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Rider University Libraries

Searching the Libraries' collections

What is in the Library Catalog?

A library catalog is a searchable database that:

  • contains information about  the items (books, CDs, DVDs, government reports, etc.) that the library owns (or has electronic access to) and
  • tells you where to find them (physically or virtually).

You can search for known or unknown items in a library catalog.  That is, you can find a particular item--for example, a certain book or movie whose title or author you know--OR items that meet certain criteria (on a certain topic, in a certain language, are a certain format, etc.).

Rider University Libraries catalog is here.

 You can do general keyword searching (words in any fields,including summary and table of contents fields).

 

Put quotes around any words you want to keep together as a phrase, in that exact order. This can help if you get too many results.
    library Catalog Search Result

 
You can do keyword searching in specific fields (words in any order in title, author, or subject fields)

 

Again, use quotes if you want the search to return the words in the exact order you enter them.
 Library Catalog Advanced Search

 

In the classic catalog interface, you can browse the index to do more precise searching.

This is helpul in finding items by composers or prolific writers, because the titles are listed alphabetically after the author.

Terms must be in exact order to be retrieved in an author (last name, first name), title, or subject search (unless you are in the advanced search):

Examples: 

an exact title match, such as girl with the dragon tatoo

an exact author match [last name, first name], such as Larsson, Stieg

an exact subject match, such as Missing persons--Fiction

 

Each item in the database is represented by a bibliographic record, which contains descriptive information about:

  • What the item is--author, title, publisher, physical description (number of pages, illustrations, bibliographies)
  • What the item is about (subject headings, table of contents, summary notes)
  • Availability. Tells you whether the item is currently available and how to access the information:  where it is available physically (which library, where in the library, by call number) or virtually (URL).

 You can do general keyword searching (words in any fields,including summary and table of contents fields).

 

Put quotes around any words you want to keep together as a phrase, in that exact order. This can help if you get too many results.

    

You can do keyword searching in specific fields (words in any order in title, author, or subject fields)

Again, use quotes if you want the search to return the words in the exact order you enter them.