Video: Discovering Books

Learn how to find books in the library catalog.

• Transcript

  To find books in the library’s collection, use the catalog on the Libraries homepage. You can search for the title or author of a book you’re looking for, or you can search by topic to browse. To search the catalog, click the "Books & Media" button below the main search box.

  I don’t have a specific title in mind, but I want to browse books about the art of manga, so I will type manga in the search bar and click the search button.  On the next page, the catalog will list results that have manga in the title or are about manga. All of the results in my list are in NC State’s collection. If you have a lot of results, you may want to narrow your results list using the filtering tools under “limit your search.” Let’s look at a few.

  You can select titles that are Available Online, that are located at a particular library, or that are a specific resource type like books, videos, or games. 

  Further down in the menu, you can filter your results by topic. Clicking on a link in the “About Topic” list will show only the items on the topic, such as "History and Criticism" or "Popular culture." 

  You can expand additional filters in the menu that will let you focus your results in other ways. For example, you can limit to books in a specific language, published within a date range, by a specific author, or within a particular genre.

  I’m curious about manga in pop culture, so I’m going to click on the “popular culture” link under topics. My results list is much shorter now. 

  Beneath the title of each book is its library location and whether it is currently available.

  This first book, “Manga : an anthology of global and cultural perspectives” is located in the Hill Library on the 7th floor and it is also available to read online. Online and physical books will be listed separately in the catalog.

  If you click on the title of the book you’re interested in, you will be taken to a page with more information about the book, including a summary and the table of contents. If the item is an e-book, the link to access it will be on this page. 

  You can request physical books to be held for you at the library of your choice by clicking the  request link, logging in and completing the request form. 

  Items in Hunt Library’s bookBot must be requested and can be delivered to the Hunt Ask Us desk within 10 minutes. If you want a book delivered to another library location, you should allow for 1-2 business days. You will receive notification emails when your request has been received and when the book is available to be picked up. Just bring your NC State ID to the Ask Us desk. You can also retrieve a book yourself anytime the library is open by using the location information in the catalog. Ask Us staff are happy to help you find a book if you have any trouble.

  If the library doesn’t have the book you need, you can search the Triangle area research libraries directly from our catalog by clicking the TRLN button at the very top of the left side menu of the catalog. 

  If those libraries don’t have the book you’re looking for either, you can click the red “view results at libraries worldwide” button at the bottom of the page. 

  For example, if you’re looking for books about manga in Japanese, you may need to expand your search using these tools. If you click on the title of a book you want, there will be a red button to “request item.” It doesn’t matter where this book is from, our Tripsaver interlibrary loan service will borrow it on your behalf, for free! 

  If you need help finding a book, we're available via chat, phone, text, or in-person -- just  ask a librarian!