Catalogs

1. Catalogs • There are three primary ways to find books. • DSU Online Catalog – Locate books in Roberts-LaForge Library • WorldCat – Locate books in any library • NetLibrary – Locate electronic books

2. DSU Online Catalog • Remember when using the catalog to use the search strategies that you learned in Week 5. • What will follow are screen shots of the catalog that will take you through the entire searching process.

3. From the Library’s home page, click on Library Catalog

4. Remember that you can do subject or keyword searches. In the catalog, a keyword search is called “words or phrase.” Consult Week 5’s notes to determine the difference between keyword and subject searches

5. To find out more about each title, click on “Full Details” to the left of each record. At the top of each record, you’ll find the call number which is what you’ll need to write down to go find the book At the bottom of each record, you’ll find the location.

6. When you click on “Full Details,” you’ll see the Item Information tab first. This includes author, title, and publication information. You’ll also see the location information again. By clicking on the “Catalog Record” tab, you’ll see even more information about the book. You’ll see all of the subjects (located at the bottom) along with any content information. If you click on any of the subject terms, you’ll then get a list of all books with the subject that you clicked. Subjects will be listed as “Subject Term” or “Personal Subject.”

7. More about the • Catalog Record • The subjects are a great way to find related books. • Not every record will be as informative as this example. Some records don’t contain a “Contents” section at all. • Remember that every idea and concept in a book can’t be expressed in the subject terms alone; do keyword searches as well. This will open up all of the contents to you and allow you to find words that may not be listed as the official subject term of the book.

8. For example, if you do the following subject search, You’ll get Zero results. However …

9. If you do the same search, but as a keyword search, You’ll get 26 results! This at least shows you the importance of doing both searches. The only way to know everything that’s in a book is by actually looking at it. The catalog records can get you only so far.

10. Tips for finding more information • Remember to look at all subject terms and contents. Those are words and ideas that you can use to find more material. • Also, to find more information about your topic when using the catalog, it’s also a good idea to put your topic in context of something larger. • For example, if you were looking for all of the books that you could find on Michelangelo, you would do both subject and keyword searches for his name. • However, does that mean that you’ve found every book that discusses Michelangelo? NO! NO! NO!

11. Take for instance, this example Even though this record doesn’t mention Michelangelo specifically, you can bet that it does have a section on him. So, think about your topic (remember the first key to finding sources!) and broaden the search. In this example, it’s Renaissance art. In our George Washington example, you could search for American Presidents and find something on GW. The catalog records will not and cannot hold all of the information that’s in a book. So you’re going to have to do some leg work in order to find everything on your topic.

12. In the catalog you can also do a power search. This allows you to search in more than one field at a time. It also provides effective limiters.

13. One of the best limiters that you can use is “type.” That allows you to limit your search to a particular type of source. As you can see, there’s much more in the catalog than just books. A good example of why you would use this limiter is if you were looking for a Reference book on your topic. In the Power Search, you can limit your results to get back only reference books.

14. Not every book on your topic can be found in Roberts-LaForge Library. Knowing that, you’ll want to also search WorldCat, a database used to locate books in other libraries – in other words, to find books that we don’t have. To get started in WorldCat, click on Electronic Databases.

15. On the Electronic Databases by Subject page, use the Quick Jump menu to select WorldCat. Later on, we’ll use the subject list to find databases, but if you know the title, it is quickest to use the title menu.

16. As you see, this looks very different from DSU’s catalog, but you search it the same exact way. You can do author, title, subject, and keyword searches just like in the library’s catalog.

17. One of the nice features of WorldCat is that it marks which books DSU owns, so you can easily identify the ones that you’ll need to get from another library.

18. If after looking at the record, you decide that you want to use this book, you’ll have to get it through Interlibrary loan. From WorldCat, it’s simple to request. Simply click on the ILL button and follow the directions.

19. Before you request anything from ILL, you want to make sure that it’s a book that you really want. WorldCat has some of the same evaluative features that you use in DSU’s catalog. In each record, you’ll find an abstract or a contents section. You’ll also find a list of subjects. Each of those items can help you determine that source’s usefulness, but they can also point you in the right direction to find related resources.

20. The last book type that we will discuss are electronic books. These are provided through a database called NetLibrary. To search for electronic books, you simply use the Library Catalog.

21. It’s simple to determine which books are electronic. The “eb” at the end of each call number denotes that it is an electronic book. To access the electronic book, simply click on the URL link at the bottom of the record.

22. After clicking on “View this Ebook,” you’ll see the actual book. The table of contents opens on the left. The pages will be on the right. You navigate by either browsing the table of contents, or by searching using the Search tab located directly above the contents.

23. If you want to search only for electronic books without using the library’s catalog, you can access NetLibrary directly from the Electronic Databases page.