Basic Searching in Design
Seaching for Books
You can get to the catalog either at http://catalog.lib.ncsu.edu/,
or through Search the Collection. It's also linked off
all of the subject browse pages under the books tab.
You'll notice the catalog has two search boxes; they do different things, and in fact they run off
different programs. The top search box is a keyword search, and the bottom search box is an exact search.
Keyword Search
A keyword search is probably the most useful search if you are not sure
exactly what you want. In a keyword search, you simply type in the most
distinctive word that describes what you want to look for.
For example, if you are looking for a book about Frank Lloyd Wright's
house Taliesin West in Scottsdale, Arizona, you do not need to type in
all of those words. You can simply type in "Taliesin" as the most distinctive
word, and you should find works that describe that house. You may also
get books about Taliesin East, but there should be a relatively small
number of books, since you typed in a fairly distinctive word. Or you
could simply type in "Taliesin West."
If you don't find anything with the most distinctive word you can think
of, then you may need to try a more general word. For example, if you
type in "Taliesin," and don't find anything, then try typing in "Frank
Lloyd Wright."
If you try a keyword search and you find too many things, you can narrow
your search by adding terms. For example, you can type in "Wright and
Taliesin" or just "Wright Taliesin." You may need to try several different
searches to find exactly what you need.
Generally, the more terms you use in a single search, the narrower
and more specific your search will be. Think of the search terms as
describing your ideal result. For example, if you were looking to buy
a car, the more words you use to describe it, the more specific the car
is that you are talking about. If you say, " I want a car" that's very
general; any car would fit that description, but a truck wouldn't. If
you say, "I want a 4-door car with a sunroof and leather seats," that's
more specific; it could still be any brand of car, but you've narrowed
it down with the type of car and the accessories. If you say, "I want
a red Toyota Avalon with a sunroof and leather seats," then you have a
very narrow and specific search. So, the more terms you use to describe
what you want and the more specific those terms are, the narrower and
more specific your search becomes. So when you search the online catalog,
try to think of both narrow and broad terms, and do several searches to
find what works best.
If you do a search and get no results, you will need to do another, more
general search. Don't think that because you didn't find anything on
the first try that there isn't anything there. There are over 3 million
items in the NCSU libraries; unless you are looking for something extremely
obscure, we probably have something you can use. If you search and get
thousands and thousands of results, don't try to wade through them all;
go back and do a narrower and more specific search.
Also remember that the word you think of to search with may not be the
word that the author of the book thought of, or the word the person who
wrote the catalog entry thought of. Try to think of different terms
to describe what you're looking for if you don't find what you want.
A good example of this is material relating to the Americans with Disabilities
Act. You might need to use the terms "ADA" or "disabilities" or "handicapped"
or "accessibility" or "universal design" or "barrier-free design"
or any of a number of other terms. Especially with any hot topic or any
controversial topic, the words that people use to describe it can change
over time.
If you're interested in learning more, go to Advanced Searching
Other Searches
Author Searching
On the catalog
search page, there are two author options, Author, and
Keyword in Author.
Author search
To search for an author, click in the button next to "Author".
Then type your author's name in the box. You must put the last name
first, and then the first name and so on. Suppose you wanted to search for a
book by Philip Meggs. Type in :"Meggs, Philip," or even
"meggs, philip." You do not have to capitalize at all. You can also just
type in the last name, "meggs." The catalog will give you a list of authors
with the last name "meggs" and you can select the one you want. You may
need to go through several pages of results though if you have an author
with a common name.
Remember also that this is a computer program; you must spell everything
exactly right or you will not find what you are looking for. If you
type in "meggs, phillip," with two "l"s in Philip, you may end up
not getting any results, because "phillip" would put you in the wrong place in the
list of results. The catalog will not direct you to the correct
spelling; it's up to you to figure that out. Always try just the last
name, or come to the desk and ask if the staff can help you out.
Also be aware that a book about an individual architect, artist, or designer
will often have his or her name listed as the author.
Keyword in Author
Keyword in Author is another author search on the main search page. It
allows you to search authors by keywords, rather than the exact name.
You can either type in a name, such as "Vincent Scully" or search
for a couple of names such as "Venturi and Scott Brown." You
can also just type in one name, such as "Venturi," but unless
the name is very distinctive, it will return a large number of results. If your
author's name is Smith, for example, you'll probably want to do a general keyword search
and add in some title words as well.
Title searching
To search for a title you select "Title," and type in the title in the
box. Now, since the online catalog is a computer program, it has a few
quirks you need to be aware of. You should leave off the initial article.
In other words, leave off "THE", "AN", or "A" if they appear as
the first word of the title. However, you then must then type in the words of the
title exactly as they occur, and in the order in which they occur. So if THE, AN, or A appear anywhere
else in the title, you have to type them in.
Also, punctuation in any title may make it difficult to find the title in
the online catalog. The catalog does not generally recognize punctuation.
So, if the books has a slash ("Lake/Flato," for example)
or a plus sign in the title ("A+U", for example) you may need to try typing them in several
different ways. Try your search with and without the punctuation.
If you can't find what you're looking for here are few tips:
Try typing only the first few words of a title. Always keep in
mind that the online catalog is a computer program: you must spell everything
correctly, and you must have all the correct words in the correct order. If
you leave out an article in the middle of the title, or make a mistake
with one of the smaller words; 'for' instead of 'from' or whatever, you
may not find your book.
Check your spelling, especially names!
It's very easy to get one or two words wrong, and then not be able to find your book. And as always, if you're
sure it should be there but you can't find it, ask the library staff.
