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Online library catalogs Online catalogs assist library users in locating books and material owned by the library. The library online catalog--in Spring Hill College's case, SIRSI--has a record for every book and journal title the library owns. Records for materials in library online catalogs generally have these searchable fields:
Records in library online catalogs contain additional fields that may not be searchable, but which contain important information:
How you search an online catalog depends on what you want to know or on what you may already know in part. The Spring Hill College Online Catalog--SIRSI How to Find Books By author--use this option when you want to know which books the library has in the collection written by a particular author.
By title--use this option
when you know the title of a work, when you have only part of the title,
and when you want a search that is more precise by a keyword search
*Omit words like a, an, the, to, or, and, with, next, etc. By subject--use this option when you want a focused search for materials about persons or topics, by time period, by place, or by type of publication (i.e. bibliography, encyclopedias, handbooks, statistics, etc.) Subject searching requires specific terminology. BEFORE you search the catalog by subject, consult the Library of Congress Subject Headings (large red volumes located next to computers) for valid search terms.
How to Find Periodical Titles and Newspaper Titles Use this option AFTER you have used an index to find articles on your topic. Some indexes use the terms "source" or "citation" to indicate the periodical or newspaper name. Use this option to:
How to Search by Keyword (Search Everything) Using this option searches for terms, titles, subjects, and summary note fields in any part of the catalog record. However, this is often the least accurate method of searching. Jump to Using the Catalog Online Tutorial
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