How to Use HOLLIS

1. So, you want to use the HOLLIS system. Well, here's The Crimson's handy-dandy guide on how to do it. Let's say we're interested in rock musicians' home lives and want to see whether there's a book that will tell us about them. When we sit down at a terminal in Widener Library we see the above on the screen. Since we want to look at recent books, we type in "HU".

2. Now we have to chose what kind of search to make. If we knew Jim Morrison had written a book, we could type in "AU MORRISON" to learn about it. But since we want all rock musicians, we'll conduct a subject search and type in "SU ROCK AND ROLL."

3. We now have a choice between sub-headings. To get the broadest possible spectrum of books, we'll type in "3" to get information on rock music.

4. Now we get a list which promises more than 100 items, but we see only the first few, and we don't know how to see the rest, so we type "HELP" to learn more and see the above screen.

5. Having learned that "MORE" shows items further down the list, we finally arrive at item 173. Musicians' wives clearly figure prominently in their home lives, so we type in "173" to find out where to get the book.

6. Success. Rock Wives by Victoria Balfour is in the Schlesinger Library. Now all we have to do is walk up there.