Finding books on your topic
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1. Where to start: the library catalogue 2. How to search: using keywords 3. Finding the books on the shelves |
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4. Other ways to search the catalogue |
Where to start: the library catalogue
The library catalogue is easy to find on our web site: it's the first item in the navigation bar of every library screen. This is the tool to find books, journals and other publications, both in print and online.You can search it in different ways, using the links at the top: title, author, keyword etc.
- You can search for a book by author or title if you already know those details (below).
- You can search for a journal by its title and check volume and issue numbers (under journal articles)
- You can not search for a journal article by author or title, unless this article has been placed into E-Reserve. If the article is NOT in E-Reserve, you needd to use an electronic database.
How to search: using keywords
When you are looking for books on a topic, use the library catalogue and search by keyword, clicking the yellow toolbar at the top. Use the concepts and keywords you found when you analysed your topic. Type a word (eg. ethics) or an expression consisting of two or more words (eg. environmental sustainability). The catalogue will try to match the exact phrase, ie. the words in the order that you entered them.If your search finds too many items, you can limit by Location: Engineering, using the drop box halfway down the page. Or narrow your search by combining keywords.
Combining keywords
Very often you will have a combination of keywords, such as oral communications, engineering, or teamwork, construction industry and you need to combine the terms. This is done using the operator and which has the meaning of 'as well as'. You need to type the word and, do not use & or + instead.For example: oral communications and engineering.
Avoid long descriptive phrases, such as 'the importance of oral communications in engineering' but break it down into the main concepts, disregarding the 'extra' words.
Alternative terms
Sometimes your search will find very little or nothing, so you need to widen it by including alternative terms. Synonyms or alternative expressions can be combined in one search using the operator or.For example: speech or oral communications.
It is possible to combine and and or in a single search. Use brackets to group similar terms together.
For example: (speech or oral communications) and engineering.
Use the truncation symbol * to search for varying forms or spellings of a word.
For example: engineer* searches for engineering, engineer/s, engineered etc.
Learn more about keyword searching.
Finding the books on the shelves
When you see a title that looks promising, click on it to open it up.
In this example, there are three copies of the book, in two locations (libraries). Note the call number, including the space (333.7914_4) and the status. Check shelf means the book should be available. Find out more about locating books or ask library staff for help.
Other ways to search the catalogue
You can search for a book from your reading list.
The best way is a title search; type the exact title, leaving out the initial article 'the'.
Book citations usually include a publisher, a place and date of publication as well as author and title details.
You can learn about other ways to search the catalogue by using the yellow toolbar at the top for author, subject, number and other options. Each search page contains helpful hints and examples. If you want to find out more, use the catalogue help pages and the online tutorial.
The next part of the tutorial is about searching the Internet
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