RESOURCE CENTRE MANUAL
HEALTHLINK WORLDWIDE
and the rest of the word or phrase appears automatically. This saves time,
and reduces the chance of errors, including spelling errors.
• Pick lists are words and phrases that may be pasted from a list, including data
from previous entries or the index.
• Validation/value lists are like pick lists, but can only be used for fields where
the content is controlled by a set of words or terms, such as subject, keyword,
geographic fields, or type of material.
• Spell checking is increasingly available with database programs. It can be
useful, especially for records with abstracts. However, it cannot replace
record checking and other quality control processes.
• Context-specific data entry help is very useful, as it provides a quick way of
checking the format to be used when entering information into each field.
Help messages are entered by the designer and can be updated as needed.
• Control over which fields must contain data (mandatory fields) is a useful
way of making sure that important information, such as the title or subject, is
always entered.
Editing Alterations to the data in the database need to take up as little time as
possible, so the options offered by the software are very important. The ability to
copy and paste data within and across records is essential. Options to edit
specified fields in a record range, the results of a search, or the entire database
are also important. A ‘find and replace’ function is useful, but needs to be used
carefully, as this function is not field-specific.
Indexes Computer indexes are similar to the indexes at the back of books, in that
they help to locate records containing particular information, or written by a
particular author. Browsing an index is similar to browsing the shelves of a
resource centre. If something of interest is found, the record(s) can be viewed on
the screen.
The type of indexing affects how easy it is to retrieve information. It is therefore
important to check what types of indexing are offered - word, term/phrase,
specific terms/phrases within a field. Word indexing is useful for finding
individual words that may appear in different fields of a database. Term/phrase
indexing is useful for indexing and retrieving keywords, and full titles. The
ability to index selected words in an abstract is helpful, as indexing every word in
an abstract can waste disk space and slow down the program.
Indexing is most useful where more than one type can be used at the same time.
For example, word indexing combined with field/phrase indexing for the title
field allows access to particular words in the title, as well as a complete title.
Searching There are several ways in which data can be searched:
• Simple searching means browsing the index, and selecting and combining
terms from the index.
• Boolean searching means combining search terms using AND, OR, or NOT.
This is sometimes provided in the simplified format of broader/narrower
searching.
30 SECTION 6: COMPUTERS, ELECTRONIC COMMUNICATION AND DATABASES