Experimenting with the catalogue
Starting your search
Start from the Library catalogue search page.
- Keep it simple and just choose a few words. If you can, use distinctive words in the title or a combination of words from the title and the author’s surname.
- You don’t need to use the dropdown “All Fields” or “Add limits” options – there are lots of options for narrowing your results later.
- The catalogue will search for exactly what you type in. If you are having difficulty finding an item, check your spelling, then try again.
Too many results?
- If you get a large number of search results, use the Narrow search options (at the right of the page) to display only the items you’re interested in:
- Select a particular format, subject, language or view online items.
- Select a decade to limit your results by publication or creation date.
- You can add multiple formats as limits, for example books AND journals.
- Look for the small icons in your search results list to see the format of each item.
Use subject headings
- Once you’ve found the item you need, you can click on subject headings in the item’s Catalogue record to find other material related to that subject.
Browse
- Although you can’t browse the Library’s shelves in person, you can use the Catalogue to browse by title, author, subject or Dewey number.
- Select the Browse alphabetically tab and type your search terms in the search box. If you are browsing for a person’s name, type in their surname first.
Find a copy in another library
- To check if an item in our collection is held in a library closer to you, use the Find in other libraries link.
