FYW Guide to the Library Catalog //

Using a computer on campus or at home, go to http://catalog.library.uarts.edu/search.

The LIBRARY CATALOG lists the holdings of the University Libraries (both Greenfield & Music Libraries), what books, videos, cds, scores and journals the libraries own and where you can find them.

In order to get the best results, consider how the library catalog works:

The catalog matches your SEARCH WORD to a word in a LIST. Which list depends on what KIND of search you select: TITLE, AUTHOR, SUBJECT, KEYWORD, or CALL NUMBER.

The LISTS are in alphabetical order. People's names are included in the AUTHOR and SUBJECT LISTS with last name, first (Giacometti, Alberto).

If you do not want to search the ENTIRE COLLECTION, you can choose to search only AUDIO, BOOK ARTS, JOURNALS, PRINT, REFERENCE, or VIDEO.

If you get more than one search result, you can use the LIMIT THIS SEARCH button at the top of the screen to sort your results by year and to find CDs, DVDs, videos and other material types within your results.

The Library Catalog presents you with several choices:

TITLE Matches your search word with the FIRST WORD after an article (a, an, the) in the title part of a record. You do not have to know the entire title, but you must know the first word or words.
To find The shameful life of Salvador Dali, type shameful life
To find Salvador Dali: the work, the man, type dali man work

AUTHOR Matches your search word with the LAST NAME of the person appearing in either the author or the add'l name parts of a record.
See SEARCHING FOR ARTISTS.
To find a book of Salvador Dali's paintings, type Dali, Salvador.
To find videos of Robert De Niro, type De Niro, Robert.

SUBJECT Matches your search words to LIBRARY OF CONGRESS SUBJECT HEADINGS or PROPER NAMES that appear in the subject part of a record. The most efficient way to search a topic!
To find books about Salvador Dali, type Dali, Salvador.
To find books about the history of movies, type motion pictures history.

KEYWORD Matches your search word to ANY WORD in the title, subject, author, add'l name and notes parts of a record. Use if you want to search more than one topic at the same time or if you do not get results searching title, author or subject.

Why? Because keyword will search places that the others cannot:

  • To find an ESSAY in a book, type the whole or part of the title, "Albert Einstein: the space-time interval and the quantum of light, 1905" or "Albert Einstein: the space-time interval"

  • To search for a PHRASE, place quotation marks around it: "art education".

  • To combine 2 or more words to get specific results, use BOOLEAN LOGIC:
    To find books about graffiti art and Keith Haring, type graffiti AND Haring.
    To find videos about all kinds of dance, type ballet OR "jazz dance" OR "modern dance" and select videocassette from Material Type.
    To find all human Simpsons, type Simpson AND NOT Homer.

  • If you put 2 or more words together w/o quotes or Boolean operators (and, or, not), the system will put a default AND between them. You will get MORE results than if you search as a phrase.
    To find an essay about Louis Aragon and Alberto Giacometti, type Aragon and Giacometti OR type Aragon Giacometti.

  • To find variations on a word, use TRUNCATION:
    Put an asterisk (*) after the root word, modern to pull up results with modern, modernism, modernist, etc.

CALL NUMBER This search is useful for finding other books of interest. Call numbers are organized by subject. It is a way of browsing from your computer.

The Library Catalog is arranged as follows:

ENTRY Each item in the library (book, CD, DVD, score, etc.)

RECORD Description of each item in the library.

The FULL RECORD contains the most information about an entry:

LOCATION (Greenfield Periodicals; Greenfield Open Stacks; Reference; Reserves; Special Collections; Book Arts, etc.)
STATUS (Check Shelves= available; Due Date=checked out; Lib Use Only, Lost, etc.)
LIBRARY OF CONGRESS SUBJECT HEADINGS.
See the full-record for Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band

FIELDS Parts of the record (Title, Author, Subject, etc.)
  • Some records contain a CONTENTS field that includes titles of short stories, essays, plays, songs or chapter headings. Search this field by KEYWORD.

    See the contents field of the above CD.

  • The SUBJECT field contains only controlled vocabulary: LIBRARY OF CONGRESS SUBJECT HEADINGS.
    You can find the correct LCSH in the Subject Guides or in the full-record in the library catalog.

  • ABOUT SEARCHING FOR ARTISTS in the library catalog: search both Subject and Author fields when doing research.
    a SUBJECT search looks for entries about an artist/performer
    an AUTHOR search looks for works by an artist/performer
.

Last updated August 21, 2017

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