Research Guide for: Physical Education and Recreation

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Finding Books Back to Guides How do I find books? How do I get to the library catalog? What's an exact search and when would I use it?   What's a keyword search and when would I use it?    I'm getting too many results! How do I narrow my search?    What are "subject headings" and how can I use them to find more books on my topic? The Library Catalog To find books at Ingram Library, the tool you'll need to use is the library catalog, which you'll sometimes hear referred to as "GIL." How do I get to the library catalog? From the library homepage (http://www.westga.edu/~library/), click on either the "catalog" link at the top of the page or the "Search for Books" link on the left side of the page. Once you arrive at the Library Catalog, you can do a “Quick Search,” or you can select the “Keyword Search” or “Exact Search” options. top Exact Searches What's an Exact Search and When Would I Use It? If you have a specific title or author in mind, click on the “Exact Search” tab. From the Exact Search Screen, you can search for specific titles and authors, as well as subject headings. Also, if you want to know whether Ingram Library owns a specific magazine or journal, you can search for the title you have in mind here as well. Note: You cannot access magazine and journal articles through the library catalog. You can only find out whether Ingram Library owns a specific magazine or journal. To find articles, you will need to search one of the library databases. In the example below, the exact title of the book (minus the article "The") has been typed into the search window and "Title" has been appropriately checked under the heading "Search in." top Keyword Searches What's a Keyword Search and When Would I Use It? If you don’t have a specific text in mind and are simply looking for books dealing with a particular subject, click on the “Keyword Search” tab. Type in keywords that are relevant to your subject in the "Search for" window. Note: you can type more than one word in the first window, or you can use all of the "Search for" windows to construct a more complex query using the built-in "Boolean Operators" "and," "or," and "not." The drop down menu next to the "Search for" box also provides you with additional search options. The default (automatic) setting is to search only for those records that contain all of the words in your search query. However, you can also choose the option "any of these," which will search for records that contain any of your search terms rather than all of them (this option would expand your search), or the option "as a phrase," which will search only for those records that contain the words you entered in the exact order in which you entered them (this option would narrow your search). You can also choose which part of the records to search. For example, you could decide that you only want to find books with the words "television" and "criticism" in the title. The default setting on the Keyword Search screen is "Keyword Anywhere," but you can change it to a variety of options, including "Keyword (Title/Subject)," which is often a very effective setting. top Narrowing a Search I'm getting way too many results! How can I narrow my search? Beyond the obvious option of using additional and more specific search terms, you can also limit your search in a number of ways. From the "Keyword" Search screen, click on the "Narrow My Search" button, located at the bottom right of all the search options. From this screen, you can narrow your search by selecting any of the options on the various menus. Some particularly helpful limiters include: Language: a helpful option if you only want to search for books written in say, Spanish, French, etc. Location: this is helpful if you only want to search for reference books, government documents, or only those books that you can actually check out (Circulating Collection). Date of publication: only want books published within a specific time frame? Choose this option. Medium: this option is particularly helpful if you want to find a video or a sound recording. 3. After selecting the appropriate limiters, click on "Narrow My Search." 4. Note: All subsequent searches will use these limiters until you click on the "Clear Settings" Button. top Subject Headings Using Subject Headings to find additional relevant citations Subject headings are labels that describe what a given text is about. Once you’ve found a relevant record for a book by using a keyword search, a good way to find additional books on the same topic is to click on one of the links listed in the “Subject(s)” field of the record. Doing so will lead you to a list of other texts that focus on the same general topic. You can also search for subjects by using the “Exact Search” screen and selecting “Subject Heading” from the list. After typing in a subject heading and clicking “Go,” you will be directed to an alphabetical list of subject headings. Clicking on a heading will pull up a list of texts that are about that specific subject. This option isn't always particularly effective, however, particularly if you're not already familiar with the subject headings used in the library catalog. In the example above, simply typing in "Faulkner, William" could also be useful, as it would take you to a list of subject headings that begin with "Faulkner, William" (these headings refer to books that are about him in some way). You could then scroll through the list and choose the subject that is most relevant to your research. top