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Willis N. Hackney Library

FYS 101: Finding a Book via Hackney Library's Catalog

This guide will help FYS "expert" students explain to their classmates how to use the library's home page and catalog to identify a book, locate it in the collection, and where to check it and other materials out.

A. Search the Catalog For a Print Book

To find a book in our catalog, in the box that appears on the page, type in a word or phrase to find items you are looking for on your topic.  The example below is for catalog items (including print books, among other items) about animal rights.

Now scroll down to the next section to see how to interpret your search results.

B. Results of Your Catalog Search

In the screen shot below, you'll see that the catalog has found 92 items (circled in turquoise) that contain the phrase "animal rights" somewhere in the record for them (title, subject heading, notes field, etc.)  These items are in a variety of formats, including books, listed in the Format section (circled in red) in the left sidebar.

C. Filtering Your Catalog Results to Books Only

Your task is to choose print books only (removing all other formats from your results list).  To do this, click on the Book limit in the Format section (circled below in red--you'll notice that there are 63 books dealing with animal rights):

Now that you have chosen the format for "Book" only, your list should now contain only those 63 items in that format (notice that "Book" is circled in red under the cover image for each book in the partial search results shown in the screen shot--you should no longer see items in other formats, such as Audiovisuals, in your results list):

 

Now scroll down to the next section to see how you can get more information about a particular item in your results list.

D. Finding Out More About a Book from Its Catalog Record

Let's say you wanted to find out more about the second item in the book list above, Roger Scruton's Animal Rights and Wrongs, published in 2000.  To do so, click on the title link for that book (Animal Rights and Wrongs) to be taken to the complete catalog record about that book, which will help you determine if you want to use it, and if so, where to find it. 

The screen shot below shows you a portion of the catalog record for this book.  Notice the title and author are listed at the very top of the record and also below the table in the record (both occurrences are circled in turquoise).  

In addition, there is more info in the catalog record; to find out more about how that helps you locate this book, click on the Step 4 in the left sidebar or at the bottom right.