Learn How to Search the Library Catalog

It's possible to search the library catalog by title, author, author and title together, or keyword.

• Use a Title search if you know the exact title of the item you are searching for. You may type as much or as little of the title as you want, but you must type it exactly as far as you go. Omit leading articles. The more of the title you type, the more specific your search will be. For example, to search for The Agony and the Ecstasy you might type any of the following:
  • Agony and the Ecstasy
  • Agony and the
  • Agony
• Use an Author search to find all the items by a particular author or artist. Type the author's or artist's last name first. You may add a comma and first or middle names to be more specific, but only the last name is required. You may also type the name of an organization or governmental body as the author. Examples:
  • Shakespeare
  • Shakespeare, William
  • Stone, Irving
  • Mozart, Wolfgang
  • American Council for the Arts
  • United States Congress
• Use an Author/Title search if you know the item you are looking for,but neither the author nor the title alone is specific enough. Type the author's name with the last name first. Type key words from the title. Examples:
  • Pauling, Linus
    chemistry
  • Bach, J
    well-Tempered
• Use a Keyword search if you have an idea of the title but don't know it exactly, or if you want to search for material on a particular topic. You may use the asterisk as a truncation character. You may also use Boolean connectors such as "and" and "or." For example, if you wanted to find material dealing with the ethics of cloning, the following search would find items where the information about the item in the catalog contains some variation of the word cloning (clone, cloning, cloned, etc.) and also some variation of the word ethics (ethics, ethical, ethically, etc.):
  • clon* and ethic*

You can refine your search by thinking of alternate words that relate to your concepts. For example, terms such as "moral," "morals," and "morality" might get at the same idea as "ethics." Connect alternate words related to a single concept with "or." Use parentheses to group your concepts and avoid confusing the search program. For example:

clon* and (ethic* or moral*)

Using the drop-down menus, you may limit  your results by language, type of material (books, periodicals, videos, etc.), year of publication, keywords, or location. You may also sort your results by date, title, or relevance.

Once you have some search results, you might want to use Subject Headings to further refine your search. In your results list, click on the title of an item that seems especially relevant to see all of the information about that title. Look at the subject headings assigned to that title. If one or more of them seems to describe your research interest, clicking on that subject heading will show everything in the catalog that has been assigned that particular subject heading. For example, looking at the information on a book about Hamlet in performance reveals the following subject headings:

Shakespeare, William, 1564-1616. Hamlet
Shakespeare, William, 1564-1616 -- Film and video adaptations
Shakespeare, William, 1564-1616 -- Stage history

Clicking the second one would produce a list of works about screen productions of Shakespeare's plays. Clicking the third would produce a list of works about stage productions.

Identifying a Call Number

Clicking on the title of any item in your list of results will show all of the information about that item, including its call number, its location in the library, and whether or not it is checked out.

While still at your results list, you may click on the Extended Display button to see all the call numbers as part of that list. This display will not tell you whether or not an item is checked out. However, it may be useful for identifying general areas of the shelves for browsing.