July 1996 1

RECONplus Tips and

Techniques

RECONplus Training

NASA Thesaurus Terms

STI A publication for users of the NASA scientific and technical information program office

BULLETIN

July 1996 Issue

In This Issue

ARIN Moves to Langley

Research Center and

STILAS System

An important part of the STI Program is providing the most comprehensive and wide-ranging information of interest to the aerospace

community. To serve you better, the

STI Program Office is consolidating

the ARIN (Aerospace Research Information Network) system. The STI

Program Office’s lead center, Langley

Research Center (LaRC), is incorporating the data from NASA CASI’s

older system into their modern, efficient STILAS search engine. ARIN is

a menu-driven, online catalog system

providing author, title, subject, and

keyword access to nearly 400,000

holdings available at fourteen NASAaffiliated libraries. The first data loads

have been sent to LaRC in anticipation of completing the loading by the

end of 1996.

Once the data is fully loaded, users

will have access to the 400,000 citations of NASA library holdings. Included are monographs, books, journals, and the early aviation collection

contained in the National Advisory

Commission on Aeronautics (NACA)

file, with documents from 1915 to

1958 to supplement the data already

available through the RECONplus

system.

These two powerful searching tools

are designed to help the aerospace research community complete their

work quickly and easily by affording

them access to current and historical

literature in every aspect of aerospace

engineering and science.

Access to the ARIN system requires

registration and a password. The

Online Products Lead the

Way to Information

Looking for fast access to new STI?

Now you can have access to the latest

and greatest aerospace literature. And

it’s free. Take advantage of the STI

web site at http://www.sti.nasa.gov.

It offers multiple ways to browse new

additions to the NASA STI database.

The CASI Technical Report Server

(TRS) is the free, publicly available

database access point. If you register

for access to the entire database,

RECONplus is the STI Program’s

new search engine offering three

modes of searching to assist the novice or the most sophisticated user.

Special RECONplus tips and techniques are described on page two of

this issue.

In addition to direct database access,

several online announcement journals are available that provide narrower views of the database and list

only the most recent additions to the

collection. All are available from the

STI web site through the STI Program Bibliographic Announcements

link. Simply click on the link and

you’ll be transported to the collection. Each of the journals concentrates on a particular aspect of the

database.

Aerospace Medicine and Biology offers

the reader the newest material in

Continued on page 3

registration process is simple and fast.

Anyone can register for ARIN. People

at NASA centers must obtain a registration form from their center library.

Others should call Registration Services at CASI at 301-621-0153 or

send e-mail to help@sti.nasa.gov.

subject areas including aerospace

medicine, space biology, and life

support systems.

Aeronautical Engineering provides information on topics such as air transportation and safety, astronautics,

and space engineering.

The flagship announcement journal,

published biweekly, is STAR (Scientific and Technical Aerospace Reports).

STAR lists the newest reports added

to the database during the previous

two weeks. Broken down into ten

subject divisions, and further divided

into seventy-six subject categories,

you can easily scan an issue to learn

if there are new reports in your subject area.

SCAN (Selected Current Aerospace

Notices), takes the data recently

added to the database and breaks it

down into even finer chunks. One

hundred ninety-one special topic

areas are available for your review.

To help you determine what categories most closely relate to your needs,

the NASA STI Database Subject Scope

and Coverage document is also available at the STI web site. In this

document are comprehensive

descriptions of each subject division

National Aeronautics and

Space Administration

Langley Research Center

Scientific and Technical

Information Program Office
2 STI Bulletin

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The STI Bulletin, published every other month, informs

NASA STI users about the products, services, and news of the

NASA Scientific and Technical Information Program Office.

Mark Jeschke, Editor

John Jones, Graphics

For additional information, contact

Roland Ridgeway

NASA Headquarters, Code JT

Washington, DC 20546-0001,

e-mail rridgeway@sti.nasa.gov.

RECONplus Training Schedule

MONTH DAY TIME

October 25 (Friday) 9:00-4:00

November 8 (Friday) 9:00-4:00

November 25 (Monday) 9:00-4:00

Navigating the CBI’s Menus

The menu choices are navigated using the arrow keys and

the ENTER key. On a standard 101-key keyboard you may

additionally use the numeric keys (the arrow keys on the

numeric keypad). To use the numeric keys, NUM LOCK

must be on.

The LEFT and RIGHT arrow keys are used to move between

main options menu items. The ENTER key causes the

menu to “drop down.” The UP and DOWN arrow keys

allow vertical movement through the menus. The HOME

and END keys select the first and last items on the menu,

respectively. The ENTER key is used to execute the desired

menu item, once it is highlighted using either the UP and

DOWN arrow keys or the HOME or END keys.

In addition, the following control (CTRL) keys may be

used to navigate the specific screens.

