Searching the library catalog
Start your search:
- From the library homepage, enter some key words and select "catalog" from the drop-down menu.
- From the list of results in the catalog, you can use the filters on the left to narrow your search.
- Or, select the Advanced Search.
- Combine keywords and phrases.
- Add alternate terms to broaden your search, and select the pulldown menu to select "any."
e.g. women gender [any]
Expand or filter your search:
- Open catalog records to view summaries, table-of-contents, and subject heading links
- Follow subject-heading links.
- Or, add subject headings to your search and use the pull-down menu to select "Subject Browse"
From the homepage to the catalog
Searching by title
- From the library homepage, go to the library catalog.
- The "All Fields" search will generally work well, but the dropdown menu provides additional options to search by title, journal title, title begins with, along with other options
Note: Title searches can be finicky. It's often helpful to leave out punctuation like colons or simply enter the beginning part of the title.
Library Catalog Advanced Search
Searching by country or city or region often works well.
Material such as books described with the subject Jamaica means that the book is focused on Jamaica in contrast to Jamaica as keyword which could mean the item is more tangentially about Jamaica.
Jamaica as keyword = 6000+ results
compared to
Jamaica as subject = 3000+ results
Add another term or two to either of these results to get less and more narrowly focused results.