Resource Management - Metadata Editor Search Examples

Owned by Jennifer Koerber (Unlicensed)
Last updated: Feb 02, 2019
5 min read

Note: This was originally one video split into two to upload to the wiki.

 

Searching in the Metadata Editor

The last three resource management-related searches happen directly in the Metadata Editor, so you can easily view, import, or edit a record you’ve found. You can get to them from the main menu under Resources – these three right here – or while you are working in the Metadata Editor directly.

Browse Bib Headings

First, another way to search bibliographic authority records is to Browse Bib Headings. Click on Browse Bibliographic Headings and choose your options.

When you select a headings type option, the page refreshes to display appropriate "source codes" for the headings type selected. Choose your Source Code in the middle box, then enter your terms in the Search Value box and click Browse.

  • Names: Includes names used as subjects and uniform titles
  • Subjects: Includes various subject types and various vocabularies to work in
  • Series: Gives the same options as Names (Includes all 4XXs and 8XXs)
  • Title: Is a direct keyword search for words in the title
  • Call Number/Classifications: You can choose for any of these Classification schemes. [Not spoken: Includes call numbers from standard and local call number fields in the bibliographic record, but not from the holdings record.]

In this case, we’ll search Names for Murakami, Haruki. In the results you see four columns:

  • The magnifying glass icon indicates that there is a corresponding authority record for that heading.
  • The number indicates the number of bibliographic record headings found for a particular subject, name, series, or title headings row. If there are more than 20 headings found for a particular row, this column displays 20+, as it does here.
  • The bibliographic record headings (subject, name, series, or title) that was found, and here is where you can browse through to see related holdings.
  • A View button for viewing the authority and bibliographic records.

If I click on View next to Murakami, it opens in the Split Editor.

Navigation and Viewing

For bibliographic headings records identified with the authority icon, the detail in the split-screen view displays both an Authority tab and a Bibliographic Records tab. 

The Authority tab presents the authority record that is associated with the bibliographic headings record. The Bibliographic Records tab displays the total number of records in parentheses. When you click on the tab, you can see all of those bibliographic records.

From the Bibliographic Records tab, you can View or Edit each record, and you can:

  • filter your list using the search box at the top
  • sort your results
  • navigate through the pages of results or using the left- or right-facing arrows
  • click on the Open in Repository Search option to create an advanced search

When you see a headings record that you want to view in more detail, click View.

Once you click View, click on the pages – you can continue looking through the bibliographic records from here – you don’t need to go back to the results to keep paging through. If you do want to go back to the results list at any tie, click on Back to Results.

A second search in the Metadata Editor is the ability to search external resources.

Search External Resources

Search External Resources will let you find bibliographic records in internationally-recognized catalogs such as Worldcat/OCLC, the Library of Congress, the British Library, and more. This search is conducted in the Metadata Editor so you can immediately import and work with that record once you find it. For more on working in the Metadata Editor, please watch the Cataloging module of this course.

To search external resources:

  1. Under Resources, find Search External Resources in the Cataloging section. This will open the Metadata Editor and present you with a search form.
  2. From the Search Cataloging Profile drop-down, choose the particular cataloging profile that you want to search. We have created a convenient pre-order searching configuration, where it will simultaneously search Harvard’s repository, OCLC, and the Library of Congress all at the same time. You can also just search Library of Congress, WorldCat, or WorldCat + Library of Congress – those have all been configured.
  3. Now, for all of the relevant fields that you want to use (or all of the fields for which you have information), choose whether you want to search by Phrase or Keyword and type in the phrase or keywords that you want to search for. (I’ll go ahead and do my Murakami search again under Creator.)
  4. When you’ve filled in all the fields you want, click Search.
  5. The results page will display three tabs, one for Harvard results, one for OCLC, and one for the Library of Congress. Note that the number of results will only display once you click on the tab. We have 298 for Harvard. If I click on the WorldCat tab, it will now evaluate and show us that we have another 7,000 records in WorldCat. There may or may not be additional results under Library of Congress; you can go ahead and click on that tab to find out.
    1. These are nested results: all Harvard records will display on the first tab, but the second will only display records that are in OCLC and not in the Harvard repository and the LOC tab will only display what’s in neither OCLC nor Harvard.

You can navigate through using the pages or arrows up at the top.

Once you locate the record you want, you can import that bib into Alma. You’ll learn more about working with records in the Metadata Editor in the Cataloging Overview and in Cataloging functional training.

View Shelf List

You can view/browse a range of call numbers at a particular location and their associated records, using the Browse Shelf Listing option.

  1. Go to the Resources menu
  2. Click on Browse Shelf Listing in the Cataloging section. Note that it defaults to the location that you’ve set yourself to. I am currently set at ITS 625, which is why there is no library appearing in my default. In fact, I get every library that I have access to. If I switch to a library, it will reopen and you can see it is now set to default to search that library.
  3. This will open the Metadata Editor with five search choices:
    1. Call Number Level to choose between permanent and temporary call numbers (if used)
    2. Library by code and then name: it will default to your Current location.
    3. Call Number Type to choose which type of call numbers you’d like to browse (LOC, HCL, Harvard-Yenching, Tozzer, etc.)
    4. Location within that library, either specific collections or area studies
    5. A Call Number field to enter a specific portion of a call number to search by
  4. Enter all of the fields you want to search by and click Go

When the results come up, we can see we have our list of call numbers to browse; we have our Description, which includes the title of the bibliographic information; we have our Library and Location; and we have our Holdings option over here. Clicking on the title in the Description column will open the bibliographic record to edit; clicking on the word Holdings at the right will open the holdings record to edit.

You can also find all of these searches – Browse Bibliographic Headings, Search External Resources, and Browse Shelf Listing – from within the Tools drop-down of the Metadata Editor. Since we’re already in the Browse Shelf Listing choice, those are greyed out as not an option.

More Information

In this video, we reviewed Resources related searches using the persistent search bar, from the main menu, and in the Metadata Editor. For more information, review the Cataloging module and functional training. In the Alma wiki, see the Resources functional documentation, and visit related pages in the Ex Libris Knowledge Center for very detailed references lists.