FINDING
BOOKS
USING
VOYAGER
Voyager is the name of the online card catalog used by the Hartfield Library. This online catalog allows you to find books held at any library within the KCTCS (Kentucky Community and Technical Colleges System). Other online catalogs allow users to find books held in a number of major libraries.
There are four Voyager terminals in the library (three on the first floor and one on the second). Each of these workstations allows patrons to use Voyager to look for books held here or in the KCTCS libraries.
It is important to remember that Voyager searches through the library holdings of ALL of the KCTCS libraries. When you search Voyager, you can generally limit your search by individual libraries, but it is always wise to check the locations of any books found to insure that they are held at the Hartfield Library. Remember that if you are doing research and you find a book that we do not have in this library, we can always try to get it for you through Interlibrary Loan from whichever KCTCS library holds it.
When using Voyager, begin with the screen that reads “KCTCS Library Catalog.” If this screen is not displayed, exit from what is on the screen and go to the library’s webpage by clicking on the “Home” button. Clicking on this will open Voyager’s search menu.
Voyager
does “time-out” searches, so if you get a message indicating that you have
been disconnected, click on the “Home” icon.
This logs you back in. You
can also access Voyager by typing in the address: (http://opac.kctcs.edu/)
on the address line. Then hit the enter key.
Voyager allows patrons to search for books using three search types. They are: Basic, Advanced, and Course Reserve. Some important features of Voyager affect all of these search types. These features are:
Voyager is a database of ALL books held in ALL of the
KCTCS libraries. The result is
that whenever you find books, you must carefully look at their records to
make sure that they are held at HCC. You
can limit your search to books held at HCC. Refer to the instructions
for "Setting Search Limits"
to see how this is done.
So get in the habit of always double-checking the location of a book
to make sure that it is in fact held at HCC.
Voyager does not understand punctuation.
If you type in commas, apostrophes, or other punctuation, Voyager
will see it as an error and will not find what you are searching for.
One good way to re-execute a search is to use the “Previous Searches” button. When you click on this, a display of your previous searches will appear. Click on any search shown, and Voyager will re-execute that search.
Voyager allows Search Limits to be set and be effective for each search type. In each case, limits are set in the same manner.
The search limits are Location, Date, Medium, Item Type,
Language, and Place of Publication. Each
limit is defined by the choices listed in a drop-down box. Some examples
are provided below.
The most useful search limit is the "Location" limit. Library patrons can use this option to identify which college library he or she wishes to browse. Instructions for using the Location limit in the Basic Search mode are as follows:
For a location limit in the Basic Search mode:
The first box in the Basic Search mode reads, "Limit Search to a Single Library." Next to this is a drop-down box with a list of all the KCTCS Libraries. Open this drop-down box, scan to "Henderson CC," and click on "Henderson CC," to highlight it. Then do your basic search. (Please note that if you switch from the basic search mode to the Advanced Search mode, your command does not switch with you. You will need to perform the following steps to set limits in the advanced search.)
For a location limit in the Advanced Search Mode:
In the lower right hand corner of the search box is a button that reads, "Set More Limits." Click on this button. A page of possible search limits will display. The top limit is "Location." Scan through the libraries listed in the location box until you find "Henderson CC." Click on "Henderson CC" to highlight it. Then click on the beige "Set Limits" button. (Please note that if you do not click on this button, your "limit" will not be activated.) A blue box will appear above the search box and will read "Search limits have been set. To remove them, click the 'Clear Limits' button below." This blue box will display on the top of every advance search that you do until you log out or click on the "Clear Limits" button.
To remove limits in any "mode," go to the bottom right corner of the search screen and click on the “Clear Limits” icon. The blue message will disappear.
This is the easiest search type to use. The Basic Search is a type of keyword search and is similar to searches used on most Internet search engines. A search will look through the records of all books in the system to find every book that has that word (or words) or phrase somewhere in its record. If a phrase is typed in, Voyager will not recognize it as a phrase unless it is identified as a phrase by enclosing the words in quotation marks. For example, the search command Marianne Walker would find every book that had either the word marianne or the word walker. The search “marianne walker” would look for the phrase “marianne walker.”
To make your search more useful, Voyager tries to indicate
a book’s relevance to your search. Whenever
you use a Basic search, the books retrieved are displayed with a series of
colored bars in front of the title. If the bars are red the book should be relevant, as the
number of bars decreases and the color changes from blue to black, the
books are less relevant. Relevancy
is determined by a program that looks at the books’ records to see if the
keywords are found in the title, subject headings, or somewhere else in the
record.
The Basic search option also offers a number of hints through the "help" button. Included are the use of quotation marks, the use of a ? to indicate truncation (telling the computer to search for every word that has what you have typed in as the root of a word, for example the keyword comput? would look for such words as compute, computed, computer, computers, computing).
The Basic Search allows patrons to search for books by Author, Title, Subject, or Journal Title. Each category is described below.
