REFRESHER ON SEARCHING THE ONLINE CATALOG If you’re want to know whether the library owns a book, whether it’s in, and where to find it on the shelf, here’s what to do!

First, what do you already know about the book? You might know its TITLE. You might know its AUTHOR—the person who wrote it. You might know its SUBJECT--what the book is about.

To get to the BMHS Library Catalog, log onto the Internet and go to the following URL: This works from school AND from home, the public library—anywhere.

You should get to a screen that looks like this: There are two tabs. One is labeled “Home,” the other is labeled “Catalog.” The “Home” tab lists all the websites and databases your librarian recommends. This is NOT where you would look for a book. The “Catalog” tab links you to the BMHS library catalog. This IS where you would look for a book.

This is the Catalog page. Type the author, title, or subject into the Search Bar. Then click the “Author,” “Title,” or “Subject” button. If you just type in an author, title, or subject and press “Enter” without choosing, the search defaults to “Keyword.”

Say I’m looking for The Hunger Games. I type the hunger games into the Search Bar and press the Title button. the hunger games

There are three “hits.” Two have a little “book” icon next to the title, which means they’re print books. There are two because it looks like one entry is for the hardcover edition, and the other for the paperback. There’s also an audiobook edition, which has a little icon that looks like a CD.

Now, are any of these books on the shelf and ready to take out? If you wanted a book, sorry, but no. Look on the right-hand side of the page. For one edition, 0 of 2 copies are available. For the other, 0 of 1 copy is available. All copies are out. But the audiobook is in!

If the books WERE on the shelf, how could I tell where to find them? The CALL NUMBERS can be found right under the title. It even says “Call #” before the call number! The call number for the books is FIC COL No, there is no NUMBER in this call NUMBER—it’s all letters. But we still call it a call number. Go figure.

Where would you find a book with the call number FIC COL ? FIC stands for Fiction. Fiction in the BMHS library is in the shorter-height shelves. “COL”—those are the first three letters of the author’s last name, “Collins.” Fiction books are in alphabetical order by the author’s last name. Go past the fiction by authors whose names begin with A and B, and you’ll find the C’s. Go past the CA’s, “CE’s,” “CH’s,” “CI’s,” and “CL’s,” and you’re in the “CO’s.” Go past “COA,” “COB,” etc., until you find “COL.” Books by authors named “Collins” will be there.

Now we’ll search for a books on a subject, which is more likely when you’re looking for resources to help you do research for a project. We’re going to look for books about WIND POWER. We type wind power into the Search Bar and press the Subject button.

We get four hits, all books (see the book icons?). All are currently on the shelf and ready to go out. Two are in the 333’s, and two are in the 621’s. (For an explanation of the Dewey Decimal System, there’s another tutorial.) They’re in two different places because the first two books are more about the theory of wind power, and the last two are more about the applications, like windmills.

Once again, the call number is right under the title. This time there really is a number, There are also some letters, TEC. Notice that, once again, these are the first three letters of the author’s last name. The letters will help you find the exact book you want if there are several books will the number 333.9, which is very possible. Next, we’re going to click on the Details button.

It’s usually not necessary to go to this page just to find the book on the shelf, but there is a little more information here. There’s a short summary of the book. There’s a list of the “Subject Headings” librarians have given this book. If there’s a “Find It” button, there might be more books, videos, etc., about that subject. Some subjects are broader—more general—but a book might include a chapter on your subject. Finally, there is bibliographic information about the book, like the publisher and ISBN number. This is useful for your Works Cited Page.

Like most search tools, the catalog includes a Power, or Advanced, search option. I wonder whether anyone has written about the effect of the weather (storms, especially) on world history. This kind of search doesn’t work well in the Basic Search screen, but here’s what you find with Power Search.

(I ended up narrowing this search a little more—but there are still a couple of titles that don’t seem to fit— just like on the Internet.) But there are over ten books that have something to do with weather and history, from the Dust Bowl in the 1930s, to hurricanes and blizzards.

One reminder about searching in the catalog versus searching on the Internet: Sometimes it works well in Google or Yahoo! when you type an entire sentence into the Search Bar. Library catalogs are not quite as clever as Google or Yahoo! when it comes to dealing with long strings of words, like sentences. This is because it’s unlikely (possible, but unlikely) there’s an entire book in the average library about the economic effects of Hurricane Katrina on the New Orleans restaurant industry, though there might be a website on that exact subject. When using the library catalog, think GENERAL rather than VERY SPECIFIC and you’ll be more successful. Once you find a book about Hurricane Katrina on the shelf, that’s the time to look in the index for topics like “economic effects” and “restaurants.”

FINALLY: NEED HELP? ASK THE LIBRARIAN!!