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Home > MSI Degree > Course Catalogue > Course Description
SI 665: Online Searching and Databases
Introduces students to searching databases available through commercial online retrieval systems. Such systems typically feature a terse command language that requires knowledge of Boolean searching and selection of a search vocabulary from specialized thesauri. Students who take this course will be prepared to assume positions as intermediary searchers in libraries, research departments, and for-profit document search and delivery services where they will conduct searches for clients in commercial retrieval systems. Despite the online, interactive nature of these systems and databases, intermediary searchers make every effort to minimize time spent online due to high connect-time charges and database royalties. Students who are not interested in becoming online searchers can benefit from this course in terms of being able to differentiate between searches that should be delegated to intermediary searchers and those that they can do on their own in the system's simplified, Web-based version or through Web search engines and browsing services that access World Wide Web and other royalty-free content. Students interested in the design of digital libraries benefit from this course in that it helps them devise methods of automatically identifying end-user searches that require delegation and building such delegation into future systems.
Focuses on the presearch interview, database selection, search strategy development, and evaluation of search results. In-class online searches and lectures cover basic and intermediate levels of systems command languages that students enlist in weekly lab assignments. Learn how to choose vocabulary for online searches using printed and online thesauri, subject headings lists, and other controlled vocabularies, and determine when to enlist such vocabularies prior to or during online searches.
Group projects require students to explore on their own capabilities of intermediate-level system capabilities and to make comparisons between searching databases available through commercial online retrieval systems and Web search engines and browsing services. In-class discussions conclude with managerial aspects of in-house online searching services and the status of and future trends in the online industry.
Course Objectives:
- To become familiar with the terminology and jargon of online searching
- To understand communication skills needed for conducting a successful research interview and debriefing of the client
- To recognize the variety of commercially available online databases and the process of database selection
- To learn how to use printed and online thesauri, subject headings lists, other controlled vocabularies for subject term selection
- To become acquainted with other types of printed and online tools associated with online searching
- To develop a tentative search strategy on a directed topic prior to going online making use of controlled vocabularies and other online searching tools
- To be able to interpret a bibliographic record and determine its relevancy in view of the search topic
- To be able to determine when to use the different types of online search strategies
- To understand where the online searching industry is headed
http://www.si.umich.edu/Classes/665/
Credits: 3
Term offered: Fall
Prerequisites:
SI 500
Group Project: Yes
Home > MSI Degree > Course Catalogue > Course Description
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