Tips for Searching the Ontario Workplace Tribunals Library (OWTL) Catalogue
This library catalogue contains records for all the books and periodicals (journals, newsletters etc.) held by the Ontario Workplace Tribunals Library. It also contains records for selected journal articles and other short documents that had been catalogued by the WSIAT library. Finally, there are also records for a variety of documents submitted to the Occupational Diseases Panel.
The chief subject areas covered include workers' compensation, occupational medicine, labour relations, human rights, pay equity and administrative law.
(Use with caution. It is easy to miss certain entries using these buttons.)
You can use the "Browse" button to suggest search terms. Clicking on one of the "Browse" buttons will cause a list of terms used in the catalogue to appear. For example, if you click on the "Browse" button next to the "Author" field a window will appear in which you will see a list of all authors in the catalogue.
However, keep in mind that this catalogue is an amalgamation of four different catalogues. Because of this, there is no standardization of subject headings or of how authors are referred to.
If you are searching for a personal author (e.g. George Adams), as opposed to a corporate author (e.g. Ministry of Labour) the best approach is simply to enter the last name, then a space, then the first initial followed by an asterisk.
For example, in the "Author" field: adams g*
This will retrieve all references to an author with the last name Adams and a first name that begins with the letter G. (Note that the software is not case-sensitive and that it ignores punctuation.) It is not recommended that you search by typing "adams george" because you will miss records where the name has been catalogued as "G. Adams" or "G.W. Adams".
When searching for a corporate author enter a phrase in quotation marks in the "Author" field.
For example:
"Ministry of Labour"
"Human Rights Commission"
Scroll through the brief results (Headed "Your search found x records."). Fifty items are displayed at one time. Records are displayed newest first by year of publication.
Click on the title of an item to see the full record.
< takes you back one page
<< takes you back two pages
In a full record, clicking on an author's name will take you to the other records
for that author but only those entered in exactly the same way. E.g.,
clicking on "Adams, George W." will not find records for "Adams,
G. W.".
Clicking on a subject heading will only take you to records with exactly the same heading.
Clicking the print button while in the brief results will print all the records displayed, up to a maximum of fifty. To print all records from a search with more than fifty records you will need to click on "next 50 records" and print again.
If you want to print only one record, you must first go to the full display for that record and then click on the print icon.
Clicking the "New Search" button takes you back to the search screen but the terms you entered for your previous search will still be there. You must press the "Clear Boxes" button to begin a completely new search.
Items in the OWTL collection may be borrowed only by staff of WSIAT, OLRB, HRTO or PEHT. Other library users must use the material in the library. The loan period is two weeks, with one renewal allowed.
At the top of a full record you will see the line "Click
here to request this item". By clicking on this an e-mail form comes up
with the item already in the subject line. Just type a note telling the library
how you want the item sent to you-typically either by inter-office mail or the
client will come by the library in person to pick up the item-and click on "send".