Home: DESIGN GUIDES

Library Research Basics

Image and Digital Resources

Where things are

Extremely Useful Library Tools

Specialized Resources Useful for Design

Other Library Resources

Design Library Home

Basic Searching in Design

Librarian: Karen DeWitt

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. The Libraries' online catalog is constantly changing; it is frequently updated and this may change how the searching works or where you get to a particular search. If you have questions or problems, please come ask at the Design Library, or email me.

Keyword Search

Keyword searching is the default searching for the catalog; this is what you will be doing in the standard search box on the main catalog page, or, in the bottom search boxes on the advanced catalog page. Here are a few tips to help you:

• Type in the most distinctive word.

  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.

• Don't think that because you didn't find anything on the first try that there isn't anything there.

  If you do a search and get no results, you will need to do another, more general search. 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.

• Try to think of different terms to describe what you're looking for if you don't find what you want.

  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. 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 Keyword Searches

There are additional keyword searches; Keyword in Title, Keyword in Author, Keyword in Subject Heading, and ISSN/ISBN

• Keyword in Author

  Keyword in Author 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.

• Keyword in Title

  Keyword in Title will search for words in any order but only within the title field.

• 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.

Exact Searching

Exact Searching is available in the top search box on the Advanced Search catalog page. It is a much more specific way to search, and I would really recommend you use it only when you know exactly what book you are looking for.

Exact Title Searching

• Leave off the initial article (A, The, An) and then type in the words of the title exactly as they occur

  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.

• 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: in a title search, 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.

Exact Author Searching

• You must put the last name first!

  To search for an author, select "Author" from the drop-down menu in the lower search box. 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 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.

Exact Subject Searching

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. L.C. stands for 'Library of Congress', and that means that your search must match the subject as it is 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.

• The easiest way to do a subject search is to do a keyword search first, then click on the title of a book that interests you, then, on the next page, click on the subject heading that most fits what you're looking for.

  Since subject headings are so particular and only use certain words, the simplest 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.

• If you are looking for a person as a subject, type in the last name first, just like in the author search.

If you do decide to do a subject search directly, be sure to put last name first when you search for a person.

• If you can't find anything under the subject you want, check in the Library of Congress Subject Headings, try a keyword search, or ask the Design Library staff for help.

Let us know if you have problems finding anything; it could be there's something you're overlooking, or something we can help with.

Other search options

You can also do an exact search for call number, series, Government Documents number, and so on. Again, these are exact searches, you must type everything in correctly.

Finding the book

• Be sure you check the location, the call number, and the availability.

  Once you have found a record in the catalog for a book you want, then you need to look closely at the holdings: 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.

• All LC call numbers start with one or two letters. Once you've found the right letter, then within that letter they're in numerical order.

  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 for things at those libraries, go to Search TRLN :

  http://search.trln.org/.

  Once you've found something you want, click on the title for that item, and in the full record, there should be a link that says "Request This Title" to request to have it sent to you, or you can also go to those other libraries and pick it up. Generally, if you request to have something delivered to you, it should arrive at the Design Library within a day or two

• World Cat

  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 most of the libraries in the US, and has over 95 million records. You can look in WorldCat and find books about your topic, and then go to the Tripsaver/Interlibrary Loan page on NCSU Libraries' website, and request those books be sent to you, free of charge.

  WorldCat

• Tripsaver

  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

• TRLN

  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 Art Libraries

  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.

• The Art Reference Library at the NC Museum of Art

  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