Go to the SCIS website https://www.scisdata.com/ then click on ‘Login’ in the right-hand panel.  Use your SCIS username and password to access SCIS Data.  Click on ‘Search’ and you will be in the SCIS catalogue (or SCIS database) which contains all the catalogue records created by SCIS for school libraries.  Guidance on using this catalogue is available at ‘Help’.

Locate three catalogue records of interest to you and explore which elements can be searched in this particular catalogue, and which elements describe a resource’s information content.  It is best to search for records from 2014 onwards to see recent examples of SCIS records.

Since I’m teaching HSC English Extension this year, I figured I’d search for some resources relevant to this course.

Search for Pettersson, B. (2016). How literary worlds are shaped: a comparative poetics of literary imagination.

This search was straightforward, with only two records describing this particular source (for a 2016 and a 2018 edition). Here are the record details for first one I chose:

SCIS number: 1898439
ISBN: 9783110483475
Main author: Pettersson, Bo.
Publisher: Berlin, De Gruyter, 2016
Publication date: 2016
Series: Narratologia ; 54
SCIS subjects: Literature, ComparativeLiterature–History and criticism
ScOT subjects: Literary criticism
Dewey: 809 PET
Description: viii, 326 pages.
Content type: text
Format: volume
Language: English
Additional terms
Learning area: Humanities and Social Sciences, English
Type: Book

Summary
Literary studies still lack an extensive comparative analysis of different kinds of literature, including ancient and non-Western. How Literary Worlds Are Shaped. A Comparative Poetics of Literary Imagination aims to provide such a study. Literature, it claims, is based on individual and shared human imagination, which creates literary worlds that blend the real and the fantastic, mimesis and genre, often modulated by different kinds of unreliability. The main building blocks of literary worlds are their oral, visual and written modes and three themes: challenge, perception and relation. They are blended and inflected in different ways by combinations of narratives and figures, indirection, thwarted aspirations, meta-usages, hypothetical action as well as hierarchies and blends of genres and text types. Moreover, literary worlds are not only constructed by humans but also shape their lives and reinforce their sense of wonder. Finally, ten reasons are given in order to show how this comparative view can be of use in literary studies. In sum, How Literary Worlds Are Shaped is the first study to present a wide-ranging and detailed comparative account of the makings of literary worlds.

Author notes
Bo Pettersson, University of Helsinki, Finland.

Search for Le Guin, U. K. (1969). Left Hand of Darkness.

This search gave me more results, since there have been multiple editions/formats published as well as criticisms and study guides. Interestingly, many of the top results when sorted by Relevance were not the text itself but study guides.

The record details for the edition that I’m using with my students are:

SCIS number: 1830065
ISBN: 9781473221628
Main author: Le Guin, Ursula K.
Publisher: London, Gollancz, 2017
Publication date: 2017
Series: SF masterworks
SCIS subjects: Life on other planets–FictionSex differences–FictionCivilisation–FictionHugo AwardNebula Award
ScOT subjects: AliensGender (Physical characteristics)Society
Dewey: F LE
Description: 304 pages.
Content type: text
Format: volume
Notes: First published: 1969. Winner of the Hugo and Nebula Awards.
Genre: Science fiction.
Language: English
Additional terms
Type: Book
Summary
Genly Ai is an ethnologist observing the people of the planet Gethen, a world perpetually in winter. The people there are androgynous, normally neuter, but they can become male ot female at the peak of their sexual cycle. They seem to Genly Ai alien, unsophisticated and confusing. But he is drawn into the complex politics of the planet and, during a long, tortuous journey across the ice with a politician who has fallen from favour and has been outcast, he loses his professional detachment and reaches a painful understanding of the true nature of Gethenians and, in a moving and memorable sequence, even finds love…
Series
1 Rocannon’s world
2 Planet of exile
3 City of illusions
4 The Left hand of darkness
5 The Dispossessed
6 The Word for world is forest
7 Four ways to forgiveness (Collection)
8 The Telling
Author notes
Ursula K. Le Guin was born Ursula Kroeber in Berkeley, California on October 21, 1929. She received a bachelor’s degree from Radcliffe College in 1951 and a master’s degree in romance literature of the Middle Ages and Renaissance from Columbia University in 1952. She won a Fulbright fellowship in 1953 to study in Paris, where she met and married Charles Le Guin. Her first science-fiction novel, Rocannon’s World, was published in 1966. Her other books included the Earthsea series, The Left Hand of Darkness, The Dispossessed: An Ambiguous Utopia, The Lathe of Heaven, Four Ways to Forgiveness, and The Telling. A Wizard of Earthsea received an American Library Association Notable Book citation, a Horn Book Honor List citation, and the Lewis Carroll Shelf Award in 1979. She received the Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters in 2014. She also received the Nebula Award and the Hugo Award. She also wrote books of poetry, short stories collections, collections of essays, children’s books, a guide for writers, and volumes of translation including the Tao Te Ching of Lao Tzu and selected poems by Gabriela Mistral. She died on January 22, 2018 at the age of 88. (Bowker Author Biography)

Thoughts:

While most of this information wouldn’t be used as an access point for someone searching for this resource, it would nonetheless help narrow down during the selection FRBR task.

On a side note, I love that SCIS often provides links to the Google Books version of the resource. I’ve found that accessing the Google Books samples (where possible) has helped me make the decision about whether a resource is relevant to my needs or not.