Southern Tablelands Regional Library

Southern Tablelands Regional Library Catalogue Help

Using the online catalogue search for the first time
Author Search
Title Search
Subject Search
Keyword Search
Search Tips
Web Browser Settings

Using the online catalogue search for the first time

Amlib NetOpacs is a Catalogue Inquiry System that can be accessed using any Java enabled web browser such as Internet Explorer or Netscape. The searches on the catalogue take place in real time exactly as if you were one of our libraries. Not only can you search the library catalogue for items held but also see whether these items are available for borrowing or are out on loan.

Registered borrowers can place reservations on items displayed from a search, renew their current loans and view their borrowing history. To access your information you will need:

To be registered with the library.
Use your borrower barcode number (printed on your library card) to reserve or access your current loans, renew your loans and history.
Have a security PIN assigned. If you do not have a PIN or require a new PIN please contact your library.

Author Search

You can use Author searching when you are sure of the exact author of a book, video, CD, etc., and you are fairly sure of how to spell it. You may also wish to use an author search when you want to narrow your search and find fewer items than you found with a keyword search.

An Author Search will search for:

People as authors
Organizations as authors
Composers
Performers
Directors
Producers
Illustrators
Artists

This search will return a list of authors in alphabetical order. Type as much or as little of the AUTHOR'S NAME as you want, for example:

shakespeare, william
Harrison J
madonna
Australian Government Publishing Service

Incorrect spelling will return a list which may not include the author you are searching. If you are unsure of the spelling of the author's name, type as much as you are sure of (ex: type 'Grish' for John Grisham).

Title Search

You can use Title searching when you are sure of the exact title of a book, video, CD, etc., and you are fairly sure of how to spell it. You may also wish to use a title search when you want to narrow your search and find fewer items than you found with a keyword search.

A Title Search will search for:

Exact Titles.
Variant spellings and wordings of titles.
Analytic titles. Titles of pieces within a book, for example the title of a short story in a collection.
Uniform titles. Titles to make all versions of a work findable together, for example, all versions of the Bible will have the Uniform title Bible.

Incorrect spelling will return a list which may not include the title you are searching. If you are unsure of the spelling of the title, type only as much as you are sure of (ex: type 'horse w' for The Horse Whisperer).

Subject Search

This search will return an alphabetical list of Subject Headings that include:

Library of Congress Subject Headings.
Genre Headings.
Local Subject Headings.

Incorrect spelling will return a list which may not include the subject you are searching. If you are not familiar with the correct phrasing of subject headings, (such as Library of Congress subject headings), you may prefer to use a Keyword Search.

Keyword Search

General Keyword Searching allows you to look for records that contain words that describe the type of material you are looking for. It is useful because you don't need to match a phrase word for word as it appears in the catalogue like you do if you're looking for a title or a subject. It is also useful because it searches for words from several different fields in the record, instead of limiting you to one field like author and title searches do. In a Keyword Search you may enter a title, part of a title, author, subject, series, or any combination of fields.

Use Keyword searching:

When you are unsure of the exact title of a book, video, CD, etc., but think you know a word or two.
When you aren't sure what subject heading to use.
When you want to broaden your search and find more items than you found with a title or subject search.
When you are looking for a play, short story, or song.

Limiting a Keyword Search

You can limit a Keyword search by using the drop-down menus for Material Type and/or Location. Limiting is a way to narrow the result of your search to only the type of item you are looking for. If you do a search that retrieves a lot of items, limiting your search will help you sort through those items to find the ones you're really interested in so you don't have to look at every record you find. For example, if you searched under the keyword "gardening" and were really interested only in magazines on gardening, Amlib Netopac can sort out all of the other types of material and just show the magazines.

Material Type: allows you to limit your search to only books, magazines, videos, CD's, cassettes, etc.
Location: allows you to limit your search by library.

Search Tips

Some special tips when searching for items within Amlib NetOpac:

Searches are not case sensitive - which means it doesn't matter whether search terms are entered in upper or lower case.
Amlib will automatically include wildcards - this means that if you enter a search term of LEWIS C, it may retrieve Lewis Clive, Lewis Carol, Lewis Carl.
Amlib will automatically ignore stop words such as A, AN, THE - there is no need to enter these words when searching for records with this (for example entering a search term of PRINCESS will still find "A Princess in distress").
In Keyword Searches "Boolean operators" can be used to join words using AND or OR. The default is AND if you leave a space between words. If you use OR between words Amlib NetOpac will display more results but take longer to search.
The more words used then searches can be faster and display more specific results - however, if the item you are searching for does not display in the results try using less words in your search or another Search Option).

Can I renew an item that is overdue?

You can renew items that are overdue. This will stop fines from accruing. However, Items will not be renewed if:

You have already renewed them 2 times.
A hold has been placed on the item and someone is waiting for it.

Web Browser Settings

Browser Cache Settings
Internet Explorer - Since NetOpacs provides dynamic Web content, it is important to set your Web browser to "refresh" each time you visit a page. The browser cache refresh setting is set in the Web browser's options dialog. For example, in Internet Explorer, select Tools / Internet Options / Settings and select "Check for newer versions of stored pages: Every visit to the page". In Netscape Navigator 3.0, select Options / Network Preferences / Cache and select "Verify Documents: Every Time".