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The Works of John Ruskin

There is an instruction manual that accompanies this CD-ROM; if you need further assistance after reviewing this helpsheet, please ask an Etext staffer for the manual.

I. BRIEF OVERVIEW OF STRUCTURE AND CONTENT:

The Works of John Ruskin is a CD-ROM representing all thirty-nine volumes of the celebrated "Library Edition" of the Works of John Ruskin (1903-1912) edited by E. T. Cook and Alexander Wedderburn. The disk includes the complete text of the edition (over nine million words in length) and more than two thousand digitized images. The database is completely searchable and incorporates a number of advanced search operators (including searches by concept, adjacency, boolean terms, and wildcard operators). Those familiar with other search engines used at the university should find the Ruskin CD-ROM's graphical user interface fairly intuitive. Documentation detailing the more advanced features of the search engine is also available.

II. STARTING UP THE WORKS OF JOHN RUSKIN:

Place the CD-ROM in the computer's CD carrier by pressing the button outside of the CD-ROM drive to open and close it. Click on the Start menu button in the lower left-hand corner of the screen, select Programs, then select The Works of John Ruskin from the pull-out menu. Select The Works of John Ruskin icon from the submenu. The program should launch automatically. If you do not see these icons, please ask a staff member for assistance.

III. USING THE WORKS OF JOHN RUSKIN:

Once the program launches, you will be presented with a Contents window. From the Contents page you can navigate the CD-ROM by using either the table of Contents or the Volume and Page locator at the bottom of the screen.

Clicking on any of the volume names in the table of Contents window produces a small menu allowing you to navigate directly to the title-page, table of contents, or list of illustrations for the volume. From the table of contents and list of illustrations pages, you can access specific pages by double-clicking on the item you wish to access. Clicking on an image entry brings up a box with a clickable button. Pressing the button calls up Adobe Acrobat which then displays the image. You can access the table of Contents window at any time by clicking on the Table of Contents button (a small icon on the menu bar at the top of the screen displaying a group of books).

Inserting a volume and page number in the Vol and Page locator boxes at the bottom of the screen and pressing return or clicking on the double arrow button to the left of the boxes will bring you directly to that volume and page number. Pressing the appropriate single arrow buttons will bring you to the previous or next page.

IV. USING THE COOK AND WEDDERBURN INDEXES:

Click on the Index icon (the small "I" icon on the menu bar at the top of the screen). An alphabetical list of letters will appear. Click on the arrow to the left of the appropriate letter and then click on the pair of words which contains the word you want to find in the index. A page from the original index will be displayed. When you have found the index item you wish to access, use the Vol and Page locator boxes to access the page on which that item appears.

V. SEARCHING THE WORKS OF JOHN RUSKIN:

To conduct a simple search, enter a word into the small white box at the bottom of the screen and press the Search button. This will search the entire database for occurrences of the word or words you requested.

A list of the total number of documents containing the search term will appear at the bottom right corner of the main window (for example, "Document 1 of 134"). You can move through the list of search results by pressing the Next Hit button (a small icon on the menu bar at the top of the screen displaying a pair of binoculars and a small curved arrow). To display the titles of all matching pages, push the Search Results button (a small icon displaying two sheets of paper) located to the right of the Next Hit button.

For more advanced searches, click on the small Binoculars icon located on the menu bar at the top of the main window. This will present you with a query window and a number of option buttons for toggling the advanced search functions. Click the mouse on the window, enter the keywords you wish to locate, and press the button marked Search. For details on advanced searching using Concept, Near, Adjacency, Boolean, or Wildcard operators, see either the printed manual or go to the Help menu at the top of the screen.

From this box, you can also access some additional search tools:

  • Dictionary: The Dictionary button accesses an alphabetical list of all the words which have been indexed in The Works of John Ruskin and the number of times a particular term appears in the database.
  • Fuzzy: The Fuzzy function identifies words that have similar spellings to your original search word.
  • Relate: The Relate function identifies words that are related to your original search word.

VI. EXITING THE WORKS OF JOHN RUSKIN AND REMOVING THE CD-ROM:

Exit the CD-ROM by choosing "Exit" from the "File" menu. You should then find yourself back at the Windows desktop. Eject the CD-ROM by pressing the button below and to the right of the CD carrier. Place the CD back in its plastic case and return it to an Etext Center assistant.