Locating Books Using eCatalog: Home

Locating Books Using eCatalog

You can search eCatalog from the multi-search tool on the library home page. Simply select “Print books, DVD’s, and more – eCatalog” from the drop down menu and perform your search as normal. You can also go directly to the library’s eCatalog by selecting "Print books, DVD's, and more" from the 'Find' drop down menu.

Searching by subject is the most common way to search. Most people do not have a specific book or author in mind when they are doing their research they just need information on a particular topic. 

Searching by subject can be tricky as Library of Congress subject terms are used to index all the items in eCatalog. Using the official LC subject term is the best way to find a book on your topic, but most people, even librarians, are not familiar with all of them. Doing a subject search with a term not used by the Library of Congress, may bring up no results, even though we actually do have books on that subject. So if you are not getting good results, switch to an All Fields search instead. 

The following example demonstrates a typical search for a book on the subject of business etiquette: 

• Notice that the search terms are highlighted. 
• Results are sorted by relevance by default, but you may use the Sort By menu above the results to sort them in other ways, such as by date. 
• Limit Search Results. Use these to focus your search. For example, you can limit your results to a particular author or date range. 
• Subject terms listed are the official LC subject terms, and are often very helpful. Each one is followed by a number indicating how many of the books in your list use this subject term (some may use more than one term). 
• Check any terms, dates, etc. you wish to Include or Exclude from your results.