CTRL-F First Menu – moves to the first screen

within the search mode or to the Main

Options menu

CTRL-P Previous Screen – moves to previous screen

CTRL-E Explain Help – accesses help

CTRL-G Get – from a list; selects and deselects a term

CTRL-L List Terms – calls index list

CTRL-B Back – moves up a page in displays

CTRL-N Next – moves down a page in displays

TAB Moves to the next field or menu entry

CTRL-A Toggles between Insert/Overwrite in forms

CTRL-U Deletes current line in forms

CTRL-W ReWrite – redraws a screen

DELETE Deletes the character positioned to the left

of the cursor

CTRL-T Term – from index, allows you to specify new

starting term

CTRL-O Specify SOrt – specify sort from a form

CTRL-D Automatic escape

CTRL-X Show Status

The control codes listed above may be used to remap function keys on your keyboard. See your systems documentation or your system administrator. Please be advised that

this may hinder the ability of the NASA CASI personnel

to assist you with problems.

When the first letter of a main or navigation option is highlighted, you may select the function by pressing the

highlighted “hot” key, then ENTER. In a list, pressing the

highlighted “hot” key of a list item moves the cursor to

that item.

Reexecuting a Search in a Different Database

A search previously executed in one database can be

reexecuted in a different database. To do so, select a new

database from the Select Database option on the Main

Options menu. The new database is now the active database in which all subsequent searches will be performed

until you change the selection or exit and reenter

RECONplus.

If the search you want to reexecute is a stored search, select

Replay Stored Search from the Review/Other options on

the Main Options menu (See section on Replaying a Stored

Search). When the search is replayed, it is executed in the

currently active database and a new result set is created.

If the search you want to reexecute was executed earlier in a

current search session and has not been saved, see the section Recalling a Previous Search under the section Command Search Screen in the user manual. When the search is

recalled, it is executed against the currently active database

and a new result set is created.

RECONplus Tips and Techniques
July 1996 3

You can contact the NASA Access

Help Desk at (301) 621-0390, fax

(301) 621-0134, e-mail at

help@sti.nasa.gov, or write NASA

Access Help Desk, NASA Center

for AeroSpace Information, 800

Elkridge Landing Road, Linthicum

Heights, MD 21090-2934.

and category, and the topics that are

included in each one. This special

file can be used as a starting point to

prepare your own search strategies.

All of these publications have been

prepared as Adobe Portable Document Format (PDF) files. To view

these documents you must have the

Adobe Acrobat Reader installed on

your computer. The Reader is free

and easily downloaded from the

Adobe Systems homepage. The URL

is http://www.adobe.com/Acrobat/

readstep.html. For your convenience, the STI Bibliographic Announcements directory has a link to

the Adobe homepage. Simply

double-click your mouse button and

you will be connected to the Adobe

homepage. Follow the instructions to

download your own copy of the

Adobe Acrobat Reader.

The STI Program Office has chosen

to make the documents available in

Adobe Portable Document Format

(PDF) for a number of reasons. The

browser is free, has the advantage of

being a cross-platform tool, provides

the convenience of full-text searching, keeps document size manageable

with file compression, and faithfully

renders the document just as if you

were given a printed copy.

Suffice it to say that whether your

needs are basic or complex, the first

place to start is the NASA STI

web site.

Online Products Lead the Way to

Information

Continued from page 1

NEW TERMS

TANGENTIAL BLOWING

GS BLOWING

TANGENTIAL BLOWING

RT BOUNDARY LAYER CONTROL

CIRCULATION CONTROL AIRFOILS

CHORDS (GEOMETRY)

JET FLAPS

LIFT AUGMENTATION

SPANWISE BLOWING

WING SLOTS

X RAY SPECTROMETERS

GS MEASURING INSTRUMENTS

SPECTROMETERS

X RAY SPECTROMETERS

RT SPECTROSCOPY

X RAY SPECTRA

X RAY TELESCOPES

CHANGES TO EXISTING TERMS

BLOWING

EXTERNALLY BLOWN FLAPS and UPPER SURFACE BLOWN

FLAPS added as related terms.

PROVING

The related terms APPROACH AND LANDING TESTS (STS),

LUNAR ROVING VEHICLES, and ROVINGS were removed from this

hierarchy.

UNITED STATES

DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA, GUAM, PUERTO RICO, and VIRGIN

ISLANDS were changed from related to narrower (GS) terms.

DEFINITIONS ADDED TO EXISTING TERMS

BRANCHING (MATHEMATICS)

The appearance of a new solution of a mathematical equation at some

critical value of a parameter, as a result of which there may be more than

one solution (different branches) of the equation. Used for

BIFURCATION (MATHEMATICS).

NASA Thesaurus Terms
4 STI Bulletin

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