by Ari Cohen, Meifang Feng & Paolina Taglienti

Beginning with the new Academic Year, LIUCAT (Long Island University's library catalog) has a new look. This new look is the result of a migration to a new system, Horizon, developed and administered by Ameritech Library Services. The new system is much more powerful and flexible than the earlier one used at LIU, and it offers many indexes for searching, including Alphabetical List Searches and Keyword Searches for titles, authors, and subjects. A major improvement in the new LIUCAT is the presence of explanations for all indexes, examples, and help in searching. A new feature is the presence of cross-references. Restricting searches to specific campuses is now available also. However, the restriction is limited to title lists only.

WHAT YOU CAN FIND IN LIUCAT

At the present time, 85,000 books are cataloged in LIUCAT. All books with imprints from 1980 to the present are searchable. The Cataloging Department has embarked on a number of retrospective conversion projects to enter pre-1980 imprints into the system. These projects will continue until all books in the Brooklyn collection are entered into LIUCAT. The card catalogs, author/title and subject, are still necessary for searching pre-1980 imprints not found in LIUCAT.

It is important to begin all searches in LIUCAT. When a search is not successful and the book sought is a pre-1980 imprint, then the card catalogs must be searched to determine if Brooklyn holds the book.

WHAT YOU CAN'T FIND IN LIUCAT

Other formats, such as periodicals, audio-visual, theses and dissertations, computer files, and Internet resources, are not presently cataloged and search-able in LIUCAT. We recently conducted a survey among the library faculty and staff con-cerning the prioritization of other formats. Recommendations are included in the "2000+" report issued by the Library Strategic Planning Committee. Please note that the library does have various finding tools for locating material in these other formats.

The Cataloging Department welcomes comments, suggestions, and questions about LIUCAT.

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