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About HamCAT: Help Page

Ham cat

HamCAT is our online library catalog.  “Partner Libraries” includes numerous MnPALS Consortium Libraries collections including Bemidji State UniversityMinnesota State University, MankatoSt. Cloud Statevintage CLIC libraries , and other four-year academic Minnesota libraries. It does not include the University of Minnesota Librariesopens in a new browser tab.

You can search all MnPALS Libraries collections including Hamline by clicking the drop down on the search:drop down to search all MNPals or digital repos.

 

 

 HamCAT has replaced the older, now defunct CLICsearch

Search Tips

 

  • Click the checkbox to include "Add results beyond ..." after initiating a search if you are open to using and waiting for Interlibrary Loans that may come from libraries outside our MnPALS consortium.  Add results beyond Bush Library and partner libraries
  • Advanced search is a toggle button that brings up a more powerful search interface with more parameters for refining results.  The Advanced Search button changes to be "Basic Search" if you wish to return to the single-line more simplified search interface.
  • If one runs an Advanced search for a title "starts with" in HamCAT, subsequent searches do not allow changing the search parameters without clearing the search. Workaround: Try changing the "starts with" limiter in Advanced Search to something else and then you can change your search filter to author or whatever.  Advanced search
  • To search for and locate book series, use Advanced Search and set the Title/Series drop-down.  Title/Series dropdown to search for Loeb series
  • DOI searches only function if a proper DOI is entered. Do not prefix the https://doi.org/ to the DOI for the results to be accurate. E.g. search for 10.1007/s00216-019-01867-2
          NOT  https://doi.org/10.1007/s00216-019-01867-2.  

            Hint:  DOIs  begin with  the number ten period (10.) .

  • 50 items is the maximum number of favorite/pin selections at a time. If this limit is reached, users are prompted to edit their selections.  pin,  favorite

 

Known Issues –Troubleshooting

Some users find  it helpful to have two different browsers,  one of which is used for the personal Google account and the other used for their Hamline Google account.

          It is optimal to search the above resources directly rather than using HamCAT.

  • Past loan history is not available in HamCAT in order to protect your privacy.

 

  • Google 404 when trying to sign in: if you encounter  the following problem please contact the Central Service Desk at csd@hamline.edu or 615-523-2427 as we need to request that ITS add a missing parameter to your Hamline account to resolve this. Another option is to submit an incident  on our Hamline Central Service Desk Service Portal and include "404 HamCAT sign in issue" as part of the description. It will also be helpful to know your OS (e.g. Windows 10, Mac OS X Big Sur, iOS, Android, etc.) and browser version to expedite your request. Resetting your Hamline password or trying another browser will not resolve this 404 error.

                Google 404 that's an error

  • Advanced Search:  electronic  capstones, theses and dissertations don't  show up in search results when material type is limited to "Theses & Dissertations."  This is a known issue.  As a workaround, please use material type "All items"  in the Advanced Search if you are not sure if  the thesis or capstone is electronic or print.   This is highly suggested for search is limited to "Digital Collections."  Another option is to go into DigitalCommons@Hamline and search directly

Radio button Hamline  Digital Collections in advanced search

HamCAT displays 10, 25 or 50 results per page depending upon the user settings. After entering a search, scroll down to the near the bottom of the page to adjust "Results Per Page":

choose max hits shown per page: 10, 25, or 50

 

 

 

 

Unfortunately the system doesn't remember this setting for subsequent searches if you close out your browser. You may have to reset the desired results per page repeatedly.

 

IOS device (iPad) left panel-facets cover-up the search boxes when devices held horizontally.

Solution: rotate the device 90°, i.e. hold the device vertically. 

iOS 14.8.1 covers search screen with facets/left panel
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

If you try to login to HamCATopens in a new browser tab but it fails and you see this message below, realize that you are probably signed into Google with a non-Hamline username. 

  the login process has failed – Please see the library - signout from the external authentication system

The solution is to sign out and sign back in with your Hamline credentials. Another option is to use a different browser.

 

 

Curly quote marks versus straight quotes give different results 

A bug in the system is treating search strings wrapped in different kinds of quotes differently. For example, a search for

“australian intelligence community“

 brings up a different number of search results than using straight quotes:

"australian intelligence community"

 Please note that depending upon your device, it may be automatically changing your quote marks into curly quotes (e.g. on some iPhones). This is on the vendor's list to be fixed but has not been resolved yet. 

 

Bug: APA (7th edition) citations are missing the first name of the first author/creator in HamCAT.  IMPORTANT

You will have to add the initial of the first author manually for your Reference List until a fix is released (unknown timeframe, but vendor is working on it). Tip: always double-check any references / citations that are generated by a computer for appropriate formatting.

 

Articles: Conference Abstracts  NEW

Some "full text" records are for abstracts of papers presented at conferences which are inaccurately described as type "Articles."  Please realize that conference abstracts are in fact the full text. No further full text was ever intended nor will ever be made available.

 

EBSCO "Item not found" NEW
EBSCO does not index numerous short articles as separate articles, so they do not resolve correctly following the HamCAT link(s). The solution is to go directly into the appropriate EBSCO database and conduct a search for the short article title; i.e. use the citation info. from the HamCAT record to search within the EBSCO search interface. You can also ask a librarian for assistance.

 

Multiple ISSNs NEW

 The system does not return valid results when searching for multiple ISSN numbers concatenated together with commas.  The solution is to  instead conduct separate searches for each ISSN.

E.g.  searching for 1759-9660 , 1759-9679  returns zero results.

   Rather: search for 1759-9660.  Look at the results.  Then conduct a subsequent search for 1759-9679  and view those results.

 

Interlibrary Loans  (ILL) NEW

 See this page for details about how to request  Interlibrary Loans using HamCAT.

For Faculty

Leganto at Hamlineallows faculty to create and edit Reading Lists that integrate library available resources into your Canvas courses. 

 

Leganto for faculty To use the Leganto Send to button when viewing a full record in HamCAT, you must first sign into HamCAT using your full Hamline email address. If you choose to send the citation(s) to a list, note that your reading list and section must previously have been created in Leganto. Faculty can sign in to Leganto directly here or go through Canvas to edit your Reading List(s). After clicking the Add to Reading List button in HamCAT, the screen will flash briefly but currently there is no notification that the send to function worked. Go into Leganto to check that your reading list has been updated with the new additional citation.


   Note that the "Send to Leganto" reading list functionality is only available for faculty and staff users. 

We are members of the larger Minnesota MnPALS Library Consortium with support services through PALS 

 

Contact the Central Service Desk (CSD) or your library liaison if you can't access what you need.