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Find books on your topic

Where are you in the process right now?

I need to:

• use the library catalog to find books on my topic

Go to tutorial or go to chart of example citations.

• figure out where the book I want is located
• find books that Grinnell's library doesn't have

Using the library catalog

The library catalog will search books, journals, newspapers, CDs, and DVDs that the Grinnell College Libraries own.

Note: a catalog search will find journals and newspapers, but not the articles within them. To find articles, you'll need to use a database relevant to your subject.

To get started, you can do a basic search from the library homepage:

Select a search type--Keyword, Subject heading, Author, Title, or Call Number

If you don't have a specific book in mind, you'll want to start with a Keyword or Subject search.

A keyword search looks for individual words anywhere in the book's bibliographic record

• Combine keywords on your topic

 

Example:

immigration united states

• Use quotation marks around phrases to search for the whole phrase instead of individual words

 

Example:

"American Revolution"

A subject heading search looks for words only in the subject headings assigned to a book by Library of Congress catalogers. Subject searches will give you fewer and more relevant results than a keyword search, but these results may be too narrow and not show you all potentially useful sources.

You can try the Advanced Search for more options or to combine types of searches.

Locating a book in the library

To get a book you have found in the catalog, you need to look at its record to find its status, call number, and location:

.

You can then find it using the chart of locations.

If the book is checked out or in processing, use the Request button to make sure it gets to you as quickly as possible. It's not rude to recall a book someone else has, it's an efficient use of library resources.

If the book is On Order, email query@grinnell.edu to ask for the book to be put on hold for you when it arrives.