MetaLib 'My space' help

On this page:

The other pages of MetaLib and Get it! help are available in the left navigation or on the main MetaLib and Get it! help page.

What can I do in My Space?

To access the 'My space' option within MetaLib, click 'My space' on MetaLib home or on the navigation bar.

MetaLib enables you to personalise your environment, such as creating your own database lists, saving records that you find interesting for future reference, saving searches for future re-use, and defining your preferences for the display of results.

My space provides the options My records, My databases, My searches/Alerts, and Preferences

My records

To access, click My space in the navigation bar and then My records.

MetaLib allows users who have logged in to MetaLib to keep selected records (up to 500) in their My records section of My space for future use. You can also create new folders, name them and move records into them from your basket or from another folder.

Records are added to My records, in the default folder named basket, by clicking on next to the required record(s) in a Cross-search or Results in database results list. This icon then changes to .

My records records can be displayed in three views: Brief View, Table View and Full View.

To move records from the basket to other folders and vice versa click on the 'Create / manage folders' link to access the 'Manage My records folders' page. To then return to the My records page click on the 'Back to My records' link.

My records Brief view

Brief View provides citation information, such as the journal title for a journal article reference, in addition to the information provided in the Table View. Brief View provides the following options:

Select a folder in the View folder field to view the contents of another folder.
Click a Title to see the Full View of the record.
Click the database name to go to the database's Web site. If possible, the same record is displayed in the database's native interface.
Click on a Get it! button next to a record you want, to view in a new window a menu of options to get the item, such as the full text of articles or holdings information in our library catalogue.
Click to remove this record from your basket or the selected folder.
Click the tick box(es) of the record(s) required or select all the records by clicking the tick box in the top left corner. You can then click on the 'Save/Email selected' link to save the selected record(s) to a file on your PC, or email them.
Click to save all the records to a new folder under a new name. Click to delete the selected My records folder.
To move records from the basket to other folders and vice versa click on the 'Create / manage folders' link to access the 'Manage My records folders' page. To then return to the My records page click on the 'Back to My records' link.

My records Table view

Table View displays the records in a table, one row for each record. Table View provides the following options:

Select a folder in the Select folder field to view the contents of another folder.
Click a Title to see the Full View of the record.
Click the database name to go to the database's Web site. If possible, the same record is displayed in the database's native interface.
Click on a Get it! button next to a record you want, to view in a new window a menu of options to get the item, such as the full text of articles or holdings information in our library catalogue.
Click to remove this record from your basket or the selected folder.
Click the tick box(es) of the record(s) required, or select all the records at once by clicking the tick box above the individual ones. You can then click on the 'Save/Email selected' link to save the selected record(s) to a file on your PC, or email them.
Click to save all the records to a new folder under a new name. Click to delete the selected My records folder.
To move records from the basket to other folders and vice versa click on the 'Create / manage folders' link to access the 'Manage My records folders' page. To then return to the My records page click on the 'Back to My records' link.

My records Full view

Full View provides the full information for the record, with a page for each record.

Select a folder in the Select folder field to view the contents of another folder.
Click on a Get it! button next to a record you want, to view in a new window a menu of options to get the item, such as the full text of articles or holdings information in our library catalogue.
Click to save the record to a file on your PC. A record format window is displayed from which you can select the format of the file to be saved. The options are as follows:
- Standard: Saves the record as a standard text file in a format similar to that displayed on the screen.
- MARC1 format: Saves the record with MARC21 cataloguing tags.
- Reference manager: Saves the record in the format of the reference managing software that is installed on your computer: EndNote, ProCite or ReferenceManager.
Click to save all the records to a new folder under a new name. Click to delete the selected My records folder.
To move records from the basket to other folders and vice versa click on the 'Create / manage folders' link to access the 'Manage My records folders' page. To then return to the My records page click on the 'Back to My records' link.

Manage My records folders

To access, click My space in the navigation bar, then My records, and finally the 'Create / manage folders' link. To then return to the My records page click on the 'Back to My records' link.

Manage My records folders is used to move records from the basket to other folders and vice versa.

To copy records from the basket to another folder:

On the Manage My records folders page the basket appears on the right and your other My records folders appear on the left (you can create a new folder using ).

Select records in the basket to be copied by clicking in the tick box(es) to the left of each record, or select all the records at once by clicking the tick box above the individual ones. Then use the arrow to move the selected records from the basket to the selected folder. Note that you can move records from any folder to the basket by clicking the arrow. Use this option if you wish to move records from one folder to another: first move the records to the basket, then select another folder and move them from the basket to the other folder.

My databases

To access, click My space in the navigation bar and then My databases.

MetaLib allows users who have logged in to MetaLib to create sets of selected databases, assign each set a name, and use them in Cross-search.

Find database enables you to locate a specific database from those made available on MetaLib. You can add databases to the database clipboard by clicking in the Database list of Find database. Once you click the , it changes to . You can also add databases from the Cross-search database list in the same way.

In My databases you can then copy these databases from the database clipboard to database set(s) that you create and name, which can subsequently be selected within Cross-search.

To save the database clipboard as a database set:

You can define the entire database clipboard as a new database set by clicking and entering a name for the new database set.

Or you can create a new database set and copy selected databases from the database clipboard to this set. First, click and enter a database set name. You can now copy records from the database clipboard into this database set, by clicking . Use the following options as required:

Click to rename a database set.
Click to save the database clipboard or database set. You can assign it a new name.
Click to remove this database from the database clipboard or database set.
Click to erase all the content of the database clipboard or database set.
Click to copy a database from a database set to the database clipboard. To copy databases from one database set to another you can copy them from the first database set to the database clipboard and from there to the second database set.

My searches/Alerts

To access, click My space in the menu and then My searches.

My searches enables you to store a search that you have made previously, in order to run it in the future. You can also schedule the search to run automatically, at an interval of your choice, by defining it as an Alert. An Alert notifies you by email when new records that match the search criteria are added to the specified databases. The email notification includes a link allowing you to rerun the search and see the new records.

MetaLib stores all the searches from the current session in Previous searches.

However, these searches are not saved at the end of a session. In Previous Searches you can click on to store a query in My searches.

You can perform the following operations in My searches:

Click the search query to run it again and see the latest search results. The results that are displayed when you run it again are retrieved afresh from the databases, and are therefore the most up-to-date.
Click in the Databases column to see the list of databases that are searched.
Click to define this search as an Alert, and complete the Alerts form with a title for the Alert, your email address, the time interval between alerts and the databases in which to run the Alert. If the query has already been defined as an Alert, the icon is replaced by .
Click to edit the Alert.
Click to remove this search from My searches.
Click to empty your My searches.

Preferences

Preferences enable you to personalize your MetaLib environment. You have the option to make the following selections and click Apply. Otherwise, MetaLib will operate according to its default settings.

To access, click My space in the menu and then Preferences.

Display of: Enables you to select the default view of the Search results and Database list pages.
No. of results per page: Enables you to specify the number of search results that are displayed on each page.

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