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[Frequently
asked Questions > Scone and Cairns] |
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[Use the back icon provided at the
end of each question or the back button in your browser,
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- What is SCONE?
SCONE (Scottish Collections
Network) provides descriptions of collections held in
Scottish libraries, museums and archives, and collections
about Scottish topics held elsewhere. SCONE contains information
about collections of all kinds.
It is particularly strong in
coverage of bibliographic collections of books and journals,
audiovisual materials, photographs, maps, plans, drawings,
video and sound recordings, local and family history
resources, manuscripts and archives, online digital
resources and websites. Information about locations
and organizations is updated annually by the Scottish
Library and Information Council (SLIC).
All subjects are represented:
• special collections covering specific topics.
• people and places associated with Scotland.
• special collections covering other topics of
interest to Scottish individuals and groups.
• general collections covering a very wide range
of topics.
Collections are owned and
administered by a wide range of institutions and organizations
located in Scotland:
• every educational library service in all colleges,
schools, and universities.
• every learned society library.
• every public library in all local authorities.
• family and local history societies and libraries.
• many special and rare books departments.
• significant commercial and industrial library
and information services.
• art galleries and museums. 
- What is CAIRNS?
CAIRNS is the Cooperative
Information Retrieval Network for Scotland. It was developed
by the Centre for Digital Library Research (CDLR) in conjunction
with the National Library of Scotland and the Scottish
higher education universities. It allows users to perform
a live search of multiple library catalogues at the same
time.
- Why aren’t all
libraries included in CAIRNS?
At present the National Library
and the Scottish Universities form the core of CAIRNS.
Over the course of 2004 the public libraries and the further
education centres will be added to the service. From time
to time some libraries will be unavailable to CAIRNS.
This is because CAIRNS carries out a live search of each
library and does not control the services of the individual
libraries. This means that if maintenance is being carried
out on a particular libraries catalogue it may become
unavailable for a while.
- Why is the service I
want to CAIRNS search unavailable?
From time to time CAIRNS
will not be able to search all services normally available.
If this happens try again later or go to their website
to get direct access to a catalogue.
- Why is CAIRNS searching
sometimes slow?
As the 'CAIRNS' search
involves searching multiple services at the same time
there is sometimes a time lag for results coming back.
If this is the case you could try clicking on the advanced
search option. This will allow you select which service
you want to search. By selecting fewer target services
your search time is likely to improve.
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Scotland's
Culture is supported by the Scottish Executive and the Scottish
Library and Information Council.
Send comments, suggestions and queries about this service to
Penny Robertson
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Date
created:28
Nov 2003 |
©
Scottish Executive/ Scottish Library and Information Council.
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Disclaimer |
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Last
updated:
27-Apr-2007
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