Most libraries now have online catalogs which make the process of locating a book on a particular topic much easier because the author, title, subject and keywords can be searched simultaneously. The online catalog at the Library includes information for all books and media materials owned by New England Tech.

To search for a book in the Library's online catalog, you click on the "Online Catalog" icon which will get you to a basic search screen. At that search screen, you'll see the following:

• Boxes that let you select whether or not you want to search Any Fields, Titles, Authors, Subjects, Notes, Publisher, or Series.

• A drop-down menu that lets you select whether you want the results of your search to "begin with,""contain," “closely match,” “stem from” or “sound like” your search term.

• A box that lets you type in your search term.

• A SEARCH button that initiates your search.

The "defaults," or preselected items, are the selections for "any fields" and "contain." This is because when people search, they are normally looking for a book on a subject or with a title that contains a particular term. “Any fields” provides the broadest search possible.

Please note that this process of searching is very similar to using a search engine to locate items on the World Wide Web. This is because the Library’s catalog is accessed through a web browser. Many of the skills that you learned by using a web browser and search engines will be of use to you in searching the online catalog.

After typing in a search term and clicking on the search button, the computer will return a list of all of the books and media materials that conform to this search. You'll also notice that all of the items in this list are highlighted in blue and underlined just as the hypertext links were highlighted and underlined on the World Wide Web. Just as with the WWW, clicking on any of these items will lead you to more detailed information or to another list from which to select other options.

By clicking on the title "Accessible XHTML and CSS Web sites" you'll see a screen that contains all of the information that you need to locate the book and to list it properly on a term paper's "works cited" page. The illustration below shows each of these elements in the display of one record in the online catalog.


The bibliographic information on the screen includes all of the elements that describe a book. Most of this information will be needed when you create a "Works Cited" page for a research paper. Bibliographic information in the Library's online catalog includes:

•author: the primary person or organization that is responsible for creating the information in the book or the content of a media program -- this may also include an editor

•title: the title of the book

•imprint: the city where the book was published, the name of the publisher and the date the information was published (this is important to check especially when you are looking for current materials)

•description: physical description: the number of pages, height of the book in centimeters, whether or not there are illustrations and what type of illustrations are included, any accompanying materials (such as diskettes, charts, etc.)

•subject headings: these are the topics that the book is mostly about

•location: the collection the book is in (General Collection, Reference, Media, etc.), the call number (a series of letters and numbers that help you locate a book on the shelves) and availability (a note indicating if the item is available, checked out, overdue or lost)

Knowing what these items are and how to use them to get the information that you need will help you to do successful, efficient research. Following hypertext links to books on similar subjects or to books by the same author can help you get the most out of the Library's collection. Once you learn how to use the Library's online catalog, you will be able to use online catalogs in other libraries. Though there are many different vendors who produce online catalogs, most work in a similar manner.