Searching Reference Databases

The Innovative system supports many commercially-provided reference databases such as the Wilson Index to Legal Periodicals, EBSCO Masterfile, and others. Using a reference database is very similar to using your library's main database. Once a user has selected a database, the system displays a standard WebPAC search screen. You can restrict access to specified databases for users with particular IP addresses (e.g., to prevent off-campus users from gaining access to commercial databases) using Web Access Management. Review the following sections for offering Reference Databases in WebPAC.

• Reference Databases and WebPAC
• Reference Databases and My Account
• Offering Reference Database Access
• Display of Library's Holdings

Reference Databases and WebPAC

In the WebPAC, each reference database is associated with an independent WebPAC process, each of which monitors a unique port on the Innovative system. For example, while the WebPAC process for your organization's main database monitors port 80 (the standard HTTP port), the WebPAC process for the Wilson Index to Legal Periodicals database might monitor port 81, and that for the ERIC database might monitor port 82. When Innovative sets up the WebPAC for reference databases, you will be informed of the ports used for each.

In addition to separate WebPAC processes, each reference database also has:

• an independent OPAC Menu
• independent Search Help pages
• an independent Web options file that controls various Web options.

Any changes that you make to the OPAC Menu or Search Help pages or the Web options file for your library's main database will not affect the WebPAC for the reference databases. See Reference Database Options for more information on options specific to reference databases.

Reference Databases and My Account

If your organization uses My Account, you can offer a staff view of records in the reference database. See Staff View of Reference Databases for details.

Offering Reference Database Access

To offer patrons access to a reference database, place links on your organization's Web page (e.g., such as your opacmenu.html page) to the reference databases.

Each link on this page connects the user to one of these reference databases. Link formatting varies based on implementation of Web Access Management on your system.

• Reference Databases with Web Access Management
• Reference Databases without Web Access Management

Reference Databases with Web Access Management

If your library uses Web Access Management for reference databases, each of these links includes a /wm/<token> command link, specifying the library-assigned token for the particular database within the link. For example:

Reference Databases without Web Access Management

If your library does not use Web Access Management, each link must specify the IP address of the Innovative server, together with the number of the port which the WebPAC process for that database is monitoring. For example:

See Specifying the URL to a Reference Database for further information on HTML links to reference databases.

Searching reference databases in the WebPAC is identical to WebPAC searching of the library's main database, although you have complete control over the OPAC Menu and Search Help screens for the database.

Display of Library's Holdings

Innovative can set up the WebPAC to display the library's holdings when the user is viewing a particular article in a reference database, as it is in the example shown above. The displayed information comes from a file of holdings information, which is updated by your library from the Innovative database (each library has its own schedule for making these updates). The holdings information in the file is taken from the LIB HAS field in the Checkin record, if one exists, otherwise it is taken from the LIB HAS field in the Bibliographic record. If the library has entered more than one LIB HAS field in the associated Innovative record, each will display on its own line. LIB HAS information can come from either the Checkin record or the Bibliographic record (but not both).

The caption above the holdings statement is controlled by the REFHOLDTXT Web option. If a particular journal is not in your library's collection, a message is displayed instead of a holdings statement (the HOLDINGS_NMSG Web option controls this message).