[431] in ad-lib
FAQ ATTAQ
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (gordon thomas)
Wed Apr 26 09:54:42 1995
From: gordon thomas <gathomas@MIT.EDU>
Date: Wed, 26 Apr 95 09:54:04 -700
To: ad-lib@MIT.EDU
The Advance Training Page's FAQ has once again been updated
with a couple of timely and insightful questions. The new
questions/answers are listed below. The URL for the entire
FAQ on the Web is: "http//macfadden.MIT.EDU:9500/advance/faq".
And, yes, please allow me to freshen the FAQ with more of
your questions.
-Gordon gathomas@mit.edu
> 8. How current is the information in Advance?
>
> What Advance contains at this time is a snapshot of the Geac database
> as of late December, 1994, with a few exceptions. Some records
> probably did not transfer from Geac to Advance because of various
> glitches; and because of ongoing testing, some records have been
> added, deleted, or altered. Another thing to remember is that the
> second, "real", migration will be conducted with some different
> parameters: our old location and material types, for example, will
> translate differently in this second GMA, scheduled to be completed
> within the first two weeks of June (we plan to go live June 15th). In
> the current advance database, circulation status is frozen in time. In
> a nutshell, the current Advance is not an accurate representation of
> the MIT libraries collection and holdings.
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
>
> 9. How do I search for theses on Advance?
>
> While it is true that you can, currently, qualify your searching on
> Advance by such things as the term "thesis", or by location, or
> format, or "material type", etc., the terms used at MIT for such
> qualifications are in flux. What is true in GMA1 will often not be
> true when we go live in June. Stay tuned to the FAQ in the coming
> weeks, because, as tricky issues such as the definition of call number
> prefixes (which allow for the qualification, "thesis") will be
> resolved, the concept of thesis searching will be clarified and
> updated in this very space.
>
> In the meantime, it is possible to search for the term "thesis" by
> using the NW (note words) search command. Among other things, the NW
> command searches these MARC fields: 502 (thesis note); 599 (thesis
> supervisor). For example, "NW=thesis linguistics 1993 chomsky" will
> pull up all 1993 linguistics theses supervised by Noam Chomsky.
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
>
> Last modified: 4/26/95
>
> Please send your comments or questions!
>
