your preferred format - plain text format is recommended for email. To print individual AustLit pages use the Print option on your browser. Save the records to the relevant drive (eg. floppy drive or hard-drive) on your own computer. To email results, select the format you wish to receive the records in, enter your email address in the box provided and press the Email button. History You cannot save your search history or combine previous searches in AustLit Alerts The Personal Alert Service allows you to define up to 10 different searches to find newly added or updated records of interest to you. Use the link on the left of the main AustLit page to learn how to set up your Alerts. You can choose weekly or monthly updates (by email) for each alert. Logging off There is no need to log off, just go to another website or close your browser when you are finished.