New Titles @ UIUC: Advanced Usage

You can reproduce any search on the New Titles page by creating a URL. These can be created automatically using the "Create HTML Link" button on the New Titles Page. Try going to the New Titles List, choosing some options, and then clicking on the "Create HTML Link". Play with it for a little bit.

The New Titles List gives more options than are presented through the interface. There are some options such as notUnits that cannot be used without constructing the URL by hand.

If you played around with the "Create HTML Link" button that I mentioned earlier you'll notice there is always http://www.library.uiuc.edu/newtitles/view.php?. This forms the base of the URL. The base has options following it in the format &option=value. To create a link from scratch, all one needs to do is use the base, select some options from the option list, and add them to the end of the base. For selecting specific unit libraries, you will need to know the unit id, found in the the tables.

Suppose I want to create a link for new titles that deal with programming languages in the Library and Information Science Library. The first step is to narrow it down by Library. A quick check of the options list tells me that I will need to use &units=unit_number. The Unit Id in the Unit table states that Library and Information Science has Unit Id 43. This means my option will look like &units=43. Now I have the first version of the URL, http://www.library.uiuc.edu/newtitles/view.php?&units=43.

At this point, the results include all of titles new to the Library and Information Science Library. If I was using the New Titles webpage, I could use the 000-009 Dewey range to return some titles on computer programming languages along with many, many more titles having nothing to do with computer programming at all. However, the New Titles database is not restricted to the Dewey call number ranges displayed on the New Titles page. The Call Number Range option can be used to search in a tighter range than between 000 and 010. The format of the call number range option is &CallNoRanges=start_end_type (see options). The call number range is inclusive to exclusive range, so it will return titles after or the same as the start call number but before the end call number. So if you searched &CallNoRanges=000_010_d it would not return a title that had the call number 010 K57r. I decide I want to go and get all books from 005 to 006. My URL now looks like: http://www.library.uiuc.edu/newtitles/view.php?&units=43&CallNoRanges=005_006_d. The d at the end will also restrict the sarch to call numbers of Dewey only.

Does the URL look a little short compared to the ones created with "Create HTML Link"? Well, I am taking advantage of some of the defaults for the options. First, no type is specified, so it will return html. Second, no date range or fixed date is specified, so it will return the past 14 days. Had the type been set to RSS, the default for the fixed date is today. Also, do not be surprised if you try this search and do not get a lot of returns. Try modifying the &units=43 to &units=43,36. Adding Engineering will probably add quite a few hits. Technically you do not need the first & after the ?, but it will not hurt anything to put it in.

Two links: One for a unit library, one for related materials in other libraries

Whenever building the URLs, you can follow roughly the same procedure. Start with the base URL and then add on options. Typically, the first option to choose is the library (see Units Table). We will use Biology as an example. The unit code is 26, so you could probably create a section in your html page that looks like:

Check out the new titles for Biology

What about titles that go to other unit libraries that your patrons might be interested in? You could take some time and decide some other libraries that are likely to get similar books and then choose a call number range. There is a quicker way though. The notUnits option searches all libraries except the ones in the given list. For our example, we will combine the notUnits option with the call number range options, &notUnits=26 and &CallNoRanges=570_600_d. The links on your page will look a little like: <a href="http://www.library.uiuc.edu/newtitles/view.php?&units=26"> Check out the new titles for Biology</a> or <a href="http://www.library.uiuc.edu/newtitles/view.php?&notUnits=26&CallNoRanges=570_600_d"> see new biology titles at other campus libraries</a>. Which will appear like

Check out the new titles for Biology or see new biology titles at other campus libraries.