How to Find a Book

How to find a specific book if you know the title

If you know the title of the book you're looking for, choose the "Title" search under "Search For Books" and you'll get the best results. See below for an example:

If a record in CardinalCat, the library's catalog, indicates that a book is "Available," that means the book is on the shelf at the library right now, and you can come check it out anytime you want. If the catalog record indicates that a book is "Checked Out" or "Renewed" the book isn't available right now, and you can request the book via interlibrary loan.

If you aren't sure whether or not Oesterle Library has a book, don't hesitate to contact us, and we'll look it up to make sure.

How to find books by a specific author

In order to see a list of all the books by a particular author held by Oesterle Library, use the "Author" search in CardinalCat, the library catalog.

Go to the Books page on the library website. Enter your search term in the search box, and then choose "Author" from the pull-down menu to the right of the search box. See below for an example:

How to find a book if you don't know its title or author, or if you don't have a specific book in mind

Below you'll find descriptions of three efficient and effective methods for finding books using CardinalCat, the library's catalog, when you don't have a specific book in mind. If you're having trouble finding what you're looking for, don't hesitate to contact us—librarians are always happy to help you with your questions.

(For more tips, follow the link to CardinalCat and scroll down toward the bottom of the screen. Here you'll find highly detailed tips on searching the catalog.)

• Search Method #1: Browse by Subject
• Search Method #2: Boolean Search
• Search Method # 3: Anyword Anywhere Search using special characters

Search Method #1: Browse by Subject

Oesterle Library assigns every book in its collection one or more subject headings--a term or terms that describe what each book is about. When you're looking for a book on a specific topic, you can save yourself a lot of time and trouble by taking advantage of the library catalog's Browse by Subject feature, which allows you to navigate quickly through lists of subjects in order to hone in on books about your specific topic.

To Browse by Subject in CardinalCat, the library's catalog, go to the Books page. Enter a subject into the search box--for example, if you were looking for books about American poetry, you might enter "American poetry" into the box. If you were looking for books about Walt Whitman, you might enter "Whitman, Walt" into the search box. Once you've entered the search term, make sure to choose the "Subject" option from the pull-down menu to the right of the search box. See below for an example:

When you run a Subject Browse like this, you'll get a list of related subject headings as a result. Using our example above, a Subject Browse for "Walt Whitman" yields hits including "Whitman, Walt--Influences" and "Whitman, Walt--Political Views." Follow the links to view books on those topics.

Search Method #2: Boolean Search

Don't let the strange name deceive you–using the Boolean search in CardinalCat, the library's online catalog, is very easy. In fact, if you've ever used Google, you've already performed a Boolean search.

The Boolean search gives you the power to combine two or more words into a efficient and highly specific search. For example, a Boolean search in the library's catalog for "leaves AND grass" would bring up catalog records that include BOTH of those words. Google uses the same kind of Boolean logic in order to process any terms you enter into a Google search box--a Google search for "leaves AND grass" would bring up only webpages that include both of those words somewhere in their text or headers. One important difference, though, is that in the case of the library catalog, you need to actually type the word "and" between your search terms, whereas Google adds the "and" automatically.

To perform a Boolean search in CardinalCat, the library's catalog, go to the library's Books page. Enter two or more terms into the search box, with each term separated by the word "AND." For an example, see below:

When you run this search, the catalog will return only records that include both the word "leaves" and the word "grass." The search will cut out many irrelevant hits--such as records that include only the word "leaves," and also records that include neither word. For an example of what Boolean search results look like, see below:

Search Method #3: Anyword Anywhere Search using special characters

By adding special characters, like "+", to your search terms in CardinalCat, the library's online catalog, you can make the "Anyword Anywhere" search return better results.

By default, the "Anyword Anywhere" search does just that--it returns results for any word you put in the search box, and no matter how it appears in a catalog record. For example: an anyword anywhere search for "old man and the sea" would turn up all records in the library catalog that include any one of those words. So, you'd get hits for any book with the word "old" in its title, as well as any record for a book with the word "sea" appearing anywhere in its table of contents. So, the Anyword Anwhere search often returns lots of irrelvant results.

But you can improve those results by adding special characters to your search screen. Go to the Books page and try using some of the characters in the table below:

If you're still having trouble finding the books you're looking for, or if you have any questions about how to use any of these search techniques, please don't hesitate to contact us. Librarians are available to help you.