1. Author Search
To search for books by a known author, type in the
author’s last name then first name. If
you type in just the last name, Voyager will look for every author with that
last name. Do not use a comma after the last name.
If a book is published by an organization and no author is given, then the organization is usually considered to be the author. (See the examples below.)
hemingway conference on distant stars
smith john j
united states senate
2. Title Search
3. Subject Search
4. Journal Title Search
This search looks for periodicals that the library subscribes to by their titles. Not every library’s holdings indicate what years of this periodical are held at that library.
5. Command-line Search
This specialized search type is most often used by the library staff to find specific parts of a book's electronic record.
The Advanced Search is the most flexible and useful of the Voyager searches.
The Advanced Search allows the patron to make controlled keyword searches. This search features three search boxes that allow users to type in words or phrases in each and then combine these with AND, OR, NOT, and to specify where in the books’ records that Voyager is to look for these keywords. This allows for very specific, yet powerful, searches.
The “Search for” boxes are where the patron types in the desired terms.
Following the “Search for” box is a drop-down box that allows you to specify that Voyager look for the typed in word(s) as individual words or as a phrase. Make your choice by highlighting.
The “Search for” box features a drop-down box that lists all of the parts of a book’s record in which Voyager will check for the term(s) you have typed in. Some of the options include a keyword anywhere in the record, the authors’ name(s), words in the title, in the subject headings, in the ISBN, in the publishers’ name(s), etc. Make your choice by highlighting.
Following the “Search for” box is another drop-down box which allows you to choose AND, OR, NOT. Make your choice by highlighting.
By varying the choices, a patron can combine search terms with words, phrases, and Boolean operators.
Keyword searches use words selected by the patron that may be found anywhere in a book’s record, such as in the author’s name(s), the title(s), publication information, or subject heading(s). Keyword searches thus find many books, some of which may not be very relevant or useful. This is because these searches look only for individual words, phrases, or combinations of words. Thus, a search for Marianne and Walker might find every book written by Marianne Walker as well as a book published by the Walker Company, or a book on Johnny Walker whiskey. Keyword searches can combine these words by using what is called “Boolean logic.” A 19th century mathematician named George Boole came up with the idea that words can be compared or combined using three logical “operators” or commands. These “operators” are the concepts of and, or, not. These “operators” are called “Boolean Operators,” and when used in searches they define how the computer looks for keywords.
| Boolean Operators | Example | Definition |
| OR | timber OR lumber | Finds all records that include either term. |
| AND | timber AND Kentucky | Finds all records that include both terms. |
| NOT | timber NOT pine | Finds all records that include the first term, but not the second. |
All of this goes to explain why keyword searches often find books that seen irrelevant to the search. To insure that the books found in a search are relevant to your needs, be sure to check their “Description”--this lists the subject headings in the book’s record. Another useful feature of Boolean searching is that by using the operators and, or, not, keywords can be found in any order. For example, you could search for “washington and george” and would find all books that had these two words in any order. Thus if you were looking for books about George Washington, Voyager would find both books that had the phrase “George Washington” in the title and books that had the subject heading “Washington, George,1732-1799.”
The Course Reserve Search allows patrons to search for items which instructors have placed on reserve for students enrolled in specific classes to use for assignments.. The search can be by the name of the instructor, the class number, the department, or the section. A drop-down box represents each category. The display of in the drop-down boxes changes each semester as new classes are added or old ones are not offered in a given semester.
III. Reading and Using Book Records
Once a search is completed, a list of the items found will display. If only one record was found, that record will automatically be displayed. If more than one record is found, the number displayed per screen will be controlled by the Limits page. To display a specific record, double click on the mouse on the title. Each time the “Next” button is clicked, Voyager will advance by one record (or if the “Previous” button is clicked, then the Voyage will go backwards through the list).
The record for each book always includes three parts. The first record displayed is the “Location.” This shows basic information about the book and where to find it (its location). Since Voyager is the catalog for all of the KCTCS libraries, when a book’s “Location” is shown it will include ALL locations within the KCTCS. The libraries are listed alphabetically, so the copy or copies held at HCC may not be the first location shown. The “Location” information also shows in what part of the library the book can be found. If a book’s location, for example, is shown as “Henderson CC Reference,” then the book is held in the library’s Reference Collection. Always double check the “Location” information to insure that the book is held at Henderson.
To see a book’s complete bibliographic record--which is especially useful as it shows the subject headings--patrons must look at the “Description.” Each subject heading is displayed in blue. If patron clicks on any of these subject headings, a list of all books held in the system with that subject heading will display. This means books held at all of the KCTCS libraries.
The third record for a book is the “Staff Mode.” This is the book’s electronic format record, and is generally only used by Library staff members.
Once you have displayed a record, you may choose to print out this information. Move the cursor to the “Print” button and click on it to print the record.
This command only prints one screen at a time. If your record is multiple pages long, you will have to click on the Print once for each screen (page) that you want printed.