Using EPIC to search the OCLC Online Union Catalog in a health sciences library

EPIC is a service that provides keyword or subject access to the OCLC Online Union Catalog (OLUC). This capability increases the success rate for title location as well as the potential uses of the OLUC. The features of the EPIC system, application of these features to the OLUC, and specific uses in health sciences libraries are described in this article.     

Serials standards work: the next frontier

Serials, one of the more complicated areas of library technical endeavors, has lacked the benefit of standards for a long time. Even now, with standards beginning to be available, the majority of institutions are not working within standard serials formats. A survey to determine the use of serials standards in libraries was conducted in 1988 by the American Library Association, Resources and Technical Services Division, Serials Section, Committee to Study Serials Standards. In the spring of 1988 a survey was sent to a group encompassing the Association of Research Libraries members, CONSER participants, United States Newspaper Program participants, Microform Project libraries, and some vendors and librarians who attended the Committee meetings on a regular basis. The survey questionnaire assessed the current level of serials standards awareness of librarians and vendors. Topics included the type of serials systems used, standards relevant to serials control and union listing and whether or not they are implemented, types and levels of training staff received in the application of standards, benefits of the standards, and areas where standards are most needed.     

Risk management information for HIV infection

This article discusses HIV infection in terms of the risk manager's information needs in the health care environment. The malpractice problem, increasing workman's compensation suits, the greater role of the ombudsman, implementation of the National Practitioner Data Bank, and the Joint Commission on Accreditation of Health Care Organizations' (JCAHO) emphasis on clinical excellence are conditions which have given greater importance to the risk manager's position. Included in this article are hedges to retrieve various components of risk management and a select bibliography from AIDSLINE.     

Internet coverage of the VINITI RAS

The web coverage of the research activities of the VINITI RAS is considered. The practicability of using various information retrieval systems for obtaining information relevant to the Institute’s functioning and results is analyzed.     

Book reviews

^cAbd al‐Malik b. Habib. Kitāb al‐Ta'rij (La historia). Edición y estudio por Jorge Aguadé. Madrid: Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas & Instituto de Cooperación con el Mundo Arabe, 1991 (Fuentes Arabico‐Hispanas, 1). 163 + 224 pp. [Arabic title: Kltāb al‐Ta'tikh]

Kedar, Benjamin Z., ed. The Horns of Hattin. Jerusalem and London: Yad Izhak Ben‐Zvi, Israel Exploration Society and Variorum 1992. 368 pp., 12 plates; $74.75 (cloth).

Köprülü, Mehmed Fuad. The Seljuks of Anatolia: Their History and Culture According to Local Muslim Sources. Translated and edited by Gary Leiser. Salt Lake City: University of Utah, 1992. xi +101 pp., $22.00 (cloth).

Cameron, Averil and Conrad, Lawrence I., eds. The Byzantine and Early Islamic Near East: Problems in the Literary Source Material (Papers in the First Workshop on Late Antiquity and Early Islam). Princeton: The Darwin Press, 1992. xiv + 428pp., 12 plates; $29.25 (cloth).

Vereno, Ingolf. Studien zum ältesten alchemistischen Schrifttum. Berlin: Klaus Schwarz Verlag, 1992 (Islamkundliche Untersuchungen, 155). 414pp.

Tolan, John. Petrus Alfonsi and his Medieval Readers. Gainesville, Florida: University Press of Florida, 1993. xv + 288pp., $34.95 (cloth), $16.95 (paper).

Lassner, Jacob. Demonizing the Queen of Sheba: Boundaries of Gender and Culture in Postbiblical Judaism and Medieval Islam. Chicago: University of Chicago, 1994. 281 pp., $19.95 (paper), $49.95 (cloth).

Menocal, María Rosa. Shards of Love: Exile and the Origins of the Lyric. Durham, North Carolina: Duke University Press, 1994. xv + 295pp., $34.95 (cloth), $14.95 (paper).

Massignon, Louis. The Passion of al‐Hallāj, Mystic and Martyr of Islam. Translated and edited by Herbert Mason. Abridged edition, Bollingen Series XCVIII. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1994. xxxi + 293pp.

Viguera Molins, Maria Jesús. El Islam en Aragón. Saragossa: Caja de Ahorros de la Inmaculada, 1995 (Colección “Mariano de Pano y Ruata”, 9), 174 pp., 182 ills. in colour, maps, diagrams, charts etc No price stated.     

Analysis of the use of reference services in an academic health sciences library

In 1991, the Reference and Information Services staff of the Alfred Taubman Medical Library at the University of Michigan gathered data on the use of the reference desk, including the frequency and types of assistance requested by different user groups throughout the year. Recommendations based on the results of this study led to improved service as well as more efficient use of staff resources.