UNIVERSITY OF PENNSYLVANIA - AFRICAN STUDIES CENTER
LOC, Nairobi Bibliographic Search Service, Vers. 0.5

LOC, Nairobi Bibliographic Search Service, Vers. 0.5

THE LIBRARY OF CONGRESS OFFICE, NAIROBI
BIBLIOGRAPHIC SEARCH SERVICE

Version 0.5 April 20 1996

* Now includes the full database (1991 - 1995)
* Added database of periodical addresses <address@loc.sasa.unon.org>
* Partial word matches will generate hits.

Total records: over 14,000

<the latest version of this file is always available
by sending an e-mail to: info@loc.sasa.unon.org>

BACKGROUND

Quarterly Index to Periodical Literature, Eastern and Southern Africa (Volume I, Number 1, 1991), Library of Congress Office, Nairobi.

The Nairobi Office of the Library of Congress undertakes to index selected periodicals which are received regularly in its programme to acquire publications from 24 eastern and southern African countries. On the whole, scholarly journals are indexed; however, a number of journals not of a scholarly nature are included but not indexed exhaustively.

The UN Department of Humanitarian Affairs Integrated Regional Information Network is supporting the service as part of its information exchange initiatives in the Great Lakes region of Africa. For further information, write to irin@dha.unon.org.

A pilot system has been running in Nairobi whereby anyone with an Internet address may search an extract of the periodicals database (Volume 3). Now, we can offer the full database of over 14,000 records using the same system. A query sent by e-mail can contain a number of search terms, and a reply should be returned automatically within a couple of hours at most. The reply will contain the reference to the article (Author, Title, Volume, etc) but not the text itself. The publications themselves are not available electronically.

HOW TO USE IT

Send e-mail to serials@loc.sasa.unon.org with any subject you like, and with a body containing: find word word word (up to nine).

Example:
By: you@your.address
To: serials@loc.sasa.unon.org
Re: anything
-----
find uganda ecology

You should get an automatic reply, listing the references to all articles which contain both the words Uganda and ecology. If you put a slash (uganda/ecology), you will get all the articles that *either* have uganda or ecology in them.

If you find an article you are interested in, you can get the address of the journal by sending a mail to address@loc.sasa.unon.org using the same syntax. Example message text: find nairobi law monthly

TIPS AND HINTS

o Your search will fail if you don't put "find" in there somewhere.
o You must use at least one search term, up to nine.
o If your search generates more than 40 "hits", you will be asked to focus your search a little. If you don't get any hits, you should also be told.

CAVEAT EMPTOR

This is now in the "beta" testing phase so be patient. Your assistance in suggesting new features, finding bugs, etc is much appreciated.

WISHLIST

o To be able to search by field (i.e. author = Bloggs)
o To choose your own maximum hits level
o Special characters in MIME format?

The service is presently maintained by:
Ben Parker (ben@dha.unon.org)
The Library of Congress Nairobi Office is contactable on: loc-nbo@tt.sasa.unon.org

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Date: Tue, 23 Apr 1996 17:04:08 +0300 (GMT+0300) From: Ben Parker <ben@dha.unon.org> Subject: Library of Congress Office, Nairobi Bibliographic Search Service Message-Id: <Pine.LNX.3.91.960423165616.3939F-100000@dha.unon.org>


Editor: Ali B. Dinar, (aadinar@sas.upenn.edu)