Keyword in Title
Keyword in Title will search for words in any order but only within the
title field.
Journal Title beginning with...
This is essentially the same as a basic title search except that it will
only search the records of journals.
Journal Title keywords
Journal title keywords will search for words in any order within the
title field of journal records.
Subject searching
There are two subject searches, Subject search, and Keyword in Subject.
However, a really good way to do a subject search is to do a keyword search
first, and look through the records until you find a book that matches
what you are looking for. Then click on the title of the book, which
will take you to the full record. Once you get in the full record,
you'll see a box on the right side of the screen that says "Use subjects
to find similar titles:" with the subjects listed underneath it. You can
click on any of the subjects and the catalog will search for other
records that have that same subject.
Subject searches
Subject searches search only the L.C. Subject Headings in the record. When you're looking at the
full record for any item, these are over on the right side of the page in the box.
L.C. stands for Library of Congress, and that means that your search
must match the subject as it's listed in the Library of Congress Subject
Headings books. These are the five red books at the very end of the reference
section in Design; their call number is Z695.Z8 L524a. These list
all the subject headings that people use when they write records for the
catalog; they will not use any other subject words besides the ones in
the books. L.C. Subject searches work the same way as a title search,
but search the subject field of each record. If you are looking for
a person as a subject, type in the last name first, just like in the author
search. If you can't find anything under the subject you want, check
in the Library of Congress Subject Headings.
Keyword in Subject
Keyword in Subject is a more general search. It searches for subject words
in any order. If you're not sure of the exact subject heading you want,
this is a better search for you.
Other search options
On the catalog page , you can also
search by using call number, ISBN, ISSN, Government
Documents number, and so on. Again, these are exact searches, you
must type everything in correctly. Also look at right side of the online catalog page;
as you click on each button, a short description appears to explain how to use that type of search.
Most all electronic searches work pretty much like NCSU's catalog. Once
you know how to search NCSU's catalog, you should be able to use almost
any electronic or online search engine.
Finding the book
Once you have found a record in the catalog for a book you want, then you need
to look closely at the holdings. Look at the location, the call number,
and the availability. Availability will tell you whether a book is checked
out or not. That's very important; there is nothing more frustrating than
trying to find a book on the shelf that is actually checked out. Also be sure
of the location, the online catalog contains books at D.H.
Hill Library, the Natural Resources
Library, the Burlington Textiles
Library, the Veterinary Medical
Library as well as the Design Library. Be sure the item you're looking
for is actually in the library you're in.
The LC call number system isn't that difficult to use, but it can be confusing
at first. All LC call numbers start with one or two letters, and so
everything is alphabetically arranged by those first couple of letters; A
before B, N before NA, then NB, then NC, and so on through the alphabet. Once
you've found the right letter, then within that letter you need to find the
correct number. So if the call number of the book you're looking for starts
out NA737, you first look for NA, and then the NA700s, and so on. The most
common mistake people make is not to look for the numbers sequentially. Often,
someone looking for NA737 will go into the stacks and find NA7300 and search
for their book in that area, when in fact, within any given letter, the books
are in number order, so that after NA700 comes NA800, NA900, NA1000,
NA2000, NA3000 and so on - NA700 will be a long way before NA7000. As always,
ask the library staff if you have problems.
Books Outside of NC State
Suppose you can't find books on the subject you want at the NCSU Libraries.
Don't despair. There are hundreds of thousands of libraries in the world,
and one of them probably has a book you could use. As a student, you can ask
to borrow almost any book from almost anywhere. Also remember you might want
to look for a journal article.
TRLN
NCSU is part of the TRLN (Triangle Research Libraries Consortium). What this means for you is that
you can borrow books from the other research libraries in the Triangle (UNC, Duke, and NC Central)
free of charge. To search their catalogs, go to the "other catalogs" tab on the
catalog page. You can search those other catalogs
through this page, or click on one of the links, and go directly to their catalog. Once you've
found something you want, you can use Tripsaver to request to have it sent to you, or
you can go to those other libraries and pick it up.
If you can't find anything on your topic at NCSU, Duke, UNC, or NCCU, you may
want to look in WorldCat. WorldCat is a combined online catalog for about 28,000
libraries in the US, and has over 40 million records. You can look in WorldCat
and find books about your topic, and then go to the ILL page on NCSU Libraries'
website, and request those books be sent to you, free of charge.
Getting Stuff from Other Places
Once you've found descriptions of what you need in the various databases
you've searched, you'll need to get it. The best way is to send in a request through the Libraries'
Tripsaver service.
Tripsaver Home
Tripsaver FAQ
You can also go to the other members of TRLN (the Triangle Research Libraries Network):
Duke University, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and North Carolina Central University, and
borrow books directly from them. See this website for
details: http://www.trln.org/policy/policiesmain.htm.
Duke and UNC both have excellent art libraries. Go to their websites to get
directions or hours: The Lilly Library at Duke collects fine arts,
philosophy, film, video, and performing arts.
The Sloane Art Library at UNC collects art from prehistoric times to the
present.
You can also use the Art Reference Library at the North Carolina Museum of Art.
The Library's emphasis is on Western European and American art, in support of the
Museum's primary collections. It also maintains an extensive Artists File on artists
represented in the collection. The library is open to the public 10am to 4pm Wednesday
through Friday. None of their materials circulate; you must use their books within the
library. It's also advisable to call in advance: 919.839-6262, ext. 2136 or 2137.
Librarian Contact Information
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