ABSTRACT

Libraries are using computers today in an effort to make an ever-increasing mass of publications more accessible to the researcher. In a typical online search, the searcher and the computer "talk" to each other in an effort to identify bibliographic citations relating to a specific topic. The primary components of an online literature search are: a computer terminal and a printer connected to a machine-readable data base of bibliographic information, a trained searcher, and a researcher with a well-formulated topic. One data base can be searched simultaneously by many terminals located hundreds and thousands of miles away and connected to the data base by telephone. A machine-readable data base, a terminal and a printer, and a trained searcher are essential components of online literature searches, but these components are useless unless the researcher has a well-formulated search question. One important advantage of having an online search conducted is that it can save the researcher a lot of time.