What is it?

Kinetica consists of several different large bibliographic databases and is administered by the National Library of Australia. The most important is the National Bibliographic Database (NDB), which contains 12 million records and 20 million individual holdings from virtually all major libraries in this country. You can now discover for yourself which library holds the books you are seeking.

Why would I use it?

Common books are easy to find but scholars often want to locate rare or more obscure material. By using Kinetica you can avoid searching through many different online catalogues. One search will show you all the Australian holdings of the items you seek.

Searching Kinetica

This guide shows how to do relatively simple searches. However, Kinetica searching can be very sophisticated, and if you want more information about search techniques, you are invited to download the complete guide Searching made simple in KineticaWeb from the National Library’s website. This document is essential for all but the simplest searches. It lists all searching codes as well as system error messages.

Logging on

Click the Kinetica link on the Library’s database page. You will need a username and password. This is only available to University of Tasmania Library borrowers. Call the Library Service Desk on 6226 1818 or email ServiceDesk@utas.edu.au

Searching

After log-in, a screen entitled “Advanced search in National Bibliographic Database” will appear. Advanced Search is the default, but Simple and Expert modes are also available via links at the top left of the screen. Advanced is best for most purposes.

Select an index to search such as Title, Personal name etc. Kinetica has a huge range of searchable indexes, but many are only of specialized interest.

Type the search term into search box.

If necessary you may now repeat the process with additional search terms in the search boxes below, linking them with AND/OR etc.
Complex queries can be constructed in Advanced search, using multiple drop-down boxes and indexes, connected by Boolean, relational or proximity operators:

Truncation and Wildcards

? character: The question mark is used to broaden a search. The question mark replaces one or more characters at the end of a word. The question mark can be used in Advanced Search and Expert Search.
Example: child? finds child, children, childhood etc.

# character: The hash sign replaces one character in a search query. Multiple hashes can be used to indicate multiple characters. The hash can be used in Advanced Search and Expert Search.
Example: m#croeconomics finds items on microeconomics and macroeconomics

Press the Search button. Note the message on the next screen display:
"This page will refresh until the search is finished!" You must wait until the search is completed and this may take some time.

Note carefully: Kinetica makes no allowance for mistakes. If any search parameter is not entered correctly the only result will be “0 hits” with no other comment. For this reason it is best to combine as few terms as possible to achieve the result you want. For example, if you want only French language versions of a book, you can choose the “language” index option but must know that “fre” is the code that MUST be used in the search box. There are many such codes in Kinetica. They are all listed in the previously mentioned guide Searching made simple in KineticaWeb.

Search results

A successful search will result in a message such “50 hits”. Unsuccessful searches will result in “0 hits” and you will have to click the “Edit query “ button to reformulate your search strategy.
Click on “View records” to display the item list. Clicking on the “Extended view” link will display the full record with library holdings at the bottom. (“View MARC” is usually only of interest to librarians).

Note: The list will often contain duplicates, the only significant difference being the library holdings attached to them.

Saving Results

Records must be saved one by one, by clicking on its Keep record link. If you wish to save the Extended view (full record with library holdings), that view must be displayed when the Keep record command is given. The result list must be retrieved each time a record is kept to the save list. Search results can be saved or sent by email, but only in HTML format.

Endnote and Kinetica

You can use Endnote to search and download records from Kinetica. You will need to download the Kinetica connection file (UTas users only) from our webpage. Drop it into your Endnote connections folder. (If you are using a Mac, unstuff the .sit file first) This connection file does not come pre-packaged with the Endnote program.

Note:: Library holdings are not included in records downloaded using Endnote.