The Philippine eLib is a collaborative project of the National Library of the Philippines(NLP), University of the Philippines(UP), Department of Science and Technology(DOST), Department of Agriculture(DA), and the Commission on Higher Education(CHED).

Funded through the e-Government Fund of the Philippine Government, the project hopes to provide for the information needs of all sectors of society in a convenient, affordable, and efficient way of delivery.

The Philippine eLib Portal serves as the gateway to all the online resources and services of the Philippine eLib project. It aims to:

• provide access to the collection of the different participating institutions
• facilitate shared subscription to online resources;
• provide document delivery services;
• provide current contents services; and
• provide mechanism for fee services.

The eLib Portal consists of the following components and services:

• Union catalog (bibliographic data);
• Digitized materials (full-text documents);
• Document Delivery (downloads, courier services);
• Shared subscription (electronic databases);
• Alert services (SDI, email);
• Membership (partners, content builders, special collecting officers, individual members, institution members, prepaid card users); and
• Help System (online help, FAQs).

This manual aims to inform the users of the Philippine eLib on the different functionalities of the eLib Portal system, how to navigate the different parts of the system, and how to maximize all available features.

This manual is intended for all types of users, such as, Partners, Subscribers, Prepaid card users, and Guests.

The Philippine eLib Portal is a web-based system which serves as a gateway to all its products and services. It has the following major components:

• Union catalog – contains consolidated bibliographic records in Machine Readable Catalog (MARC) format from the different libraries of the partner institutions;

• Digitized materials – electronic copies of books, thesis, manuscripts, and other Filipiniana materials scanned from print or converted from microfilm and stored as digital images in Portable Document Format (PDF) files;

• Shared subscription – shared access to foreign electronic journals and databases currently subscribed to by the Philippine eLib;

• Membership – refers to the type of membership available for users of the Philippine eLib. Members are categorized as either Partners, Content Builders, Subscribers (individual or institution), or Pre-paid card users; and

• Cyber Selective Dissemination of Information (SDI) – an email-based alert service provided by the Philippine eLib to users subscribed to this service. In this service, a subscriber is informed, through email, on new resources available in the database that matches his/her selected categories.

• To access Philippine eLib, open your web browser and type the server’s URL in the address bar (shown

in Fig. 1).

• Users will be brought to this page as they enter the given link.

The Home page is where the user is directed after a successful login. It is where you can see the System Advisory, News Updates, Site Links, Contact Us, Membership and the Sidebar Menu that contains the buttons to proceed to Search Catalog Page and Book Cart Page.

• To search for a book, simply enter the keyword and hit the “Search” button. Upon hitting the “Search” button, you will be directed to the Search Module where the results will be shown. Basic and Advance Search can be done in the Search Module. See figure below.

• The are two ways of searching, “Basic Search” where there is no specific filter used. The other way of searching is called advance search where it allows the users to add more categories so that the search results will be more limited and filtered.

• Basic search can be done easily as the user lands into the web page. The user is required to enter the keyword or information regarding the books that are to be searched. Basic search is not filtered and it will display all results in a general form.

4.2.1.1.1 Enter the keyword into the text box provided and hit the “Search” button.

4.2.1.1.2 Hit the “Search” button and you will be directed to the Search module where search results are provided. See figure below.

• This way of searching allows users to add more search categories for a better and specified search result.

4.2.1.2.1 Click on the “Advanced tab”.

4.2.1.2.2 Enter the keyword into the search bar.

4.2.1.2.3 To add more filter, click on the “Add” button, and another search filter will appear, If the user desires to add more search filter, the user can click the same “Add” button. However if a search filter is not needed anymore, the user can click the “subtract” button to remove the search filter.

• Boolean Search Filters are used to help users to be more specific in searching. This feature allows the users to limit the results that will be shown. For example, A user is searching for a book about South Pole with the given recommended authors. For the user to be able to search for that book; the user can enter South Pole choosing “Title” as category, The user must click the add button, and choose from the logical filters and choose “And” and also choose “Author” as category and the user can now enter the name of the author. The user can add more search filter to find the other recommended author, the user can click the same add button, and choose “Or” as logical filter, “Author” as category and enter the name of another author. A search result will be shown which corresponds to the need of a book containing “South Pole” as title and whose author is “Amundsen Roald”, or “Cock, James”. Not is used to restrict the system from showing a specific result.

See Figure below

• This feature allows users to order books whether hard copy or digital copy. note that not all books have digital copy. Book cart cannot be saved by users who does not have a subscription. However, The copy of the book cart can be sent via email to remind the user of the books that was included in the book cart. Purchasing of books can be done as a user is using the website, Users with paid subscriptions can still see the records on their book cart once they signed again.

• To add a book on the book cart, simply click on the “Add to Cart button”. See figure below

• To view items on the cart, click on the “Book Cart Button” found in the dashboard menu, after It was clicked, the user will be directed to the list of books that is in the book cart. The user can also remove items by clicking “Remove Record button” aligned with a specific book.

See figure below

• To have a copy of the record of the book cart, The user can click email list. The user will be prompted to enter email address where the records will be sent and the user will also be prompted to choose the type of email.

See figure below After the user entered the email and have a chosen a type, click send email. The list will be shown as the user checks the email address that is provided. See figure below