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SPRILIB Ice and Snow: Further information

SPRILIB Ice and Snow: Further information

DATABASE CONTENT

SPRILIB Ice and Snow is a subset of SPRILIB, the bibliographic database of the Scott Polar Research Institute. The full database may be accessed in-house or on the NISC Arctic and Antarctic Regions CD-ROM.

Glaciological literature has been systematically collected and catalogued at the Scott Polar Research Institute since 1920. Our intention is to cover publications relating to all aspects of ice and snow worldwide and in all languages. Monographs (books, reports, conference proceedings) are particularly well-represented in SPRILIB Ice and Snow. Journal articles, conference papers and book chapters are also covered.

SEARCH TIPS

1. Author searching

Authors are searched in the same way as subject terms. This is not quite the same way as in a conventional publications catalogue. Imagine that you want to see all publications by John Smith. If you just enter 'Smith', you will get publications by John, Henry, Elizabeth and other Smiths. If you enter 'J. Smith', you will get publications by John and James Smith. If you enter 'John Smith', his publications will be the first to be displayed, followed by publications by other authors named either 'John' or 'Smith'.

Tip: Whenever possible, SPRILIB Ice and Snow uses full author names. Use these if you know them.

2. Complex searches

Complex searches are those using more than one box. They are not difficult to do. Here are some examples:

For studies of glacial geology in the Antarctic Peninsula:
In the General Field box, select 'Glacial geology'. In the Place box, scroll down to 'Antarctic Peninsula' and select. Now press 'Search'.

For glaciohydrological studies in the European Arctic:
Select 'Glaciohydrology' in the General Field box, and 'European Arctic' in the Place box. Now press 'Search'.

Tip: Use the boxes to tailor the records displayed to your exact requirements.

3. Relevance Marking - How to select and add the most useful search terms

How can you be sure that you always use the best terms to find what you are looking for? SPRILIB Ice and Snow's search software can help you here. Use the checkbox by each publication to mark as relevant all those in which you are interested. Muscat will now automatically reorder your search results taking into account any additional terms used in indexing these publications. For still greater precision, use the 'Expand' function. Selecting this will display these additional terms and you can select those which are most useful.

Tip: Relevance marking is most useful where choice of search terms is particularly difficult.

RELATED DATABASES

SPRILIB Ice and Snow is one of the three subsets of SPRILIB to be made available on the Internet. The others are SPRILIB Antarctica and SPRILIB Russian North.

If you have any queries or comments, please contact the Librarian.

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