Library Acquisirrons: Pracrice and Theory. Vol. 9, pp. 79-82. I985 Printed in the USA All rights reserved.

0364-6408/ 85 %03.00+ .OO

Copyright 0 1985 Pergamon Press Ltd

USING DIALOG AS A BOOK SELECTION TOOL

KENNETH QUINN

Science and Engineering Librarian

Library. Univ. of Alabama--Huntsville

Huntsville, AL 35899

ABSTRACT

Several databases offered by the DIALOG system were used to locate book reviews in thefields of mathematics, chemistry, and computer science; in thefirst two fields, specific topics were ofparticular interest. i%e writer, who has little expertise in these fields, believes that the cost of the searches is worthwhile, inasmuch as he was provided with an essentially complete list of books recently published on the topics of interest and with listings or evaluations of their contents. The DIALOG searches were considered to be more thorough than a manual search would have been, and were muchfaster than a manualsearch.

Book selection is a time-consuming process, particularly when the goal is to strengthen the collection in a particular area. The selector must attempt to acquire worthwhile publications on topics where his own expertise may be of very limited extent. In science and technology, a further complication is added: the material usually must be current, or it will be obsolete even before it is purchased. The ideal situation is to be able to find, with an efficient investment of time, publica- tion data and reviews (particularly critical reviews) and for such a list to be not only complete but also compiled by experts in the particular field.

The University of Alabama-Huntsville Library has recently had the opportunity to strengthen its collection in the sciences and in engineering. It quickly became clear that objective evaluations of recent books in several fields would be of great use, and that time was at a premium. It was decided to use DIALOG to locate book reviews in certain fields. Three areas were selected as being good candidates for the procedure. In the three fields, the departments involved had indicated what topics were of special interest or were insufficiently represented in the collection. The subject areas had online databases that allowed the searcher to locate books and exclude other document types and also were comprehensive. In all three cases, the library had the printed equivalent; as a result, the complete abstract could be accessed off-line and keywords could be checked for applicability prior to the search. The three areas were mathematics, chemistry, and computer science.

79

80 KENNETH QUINN

MATHEMATICS

In a conversation with the library liaison for the Mathematics Department, several areas of weakness in the collection were identified. The author did not feel qualified to judge accurately the worth of books on some of the topics; therefore, critical reviews of the recently published books in these fields were needed. Such reviews are found in the ,4merican Mathematics Society’s publica- tion Muthematicd Reviews, available on-line through DIALOG as MATHFILE. The following search was run.

FILE 239: MATHFILE 73-83/ DEC 1 18355 DT = BOOK 2 83165 PY = 198O:PY = 1984 3 14357 COMBINATORICS 4 5014 MATRIX(W)THE.ORY 5 24184 NUMERICAL(W:IANALYSIS 6 27639 PROBABILITY 7 21685 STATISTICS 8 11487 GRAPH(W)THE 9 65121 DlFFERENTIALt W)EQUATIONS

10 141202 3-9/OR 11 1502 lOAND2AND 1 12 897 1 l/ENG 13 I3265 PROCEEDINGS 14 570 12NOT 13

A printout of the first few entries in set 1 I showed that a large number of the citations were in languages other than English. Conference proceedings also formed a large number of the set. Both of these subsets were undesirable, and were eliminated. Of the 570 citations left, it was felt that 200 would suffice. These, the first 200, were printed off-line in format 6 (abstract number and title).

After the printout was received, the abstracts were consulted; books of apparent interest were ordered. Approximately a third of the citations were considered desirable enough to order; about another 10% were marked as being desirable if funds became available.

The advantages of the search were threefold. Approximately 10 hours of librarian’s time was saved by eliminating the manual search of the subject indexes and by being able to access the abstracts in numerical order. Second, the use of terms used also as subject headings in Mathe- matical Reviews helped insure that the retrieval was both thorough and accurate. Third, the opinion of experts was used in book selection in fields where the librarian’s expertise was not profound.

CHEMISTRY

CA SEARCH was the database of choice in searching for books on chemistry topics. In particular, books on certain crystallographic topics were desired as were books dealing with chemical reactions in zero or low gravity environments or with surface enhanced Raman spectros- copy. The search was run with the following result. !Since the printed abstract needed to be consulted, only theabstract number was needed.

Using DIALOG as a Book Selection Tool

FILE 311: CA SEARCH 1982-84 UD = 10008 1 3075 CRYSTAL(W)GRO 2 10599 CORROSION 3 9909 DIFFUSION 4 23 PHASE(W)PARTlTlON 5 276 SURFACE(W)ENHANCED(W)RAMAN 6 23687 l-S/OR 7 11971 DT = BOOK 8 130 6AND7 9 43 81 ENG

10 0 MICROGRAVITY

A preliminary search was made in the subject indexes of the printed version of Chemical Abstracts. All the terms used, except microgravity, were found. However, one problem showed up when the printout was received and the abstracts examined; many of the corrosion citations dealt with corrosion in engineering situations. This problem might have been avoided by modify- ing set 2 to CORROSION AND CRYSTAL?.

The overall results were at first disappointing-only a few of the citations recovered resulted in book orders. It should be remembered, however, that many hours of manual searching through Chemical Abstracts were saved.

COMPUTER SCIENCE

For computer science, no subject topics were used; all books would be of interest. The “c” subfile of INSPEC, corresponding to Computer and Control Abstracts, was selected.

FILE 13: INSPEC - 77 - 84/ ISS 06 1 267077 SF=C 2 3095 DT=BOOK 3 1282 lAND4 4 1278 3/ENG 5 138086 PY=1983 6 124 4AND5

Results were printed in format 6, yielding title and abstract number. The majority of citations, approximately 7570, resulted in book orders. The rejections were primarily books on persona1 computers, which this library does not routinely acquire.

The costs of the searches were moderate. The charges were:

MATHFILE

CA SEARCH

INSPEC

$16.68 online costs (including 30 online prints) 25.84 offline prints

5.92 online costs 1.72 offline prints

12.15 online 5.12 offline prints

82 KENNETHQUINN

SUMMARI

Evaluations of books published on esoteric topics are a big aid to the book selector whose own knowledge of the topics may be rudimentary; such evaluations were located by DIALOG searches in several databases. In MATHFILE. critical reviews were available; in CA SEARCH and INSPEC, the abstracts were not critical, but did express impartially the contents of the books. Furthermore, the results of the DIALOG searches werle perceived by the searcher to represent as complete a listing of recently-published books on the topics as could be expected. The searches could not have been duplicated manually, since the printed equivalents do not allow for selection by document type. The investment of money was considered very reasonable; not only was a comprehensive bibliography obtained, but many hours of time were saved.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS--The assistance of Susan Prewitt in locating abstracts and in prepa- ration of the manuscript is gratefully acknowledged.