Finding Books & Documents

KCHR library have brought all the documents under computerized bibliographic control using KOHA software. Online Public Access Catalogue (OPAC) search is provided to readers from the computers available in the library. Users can save their valuable time by using  KCHR OPAC (Online Public Access Catalogue) for locating books, magazines, journals, articles and non-book materials.

STEPS OF SEARCHING OPAC

Books / Thesis

Following are the access points to search the Books and Thesis in the catalogue.

Basic Search

To search the OPAC you can enter the keywords such as subject, author, title etc. 

Advanced Searching

When you can’t find the most appropriate material with a general search, you can move to the Advanced Search page by clicking on the Search option on the persistent toolbar.

The Advanced Search page offers many ways to limit the results of your search. You can search using the Boolean operators AND, OR, and NOT; limit by item type, year and language, subtypes audience, content, format, or additional content types; by location and by availability.

 

In this section you can choose among the many indexes by clicking on the arrow in the first box. The blank box that follows is where you enter your first search term or terms. On the second line, you can choose the Boolean operator you want to use in your search. The options are ‘and’, ‘or’, and ‘not’. Then, you would again choose the index to search, followed by the second term or terms. If you have more concepts you want to include in your search, you can click the [+] to add another line for your search.

A sample search is shown next, followed by its results:

 

When you use the Boolean operators to broaden or narrow a search, remember the action of each operator. The ‘and’ operator narrows the results you’ll retrieve because the search will retrieve the records that include all your search terms. The ‘or’ operator expands the results because the search will look for occurrences of all of your search terms. The ‘not’ operator excludes records with the term that follows the operator.

Note: If you leave this expandedSearchOption set to ‘don’t show’, this is the display you will see:

The Advanced Search page then shows the multiple kinds of limits that can be applied to your search results. Either check a box or select from the drop down menus to narrow your search. You will type the year, year range, or a ‘greater than (>)’ or ‘less than (<)’ year. 

LOCATING DOCUMENTS ON THE SHELF

Over 95% of the library collections are available directly from the shelves. Others belong to the  closed access materials category – These include letters, diaries, maps, articles, CDs, and other non- book materials. The library staff will offer assistance in  finding the material for you. KCHR library contains over 14,000  books besides, other documents. These are categorized into:-

  •          General collection of books, reference documents, articles, maps, CDs, DVDs
  •          K N Pannikar’s collection of general books, reference documents, articles, letters, reprint material
  •          Archives of Malayali family histories
  •          Archives of Malayali biographies
  •          Archives of Local history
  •          Archives of Kamala Surayya’s literary works
  •          Archives of Mrs. C P Matthen’s personal letters and diaries
  •          Magazines and Journals
  •          Bound volumes of journals 

Having found an available item on the Catalogue, members must note the CALL NUMBER, which could be found  on the spine label of the book as this helps in  locating the book.

  •          In case of General Collection of books, the Call number is preceded by ‘G’, which is  on the spine label of the book.
  •          In K N Pannikar’s collection, the Call number is preceded by ‘PAN’, found on the spine label of the book.
  •          In case of Archives of Malayali Family Histories, the Call number is preceded by ‘F’, which is also on the spine label of the book.
  •          In case of Archives of Malayali Biographies, the Call number is preceded by ‘B’, which is also on the spine label of the book.
  •          In the case of Archives of local history,  the Call number is preceded by ‘LH’, which is also on the spine label of the book.
  •          On the other hand, in case of Articles and reprint collections, the accession number is preceded by ‘RP’.

Classification of books

Dewey decimal classification 19th (Internationally accepted scheme of classification) is followed.

To locate a book

See the classification numbers and the location given in the catalogue.

Arrangement of books

Books are grouped on the basis of subject and arranged in the alphabetical sequence of the authors names.

Current periodicals

A number of national and international periodicals are available. They are arranged as a separate section.

Bound periodicals

Bound periodicals are also arranged separately.