FAQ: Friday Using the library catalog - - no card tricks, plenty of magic

Bet ya haven’t seen a real card catalog in years, possibly decades. Do you miss it? Maybe, maybe not. Some might not even know what a card catalog is, let alone how to use it to full potential. But FAQ is here to tell you that there is no need to fear the electronic library catalog, it’s just a new face for the same information. Fewer papercuts are an added bonus.

Long ago and far away, libraries kept the information about all the books in the library on little cards, which were kept in long drawers and organized in ways that sometimes made little sense to the library patrons. It’s all very archaic – one card for title, another for author, still more cards for subject headings and series.

Sounds tedious, doesn’t it? With the dawn of the computer age and the development of complex database systems, libraries went electronic and never looked back. Oh sure, some libraries held on to their card catalogs for years, “just in case” the system went down, or the data was lost, or some other nebulous potential disaster. But once the information was “in the system”, libraries found that it was faster and easier to use a computer to do the searching.

Using the library catalog to locate resources

The Hackelmeier Memorial Library online catalog is the place start when you are looking for materials in the library collection. The catalog will tell you if we have a particular resource, the collection and call number, and whether the item is on the shelf or checked out. All with a few key strokes and mouse clicks. Access the catalog from the library’s web page. A quick link to the catalog is available on the button bar on the left hand side of the page.

What you will (and won’t) find in the library catalog

The library catalog provides information on all the items in the library collection that are located in the library building, plus links to e-books. So, the catalog provides access to books, journals on subscription in hard copy, and CD and DVD collections. Course reserves are also accessible within the library catalog -- use the e-Reserves catalog search page to access course reserve materials

Electronic access to journals (such as Academic Search Premier, JSTOR and Project Muse) are not currently accessible via the library catalog, use the Electronic Resources Database page to access those resources. Also, you will not find individual journal articles referenced in the catalog, journals are in the catalog by title only, not individual issues. You will be able to determine if the library subscribes to a particular journal (or has back issues available), but to see the individual articles you will need to consult the journal issue itself or use an index or database to locate specific articles (see a previous FAQ: Friday, Finding Journal Articles).

Searching -- keep it simple, scholars!

The best way to start searching for library resources is to stick to keyword searching. Pick out word or phrase that best describes your subject and use that as your initial search terms. Things like “global warming”, “social justice” or “nursing”. Note that you can limit your search to options like title, author or subject using the drop-down menu to the left of the search box.

Adding terms to a search reduces the number of hits in the results. So, “pediatric nursing” will have fewer items in the results than a search for “nursing”. Conversely, taking away terms will increase the number of hits in the results. Keep this in mind if you are getting too many or too few hits.

Understanding search results

A keyword search for “social justice” will return a number of hits. The example below illustrates what you can learn from search results.

Title: Environmental sociology : from analysis to action /

Author: King, Leslie, 1959-

Year/Format: 2005 / Book

Check for Copies: Marian College Library / Circulating Stacks: GE195 .E68

This record gives you the basic information: title, author, year of publication, format, library collection and call number. So, you know that you can find this book in the circulating collection on the second floor, on the shelves containing the GE range of call numbers.

Click on the “Check for Copies” link and you will get more information.
Much of this information is available on the previous page, but the all-important Item Status and Due Date information will be listed on this page. The Due Date column reports that the book is "On Shelf", which means that the book is not checked out. If the book were checked out, there would be a notation to that effect in the Due Date column.

Description	Item status	Due date	Due hour	Location	Collection	Call Number	Barcode	OPAC Note
c.1	Regular Loan	On Shelf		Marian College Library	Circulating Stacks	GE195 .E68	39316010400021

Now you know the basics of using the online catalog to search for library resources. The best way to better understand how to use the catalog is to play around with it a little bit -- look at some item records and be sure you understand what you are looking at and where you will find different resources. If you are interested in some tips on search strategies and using Boolean operators, check out the library catalog tips page.