Finding Books

Finding and Evaluating Information Resources

Lesson Five:
Finding Books

With the right book, you can often find answers in seconds that would take hours to find on the Internet. The right book can give you an in-depth perspective on a topic.

Reference books in particular are excellent for providing an brief overview, statistics, facts, and definitions. Besides general encyclopedias such as Encyclopedia Brittanica, we have specialized encyclopedias. One of the encyclopedias available at HCC library is Encyclopedia of Psychology edited by Raymond Corsini.

The Library Catalog is a finding tool which means that you use it to locate a book, but you can't read the full text online. The catalog provides you with...

Dewey Decimal call number or government document number

Location including the floor level

for every book, video, other media and government documents owned by the library.

To search for books in HCC Library, you need to use the Library Catalog http://flightline.highline.edu/library/research_resources.html. You can use it from home or anywhere you have Internet access.

These resources cannot be read online. You will need to come the library to find and check them out.

To search for books by subject:
Type in your subject in the blank box and change the radio button to Subject List.

Then click on Search to execute the search.

You will then get an alphabetical list of subjects:

[Clicking on the See Also next to Memory will give you other related words.] There are 16 titles with the subject heading "Memory." If you click on the heading, you will list a list of those titles:

Here is a record for one of the titles:

Note that the location, call number, and status. You will need the call number and location to find the item. If the item is available, you can come to the library now and check it out with your student ID card. To find other related books, you can click on another subject listed for the record i.e., Memory-Age Factors or go back to the list of titles.

Your other search options for the Library Catalog are by title, author, and keyword. When you do a title search, skip "the", "a" or "an", for example: Color Purple. For an author search, type the last name first. A keyword search is the broadest search and will search the entire record for your terms.

Remember to ask me or another librarian if you need help in using the Library Catalog.

Karen Fernandez, Reference Librarian
kfernand@highline.edu or (206) 878-3710 x3809

06/30/2004

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