Catalogue

Help on Searching the Catalogue

Item Types

The Library Catalogue contains standard and large print books, eBooks, eAudiobooks, spoken word (talking books), and language courses.

By default, your search will find standard and large print books, ebooks and audiobooks, but you can can tick any combination of boxes to find the type of item you want.

You can find a list of language courses in Browse Collections.

Keywords

Keywords have been assigned to each item, so that they can easily be searched for.

A keyword is:
  1. any word from the title of the item (except small words like "the", "a", "an", "and").
  2. the author's surname.
  3. the ISBN or reference number.
  • You can specify between one and five keywords.
  • The more keywords the narrower the search, but one wrong keyword will result in a nil return.
  • It is better to enter one or two keywords that are likely to identify the item, than to try to enter the whole title.
  • If you are not sure of the spelling of a word you can use the % wildcard.
  • You should not enter any other keywords if you have specified an ISBN.
  • Series are not always catalogued and may not produce a list of books in the series.

Examples

  • To search for the Harry Potter books, ensure the types you are intested in are ticked, type HARRY POTTER in the keywords field, then click the "Search" button. This will find all the books with the words Harry and Potter in the title. Note: Your search will also find any books written by Harry Potter, or books by anyone called Harry which have Potter in the title.
  • To search for large print books by Catherine Cookson, ensure that "Large print books" is ticked, and that the other types aren't ticked. Type CATHERINE COOKSON in the keywords box, then click the "Search" button.
  • If you aren't sure of the spelling of a word, you can use the "wildcard" character, which is a percent (%) sign. The wildcard character represents any number of letters.
    For example, if you want to find books about cathedrals (the title might contain "cathedral" or cathedrals") ensure that "Books" is ticked, type CATHEDRAL% in the keyword box, then click the "Search" button.