Electronic
From SLNSW
Contents |
Electronic Resources
Many electronic resources are available to New South Wales libraries
Electronic Databases, NSW.net, and the Internet
Many indexes and directories and other reference works exist in electronic format and are available as stand-alone databases, through NSW.net, the State Library, or through the Internet. Some have hard copy (paper) equivalents and some do not.
Search strategies can be applied regardless of the format of the information, in print, on disc, or through an electronic network.
What are the advantages of e-resources?
- Speed of searching. Often many years of an resource can be searched in one search.
- More access points. Paper files must be arranged in one logical order (for example, alphabetically), with separate indexes for each additional way of looking up something. This limits the ways you can search. In an electronic database on newspapers, for example, may have dozens of different ways to find the information: subject, author/journalist, name of publication, date of publication, country etc.
- Ability to combine terms. It's possible to search under multiple access points all at once. For example, you can search on the subject and the name of the publication. Such searching would be extremely time consuming to do manually.
- Ability to get information not otherwise available. More and more information now exists only in electronic format.
What are the disadvantages?
- You must be familiar with online searching, and search procedures vary widely among the various databases.
- An error in spelling can mean no results at all.
- Some search costs may be passed on to the client.
NSW.net
NSW.net is a network that links councils and public libraries throughout New South Wales to the Internet. It provides:
- councils and libraries with affordable access to the Internet
- public libraries and their clients with free access to quality online information resources
NSW.net is managed by the State Library of New South Wales in consultation with the Public Libraries Consultative Committee which is a sub-committee of the Library Council of New South Wales.
