ACRL News Issue (B) of College & Research Libraries 202 /C&RL News m April 2004 C o l l e g e & R e s e a r c h L i b r a r i e s news Article indexes Targeted and locally created by Irene H erold Have you ev er e n c o u n te re d a p ro fesso r- developed research assignment that could only b e answered by students browsing through a few specific journal titles b ecause those titles are not indexed in com m ercially available da­ tabases? Rather than fight the assignment, you can create your ow n targeted article index on to p ics you k n o w you r stud ents will n e e d to search . T h e n ta k e advantage o f you r library Web pages to m ake it w idely and easily avail­ able. M ore and m ore referen c e to o ls are going o n lin e, n o t ju st in in d ex form , but also with full text and full im age. E xp en sive su bscrip ­ tion databases com mand a large part o f library budgets and therefore require an implicit com ­ m itment from the referen ce and instructional staffs to u se them . Librarians find them selves spending time trying to use and find materials from th e se re s o u rc e s that m ay n o t really fit students’ information needs. Many academic libraries have periodical col­ lections, w h ich are specific to a field but not adequately covered in the general-oriented, com­ mercially available database indexes. After all, the com m ercial entities are try in g to sell to as broad a market as possible. They often put strange bedfellows together in a single database index to maximize who might want to purchase access to their database. This leaves the library with a good overview resource for access to periodical litera­ ture, but also leaves holes for access to special­ ized journal collections owned locally. C re a te a lo c a lly d e v e lo p e d in d e x Creating targeted article indexes on topics you know your students will n eed to search is one solution to this problem. Where do you begin in determining what to index? Ask yourself these two questions: 1. Is there an assignm ent a professor gives that brings students into the library and forces them to brow se through periodicals b ecau se they are not indexed in a commercial database? 2. Are there perennial topics that students always seem to n eed b ut only periodical for­ mat is acceptable? I f y o u c a n a n sw er y es to e ith e r o f th e s e questions, you have found the topic for your first locally developed index. Using software already at your disposal, such as Word or Excel, you can create a simple index in a table format that can b e saved in HTML. This table can be searched using the edit/find function o f your Web browser’s tool bar. If you have more than one page o f indexed articles, you may want to add an alphabetical or subject directory at the top o f the initial index page with jump links to that section o f the index. Also rem em ber to in­ clude a “return to top o f p ag e” o r “b a c k ” link after each section to direct searchers back to the directory to facilitate multiple searches. The in­ dex is now ready for student use. If you w ant som ething m ore sophisticated for searching, you can add a search engine such as G o o g le. Y ou c an p u rch ase in d ex in g soft­ ware or you can use the power o f your integrated A b o u t th e a u t h o r Irene Herold is director o f Mason Library at Keene State College, e-mail: iherold@keene. edu © 2004 Irene Herold C&RL News ■ A p ril 2004 / 203 library system catalog’s 856 fields for links to elec­ tronic journals, local records, and holdings’ loca­ tions. T he only limit is on the time that you have to develop your index. Start with something simple and use Web-tracking software, like WebTrends, to examine how the pages are used and to deter­ mine if you need to do more. M a rk e t y o u r p r o d u c t O nce you have created the index and posted it to your Web pages, intermingling it with com m er­ cially licensed database resources, you n eed to market your creation. Contact the faculty m em­ ber who assigned the topic from question number on e above, show him or her the index, and e x ­ plain what led to its creation. Offer to give a mini­ instruction session on the index to students work­ ing on the assignment. If the professor declines your offer, at least he or she will be aware that the index is available. T he professor might surprise you and suggest other topics for future indexes. He or she will certainly see the library as proac­ tive, responsive to the students’ information needs, and as a place that not only houses periodicals, but that creates useful content. Include the ind ex in library instruction ses­ sions b e y o n d th ose for the original professor, as appropriate. Create hotlinks in you r o nline c a ta lo g th at p o in t to th e in d e x o r p o p th e s e a r c h e r in to th e in d e x w h e n th e y e n te r an ap p rop riate key w ord in their catalo g search . M ake su re that th ere are m an y a c c e s s points from you r library’s W eb pages: su bject guides, d atabase lists, new sletters, and “w h at’s n e w ” banners. Also tell students about the locally created index w hen they are researching a related topic. Word o f m outh am ong students about the u se­ fulness o f a library’s resources is the b est o f all marketing tools. T akin g a library standard, article in d ex es, and creating an online format for topics in spe­ cialized journals housed in your library can b e the b eg in n in g o f a n ew relation sh ip in in for­ m ation access for you and your patrons, and it will en h an ce your im age with faculty. T he use o f y o u r s p e cia liz e d jo u rn als w ill in c re a se as y o u p ro v id e a c c e s s b e y o n d w h a t s tu d e n ts ’ b ro w s e o n th e “n e w ” sh elv es. Stu d ents w ill find the materials they n eed to com p lete their assignments and b e impressed that this was cre­ ated b y the librarian (s) they kn ow . Everyone w ins w ith a targeted article citation database o f lo cally h eld m aterials. ■