First Steps in Alice Inquiry for Secondary Students

1
GUIDE TO ALICE INQUIRY
Alice for Windows 5.25
1. FIRST STEPS (for Secondary Students) The
Guide assumes that the user -has basic library
search skills and knows about subjects, keywords
etc. -knows the arrangement of resources in
their own school library -is well acquainted
with Windows navigational techniques (Printing
from Alice Inquiry is not covered.) The other
parts of the Guide are 2. Magazine Search 3.
Complex Search
Click here.
2
Why would anyone use Alice Inquiry?
ANSWERS 1. It lists all the resources in your
school library.
2. It even lists some resources (magazine
articles) which are not in your school library.
3. You can search for these resources by Title,
Author, Subject, Keyword and other search terms.
4. Alice will tell you if the resources are
Available or On Loan.
5. If Available, Alice will tell you exactly
where they are.
6. You will be able to reserve On Loan items.
7. It will help you with details for the
bibliographies in your assignments.
Click here.
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This is the Alice Inquiry home screen, in which
we begin a search. To get from later screens in
Alice Inquiry to this one, just click on the
icon.
Now, click here.
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Clicking on this icon would give a help screen
explaining the functions of this window.
These are Internet and Quick Search buttons.

• After clicking in this box, you can type a search
  term such as
• a books title
• an authors name
• a subject heading
• a keyword
• a series title

In this area, your Librarian will usually put a
cool message like Have a nice day. or Only
two weeks to the holidays!
Now, click here.
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The title of a book The White Mountains has
been typed in. As you see, theres no need to
type the words the, a or an at the
beginning of a title.
Have you returned any books due back by today?
When the search term has been typed in, clicking
on this icon will start a search for the
items this term refers to. Pressing the ENTER key
on the keyboard would do the same thing.
Now, click here.
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The white mountains has been found in the
Librarys collection.
To see further details about the highlighted
book, we can click on the icon. Pressing
ENTER on the keyboard or double-clicking on the
highlighted item would do the same thing. Now,
click here.
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This window is not very helpful in a title search
so well go ahead a further step. Click here.
8

• This panel tells us whether the resource is
• Available
• Missing or
• On Loan
• You could use this button to show whether all
  copies of this resource are available, missing,
  or on loan.

Available S F CHR
This window could be used to give the information
for a Bibliography in an Assignment Author,
Title, Place, Publisher, Date.
In these panels you can see the Subject Area or
Year Level(s) for this resource.
Now, click on to find the locations of
the copies of this book.
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All these copies of The White Mountains are at
the same location but the one with barcode no.
R02405 is missing. To check if the others are in
the Library, go back one screen by clicking the
icon.
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Now, click this iconto check
if the copies of The White Mountains are
available, missing, or on loan.
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Only one copy is missing. None is on loan.The
others should be on the shelves. If you are not
sure which shelves, you can go back and call up a
map of the Library.
Now, click here to go back one screen.
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Click on this icon to see a map of the Library
showing where The White Mountains copies are.
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This map of the Secondary Library shows the
location of The White Mountains with a green
flashing dot. If the dot is red, all the copies
are on loan or missing.
This is the location of The White Mountains.
Now, click here to go back to the home screen.
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Here is the home screen. Well enter the title
The White Mountains again.
Click here.
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Click here.
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Notice that there are three entries for The
White Mountains. This is because these are by
three different Publishers. In previous screens,
we were looking at the first entry.
Now, double click on the third entry (or single
click to highlight and click on ) .
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This icon tells us that this title is part of a
bigger book that has other stories in it as well
as The White Mountains.
Click on the icon to see what the book is
and where it is.
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The White Mountains is part of a book called
The Tripods trilogy.
We wont do it now, but we could click on to see
how many copies there are and where they are.
Now, click on the icon to go to the start
screen and learn about Author searches.
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Hey presto! Were home again. Now, well type in
the name of an author, Judy Blume. We want to
find books written by Judy Blume.
Click here.
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Notice that we have typed the surname first then
a comma then a space then firstname. Thats
because the authors are listed alphabetically by
surname.
What would you get if you typed in Judy Blume?
Lets try it and see.
Click here.
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Okay, Judy Blume is typed in, ready to
search. Now, click here.
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The answer is that we find nothing by typing in
Judy Blume. If there was a book entitled Judy
Blume in our Library, thats what we would
find, not books written by Judy Blume. So, lets
go back.
Click here.
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Notice that we have typed the surname first then
a comma then a space then firstname. Thats
because the authors are listed alphabetically by
surname.
Now, click here.
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You can see that the author search terms are
mixed up with subjects, keywords, etc. Since
were only interested in authors well click on
the icon and change the search terms to
authors.
So, click here.
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Now, click here for authors only.
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Now that you know how to use the panel at the
bottom of the screen, you could use it for other
types of search terms as well.
Okay, lets see what books of Judy Blume we have.
With the author Blume, Judy highlighted click
on the icon.
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So, we have 13 of Judy Blumes books in our
Library. Theyre at various locations, listed
here in jumbled order. To put the listing in
shelf order, we click on the icon.
Now, click here.
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Now, the list is in shelf order.
Perhaps our librarian will put some notes about
Judy Blume here soon.
To prune the list to available books, click the
icon.
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Hey, at least one copy of each title is available
. Check out the details of the first one listed
for the secondary library by double clicking on
it.
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You already know how to check where the copies of
this title are by using these icons.
On loan
We could click on these icons to work our way
down (or up) the list of Judy Blumes books.
This book is on loan. Wed like to reserve it for
ourselves when it is returned
So click here now.
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To make a reservation, the borrower has to fill
in this box with their ID number and the latest
date it is of any use to the borrower - probably
some days before the assignment is due. The book
will be kept on the reservation shelf when it
returns from the current borrower.
The borrower would click here after the details
are complete or here to cancel the reservation.
Now, click here.
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Having reserved this book, we are back at the
previous screen.
On loan
Now, lets move on from Author search to Subject
search. Click here.
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Were now ready to start a Subject
search. Subjects are a special list of words
carefully chosen by librarians. They tell us the
topics that each book in our library deals with.
Assume we have an assignment on the topic of
Australian Music.
Now, click here.
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Always type in a search term that describes
exactly what you want. We dont know what Subject
the librarian has chosen for Australian Music
resources, so well give Australian Music a
try. If that doesnt work, well try some other
Subject. Click here to do the search.
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Subjects are mixed with keywords and titles here,
so click on this icon to have just Subjects ...
c
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and click on this spot to list Subjects only.
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Now we can look at the list of Subjects
only. You can see that there is no subject
Australian Music. Dont give up though. Try
Music - Australia
Click here.
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Well, weve typed in Music - Australia and
clicked on this icon, but theres no such
Subject. Luckily, the real Subject is
alphabetically close to the one we searched on.
Its Music, Australian. Double click on this
subject to get a list of resources for Australian
Music.
?
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Click here.
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By the way, Alice Inquiry can be set up so that
an unused Subject can be directly linked to a
used Subject. This saves you the bother of
trying again and again until you find the right
one. Cool, right?
Now, double click here.
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Weve finished our First Steps Guide. Any icons
on this screen which havent been explained may
be covered in later guides. Remember that you can
see a brief explanation of each icon or panel by
passing the mouse pointer over it (in Alice
Inquiry, not this Guide).
Australian music / Music, Australian
Click here to go back to the start.
THE END