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ENG 1510: Composition & Rhetoric - *(e-campus)

This guide has been edited for use by e-campus students. All materials will be available online.

Finding Books at Alden

You can access the basic search bar from the Libraries homepage.

 

Use the drop-down menu on the left to select where you'd like to search:

  • Articles and More is the broadest type of search. It searches for all kinds of materials (books, media, databases, journals, articles, etc.) across all the resources that Ohio University Libraries has access to, including items requestable through OhioLINK.
  • Library Catalog restricts your search to only the resources that Ohio University Libraries owns, including physical materials at Alden and e-resources, but not items from OhioLINK or Interlibrary Loan.
  • Databases helps you get access to the hundreds of external databases that Ohio University Libraries subscribes to. This is useful because not all databases index their materials to appear in the Articles and More search, meaning you may need to search with the database itself to see it holds. 

 

Once you find an item you're interested in, you can click on it to open the record page and see your options for accessing it.

The advanced search option allows you to tailor complex searches to find exactly what you are looking for. Most individual databases and other search tools will also have an advanced search option that works in roughly the same way.

 

To do an advanced search, enter multiple keywords in the boxes and connect them with the operators AND, OR, or NOT. Read more about how these Boolean logic operators can be used to fine-tune your search. 

 

You can also use the dropdowns to the left of each box to search only within a specific field. For instance, if you only want books by a specific author, search for their name in the Author/Creator field. If you only want books about a specific author search for their name in the Subject field.

 

Advanced searching is a complex skill that can take years to master. Read more about how it can benefit your research or contact your librarian for assistance.

Most topics will have ample relevant resources accessible through the Library Catalog and OhioLINK, but even when the Library does not currently have an item, we are happy to help you get access to it.

 

WorldCat is a catalog shared by libraries all over the world containing tens of millions of descriptions of books, periodicals, audiovisual materials, computer files, archival materials, music scores, and maps. If you find an item in WorldCat that you can't access through our Library Catalog or OhioLINK, contact the Interlibrary Loan (ILL) team, who will work to find and ship the item to Alden for you to use.

 

If you would like to suggest that the library to consider purchasing a particular resource for your field, please reach out to your librarian with the details.