Using the Library Catalogue — No. 1. Quick Guide
Basic Searching | Requesting Books | Renewing Your Loans
Use the Library Catalogue to find information about the availability and location of all items held in the Library. The Library holds various types of material including books, journals, research reports, newspapers, statistical data, and media items. The Catalogue also provides links to electronic books and journals.
You can also check your loans at any time, renew your books, and place hold requests on items which are out on loan. See Using the Library Catalogue guide No. 3: My Library Account for more information.
Basic Searching
Quick Search and Browse Search are the simplest ways to search the catalogue. (If you wish to perform more advanced searches of the catalogue, see: Using the Library Catalogue guide No. 2: Advanced Features).
Quick Search
Quick Search is the default search screen with a single box for entering your search terms. You can search on individual or multiple words. To search for an exact phrase place quotation marks around the search terms: e.g. "global warming"
Please note: If you do a keyword search, you can combine an author’s name with words from the title or elsewhere in the record:
e.g. Dickens bleak house
Giddens sociology
- Enter your search terms in the Search for box
- Use the drop-down menus to select the Field and Collection you wish to search
- Click on Go to run the search
Browse Search
Browse Search enables you to view an alphabetical list of titles, authors, subjects, or classmarks. This is an effective way of finding books by a particular author, or finding a journal with a single-word title e.g. Science, or Nature.
- Enter your search terms in the Search for box
- Use the drop-down menus to select the Field and Collection you wish to search
- Click on Go to run the search
Understanding Your Results
The results of your search will be displayed in a Brief list, with author, title, year, and format information. You can sort the list into author, title or year order by clicking on the underlined headings.
- Click on either the title or number of the record to see a Full view of record.
- Click on All copies from either the Brief list or Full view, to see the Holdings display, which gives you the availability of each copy and its classmark and format (see the Finding Books and Journals in the Library guide for more information).
- Click on the SFX button to link to the full-text electronic version of the item if it is available, as well as linking to other services. N.B. You will need to be a member of the University and logged into the network in order to access electronic resources.
Requesting a book or other item that is on loan
To find out how to request a book or other item that is on loan please click here
Renewing Your Loans
To find out how to renew the items that you have on loan please click here
Other useful guides
Using the Library Catalogue No. 2:
Advanced Features
Using the Library Catalogue No. 3:
My Library Account
Finding Books and Journals in the Library
Finding and Using Electronic Journals