Creating Annotated Research Bibliographies on Weber with melvyl

This document describes the process of using melvyl via your account on weber to create an annotated bibliographic database. It uses three Unix utilities:

"script" - a utility that captures everything that goes over a screen while the utility is invoked.

Runs a sub-shell so care must be exercised.

"melvyl" - not the usual "telnet melvyl" or "telnet infopath" command, but the old melvyl interface that takes you straight to melvyl without invoking lynx (the ascii interface to the Web).

"longsquare" - a utility I wrote to strip unwanted lines out of files captured from melvyl using script.

First, login to weber.

Then, at the % type:

% script filename

Where "filename" is the name you want the file to carry. If you do not provide a filename, weber will call the file "typescript." Remember, Unix filenames are any combination of letters and numbers and periods but NO other punctuation or "special characters" -- especially the slash, backslash, the ampersand, the asterisk or the question mark.

The program "script" records everything that crosses your screen in the file you specify. I usually name my files topic.biblio, so if I were researching the work of Walker Percy, I would call the file "percy.biblio" - like this:

% script percy.biblio

Or I use the date:

% script percy.bib.960125

The machine will return a %, at which you type:

% melvyl

When prompted for a terminal type, type: l99 (that is "ell" 99).

[NOTE: Do NOT login to infopath -- too many non-ASCII characters]

A few Pointers on Effective Use of melvyl for Bibliography Generation

[NOTE: the melvyl prompt is a dash and a greater-than sign: -> which is sometimes supplemented by the name of a database such as "MAGS" - the magazine and journal database.]

"Paging" is the display on the screen. You can save yourself a lot of work later if you have melvyl page continuously instead of a screen at a time.

-> set paging cont

Libraries: if you are only interested in works in the UCSD library:

-> set library ucsd

There are two kinds of useful displays: "review" - which gives your titles and authors only, in a list form and "long" - which gives you much more information than the "normal" (or default) display. I use review to see what's available and then get the long listing for my working biblio. You can set the display to default to long and then still specify the review display when wanted.

-> set display long

Finally, and particularly in the MAGS database of magazine and journal articles, you might want to add both "text" and "abstract" to your display setting, so that you get all the available information. Use this command

-> set display long text abs

At this point, run all of your searches, and let the displays run across the screen. This set of instructions is most useful if you do not spend time reading what's on the screen, but just work on getting info into the file.

Once you have finished searching melvyl, and have returned to the shell (the %) you MUST exit the "script" program with:

% exit

Failure to do so will cause catastrophic consequences for your account and for weber. If "script" puts everything that goes across your screen into the file, then editing that file will cause a "recursive" [1] loop which returns copies of the file to the file, which returns more copies of the file to the file ... I think you get the picture.

Once you exit the script program you have two choices. You can either download the file to your Mac via kermit or telnet, and edit it there, or you can edit the file on weber. One caution. Script captures everything that the screen sees, including the end-of-line character (a Control-M) which you do not ordinarily see.

If you want to reduce the amount of extraneous stuff in the file, type:

% longsquare filename

What you are now left with is a long file that still needs editing and typesetting. If you used the long listing you will see that you have lots of useful and interesting information about the works you researched. I usually leave these in the file as "commented" lines ("hidden text" for you Mac folks) for future reference.

(c)Copyright 1985, 1996 by Bruce Jones

1. Sections used are reproduced entirely and without alteration
2. The following page footer is reproduced on each page:
   BJ's UNIX Primer - (c) Bruce Jones - 1985, 1996
3. Full credit is noted somewhere in the reproduction

Bruce Jones 			Department of Communication
bjones@ucsd.edu			University of California, San Diego
(619) 534-0417/4410		9500 Gilman Drive
FAX (619) 534-7315		La Jolla, Ca. 92093-0503

This page last updated on: Feb 3 1997