Revision of Joao Barretto’s Workshop A Searches (PDF file) Revised in Powerpoint for the iPac by Manly Horowitz April 1, 2004

How to Search the Library Catalog Find books and other library materials

At the Library Home Page, Click on “Find BOOKS: Library Catalog”

You will see an initial Catalog screen that shows the various searches you can do

Start an Exact Title Search: Type in “The Joy Luck Club” and click “GO”

Click on “The Joy Luck Club” at the top of the list of titles to see 7 items

Click on the second item –”The Joy Luck Club” for it’s full record

Note important information in this book’s record – for more record, pull down the bar to the right

Also check the important information in this part of the record

Let’s go back to the top part of the record

Note the Subjects of this book - Click the second one for all the titles the library has on this subject

There are 5 titles on this subject - Click on “Mothers and daughters - United States - Fiction” to see them

You can now see all 5 titles

To start a new search, there are two main ways - One way is to click on “Library Catalog”

Clicking on Library Catalog takes you back to the initial search page

The other way to start a new search is to use the options at the top of your current screen

First click on the arrow to show your search options – select one

Let’s select “Exact Title” and search again for “The Joy Luck Club”

This time click on the second title for the motion picture soundtrack

Check the full record to see this item’s location – the Media Center

For another new search let’s click on “Library Catalog” and return to the beginning search screen

Let’s do next a Title Keywords search – some main words you remember in a title

Type in bell and tolls, two words you recall from a title you want

Click on the first item of the list of title results

Note the different locations and call numbers for this book

Next, an Author search – We want to know what we have by Amy Tan - Type in Tan Amy (last name first)

We have 13 titles by Amy Tan – Click on Tan, Amy to view them

Click on the second title, “The Kitchen God’s Wife”

View the full record – 3 copies of the book are available

Let’s try an Exact Subject search - for the subject, “Latin America”

A list of exact subjects appears, with “Latin America” at the top

Clicking on “Latin America” brings up 22 titles – Note the date of #1

Let’s sort titles by publication date so the most recent come up first – Click on the arrow for sort options

Select “Publication Date” and click “Go”

Now the first item’s publication date is 1999, not Let’s select the second item, published in 1998

In this record we can see a “Contents” area - For the rest of the record, pull down the bar

Now location information appears as well

Try another Exact Subject search – for items on (not by) Toni Morrison

Click on a subheading, “Criticism and Interpretation” (19 titles)

Click on the first of the 19, “Critical Essays on Toni Morrison”

Check this book’s full record

Let’s do another Exact Subject search – Type “Native Americans”

Zero results because our catalog doesn’t use this term - The “See” below tells us the term that is used

The term that is used gives 110 titles on our topic – Select that

The first items of the 110

Let’s try an Exact Subject search on the subject, “Aids”

“AIDS (Disease)” is the main term - Note the “See Also” lines below it

“See Also” refers to a closely related topic – Click on the first closely related topic

2 titles for the closely related topic, “AIDS (Disease) in children”

Let’s now do a “Subject Keyword” search. Type in, “gulf” and “war”

From the list of subjects having gulf and war, click the one circled

There are 2 titles for this subject – Select the first

View the full record

Next, a “Keywords in Plays, Songs, Essays, Short Stories” search

We’re looking for the short story, “Red Pony” – Type that in

5 titles come up. These titles are collections of works - of songs, short stories, etc., – Let’s select #5

The record here has a “Contents” area – “red pony” is highlighted

The contents area tells us this collection includes the short story, “Red Pony” by John Steinbeck

Let’s do another “Keywords in Plays, Songs,...” search. We want now Chekhov’s play, “The Seagull”

Select the first item, “Plays” by Anton Chekhov

“Contents” shows that this collection contains “The Seagull”

One more “Keywords in Plays, etc., search – We recall from a song title only 3 words – “turn” “I’m” “radio”

The cassette, “For the Roses”, comes up

Looking through “Contents”, we see that “For the Roses” has the song we want

To get the cassette, we need to go to the Media Center

Let’s now search for “Reserve Materials by Instructor”

Let’s say your instructor has a book on reserve you need – Type in her name, last name first, and click Go

Click on Redick, Mary at the top of the list of instructors for 11 items

Pull the bar down to find the book you want, “Cultural Anthropology”

Click on “Cultural Anthropology”

Note important information like circulation periods, availability, and the courses using this book

You can also search for reserve materials by course

Type in the course name (abbreviated) and number

Click on Math 840 at the top of the course list

Select the first item

Pull the bar down for “Copy/Holding Information”

Note circulation periods and other needed information

Let’s say we want a circulating book, but we see it’s checked out when we look it up in the catalog We can get the book by placing a hold on it. The following screen shows you how

Let’s say we want, specifically, Amy Tan’s “The hundred secret senses”, but it’s checked out

If you click the “Place a Hold” button, you can have the book held for you once it’s returned

After clicking “Place a Hold”, you are asked for your barcode and your phone number’s last 4 digits

Type in your information and click Login

You’ll be notified by mail when the book is available for pickup..

Now suppose we want a book that is circulating but is at another campus library We can request this book be sent to our campus library, again by clicking on the “Place a Hold” button

For this Downtown book to be sent to Rosenberg, click on “Place a Hold”

Fill in the information required and click Login

You should allow a maximum of 6 days for the book to arrive. A request made Monday through Wednesday should arrive in less time.

There is one more “Place a Hold” option A circulating book that is “On the Shelf” can be held for you if you are searching from a computer outside of a City College library. If you search in a City College library and the book is there, you must retrieve the book yourself. Perform the same “Place a Hold” procedure outside a City College library and have an “On the Shelf” circulating book held for you.