4.2 Use ICT sources in stock selection

Table of Contents

1. Criteria for stock selection
2. Online library catalogues
   1. Combined catalogues
   2. Differences between catalogues
3. Publishers' and booksellers' websites
4. Online reviews and personal evaluations

Online library catalogues

Of the possible ways of finding suitable material for stock selection, the use of online library catalogues of other libraries has the advantage that the materials ought to be properly catalogued and so easy to find using keywords.

1	Online library catalogues Think of a disadvantage of using library catalogues as a stock selection tool. The existence of an item in another library's catalogue does not indicate that the item is still available, ie: a book may no longer be in print.

This ability to search other library's catalogues is increasingly possible because it is becoming commonplace for libraries to have catalogues which can be searched via the Internet.

The UK Public Libraries Page is a useful resource, linking to the web-available catalogues.

http://dspace.dial.pipex.com/town/square/ac940/weblibs.html

Some services combine together the catalogues of several libraries. A single-search interface is used to cross-search multiple catalogues in a single search action.

Go to the UK Public Libraries Page and find examples of public library services with combined catalogues. (There are several examples of this.)

Let's take a closer look at Combined catalogues ...