New enhancements and improved functionality are regularly implemented on the catalogue. Below you will find information about the latest updates we've deployed.
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Verbatim search has been introduced in the 'Articles & more' search scope when using phrases enclosed in double quotes or the Advanced Search operator ‘contains exact phrase’. All other search scopes, like 'Everything except articles', do not use the verbatim search. Articles & more includes many more records, so this new feature will help in more precisely narrowing your search results. 
A verbatim search means that only records containing words that are an exact match will be included in your results, not records that contain related forms of words. For example, previously searching for dog returned records containing dogs, and searching for theater returned records containing theatre. Now only records containing dog or theater would be returned. To continue to include variations of word forms in your search results, use the 'contains' search operator or avoid using double quotes.
The following examples demonstrate the verbatim search:
Above - example using 'contains exact search' operator in Advanced Search.
AI generated content is now added to some records included in the Library's catalogue. These are records drawn from external sources, such as for ebooks subscribed to by the Library. They are not records created or managed by the Library. The AI-driven enrichment process uses the full text of a book to create metadata about the publication by extracting relevant information from the text to include in the catalogue record.
You can easily identify any records that include AI generated by opening the record and looking for the note Part of the metadata in this record was created by AI.
You are now able to export bulk search results from the catalogue (up to a maximum of 5,000) by selecting the new EXPORT ALL RESULTS option that appears above the listed results when one or more records is selected.
Note that you will need to be logged in to the catalogue with your Library account to use the bulk export; if you are not yet a member, you can sign up for a free Access membership online.
The bulk export function includes two format options for saving the exported records:
Once you've selected the format, enter the email address to which you want the records sent and an optional note and then click Send. If the email doesn't arrive within around 10 minutes, please check your Spam or Junk folder.
Please note that this functionality is not supported on mobile devices.
There is a new 'Find on Shelf' toggle under the heading Browsing collection that allows you to limit your search results to items available on the shelf in the Library's reading rooms. The new toggle is only available when using the 'Everything except articles' and 'Find on shelf' search scopes.
When searching Articles & more, you can use the below icons to search the citations of an article.
Find sources citing this item
Find sources cited in this item
Previously, citation trail results were filtered by availability, which meant that citations were not included if the Library did not have online access to full text of an article. You can now the expand citation trail results to include result with no full text. To do this activate the toggle 'Include results with no full text'. Results with no full text will not be available online through the Library, but may be available from other sources.
The copy citation to clipboard action now copies content in a Rich Text Format (RTF) which retains the citation's formatting. Previously, citations were only copied in plain text format, so formatting (such as italics) was lost when copying it to a document (such as Word). This will save you from having to correct the formatting of citations manually. When using a text editor such as Notepad, the text is copied without formatting.
A series of new resource types have been added to Articles search results to help better identify the type of content records relate to.
The new identifiers appear on records in the brief results and full record display just below the publication details as shown above. You can also filter your search results by the new identifiers by selecting them from the Resource Type filter.
| Resource identifier | Description |
|---|---|
| Includes additional information | A publication that contains an addendum, a notification of an addition of information to an article. |
| Includes corrections | A publication with a correction notice (also known as a corrigendum), a change to the article that the author wishes to publish at any time after the article's acceptance or publication, usually to correct an error. |
| Preprint | A preprint is a preliminary version of a paper that researchers share by posting to online platforms known as preprint servers before peer-review and publication in an academic journal. Preprints are typically published on Preprint servers, publicly available online archives that host preprints and their associated data. |
| Primary source | The primary sources provide first-hand testimony or direct evidence concerning a topic under investigation. They contain the actual textual material that is the subject of research. The Library of Congress refers to them as the "raw materials of history — original documents and objects which were created at the time under study". |
| Retracted publication | A retraction is the action by which a published paper in an academic journal is removed from the journal, because the publication contains such seriously flawed or erroneous data that their findings and conclusions cannot be relied upon. Unreliable data may result from honest error or from research misconduct. Datasets can also be retracted. The original article may and in most cases will have a different date than the retraction notice. |
| Retraction notice | A retraction notice typically accompanies the retraction of a scientific publication. It is a short article written by the editors or authors explaining the reason for a retraction. |
| Review article | An article that presents a current state of the research on a particular topic or research area. |
There is now an option to automatically extend your session when sign in to the catalogue. Navigate to your Account > Personal settings to enable this option so that your session won't timeout on any device when you are signed in. If using a public computer, make sure you sign out to end your session when you have finished using the catalogue. For this setting to take effect you must sign out and sign in again or refresh the page.
If you are not signed in when using the catalogue, you will see a warning prompt 60 seconds before your session times out after 30 minutes. This prompt will give you the option to sign in and extend your session to the maximum period (7 days). If selected, your session will continue until your sign out, close the browser, or until the maximum session times out.
When signed in to the catalogue with your State Library Victoria membership, you can now choose to have your search history saved (up to the last 100 searches) and for your search history to be used to provide recent search suggestions.
To turn on these options, sign in to your membership account, then select My personal details and settings from the Account menu in the top-right corner of the screen.
You can now change the number of titles you see on each page of search results from the top of the results list. When you click the count of results that appears in the black bar above your search results, you can select between 10, 25, and 50 results per page.
Note that if you are logged in with your State Library Victoria membership account, the number of results selected per page will be saved for use in future sessions.
When signed in to your State Library Victoria membership account, you can now search the list of items saved in My favourites. The search is performed on the Title and Author fields and any labels you have assigned to your list.
A new option has been added to the Advanced search to support searching by the Item barcode.
On the Advanced search screen, there are now two tabs listed at the top of the search panel; select Barcode search to find the record that matches an Item barcode. Note that this search does not work on partial matching, so you must enter the full barcode to find the relevant record.
The introduction of this change has also resulted in the toggle for expanding or collapsing advanced search criteria moving to the right-hand edge of the Search criteria tab of Advanced search.
Ian Baxter in Will Alma's library, [ca. 1960 - ca. 1993], Bk.8/No.24
