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Using the Library Catalog

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Getting Started

This guide will get you started finding and getting materials through the BC Libraries Catalog.

Finding Books and Other Items in the Catalog (3:20)

The library catalog is the place to begin if you are looking for books, journal articles, cds, dvds, and other research materials. This video focuses on how to find books in the library system. 

Library Search Bar

Search on the BC Libraries home page (library.bc.edu) for books, journals, articles, video, and databases. (Click the image to start searching.)image of the library search bar

Preliminary results divide Books & more, Articles, FAQs, Librarians, Videos, and our Website. To get a deeper look at a category, click "see all results." To get a deeper look at a single item, click the item. (To experiment with these results, click the image below to see them in a new tab.)

Image of initial catalog search results, showing categories for Books & more, Articles, Website, and Librarians

What the Catalog Searches

Main Search Bar: Anything

Search from the BC Libraries home page to find books, articles, journals, databases, and more. Initial search results will be divided by type: Books & more, Articles, FAQ's, Website, and Librarians.

Books

Searches all books, journal titles, images, video, music, data, government documents, open access collections, content from the Center for Research Libraries, and more.

Articles

Searches a large collection of database content including articles, dissertations, government documents, media, open access content, and some books and ebooks. Does not include all journal articles. For more precise in-depth searching, look on the "articles" page of an appropriate Research Guide or click Databases to find a specific database.

Journals

Find more than 100,000 journal titles. (Keep in mind these are journal titles, such as Nature or The International Journal of Secondary Education. To search for articles, use either Article search or an appropriate database.)