ALCUIN is Furman's online library catalog. There are many different ways to search the ALCUIN database. Among them are keyword, subject, author, title, and number searches (such as call numbers or ISBNs).

Advanced Keyword Searching

The default ALCUIN search screen is the Advanced Keyword Search screen. In a keyword search, you can use all of your Boolean Operators (and, or, not) as well as nesting and truncation with an asterisk(*). For information on the use these searching techniques, read the information at the bottom of the Advanced Keyword Search screen (Phrase Searches, Wildcards, etc.). You can do a general keyword search that looks in any field of the record, or you can specify that you want to look for your terms in the author, title, subject, or notes by clicking the "Any Field" box and selecting the appropriate field.

Limit/Sort

There are a number of ways that you can limit or sort your search from the Advanced Keyword Search screen:

• View Entire Collection: clicking this box will allow you to limit your search to videos/dvds, items in Special Collections, musical scores, sound recordings (such as books on tape) or government documents
• Available items only: checking this box will limit your search to items that are not checked out or missing.
• Location: This list allows you to limit your search to items that are in a particular location in the library, such as the media collection or the reference collection.
• Language: This list allows you to limit your search results to those items in a particular language.
• Search and Sort: This lets you select the way the system sorts your search results--by title, publication date, or relevance.
• Material Type: This list lets you limit your search to a particular type of material, such as ebooks.
• Publisher: Typing a publisher's name into this box will limit your search to items published by them.
• Year: You can use this to limit your search to items published between, before, or after particular dates.

 

Subject Searching To search by subject, click the SUBJECT button at the top of the screen and then select Library of Congress Subject Heading or Juvenile Subject Heading (if you are looking for a juvy book).. A text box will open up and you can type in your terms. Subject searching uses a very controlled vocabulary, so you should either consult the book of Library of Congress Subject Headings (available at the Reference Desk), be prepared to do some hunting and pecking, or try a keyword search instead. If you choose to stick with a subject search, enter your subject then press ENTER.

Click the "Brief Display" button at the top of the screen. You will see a list of related subject headings. Click on the one which seems most applicable for your topic. You should then see a list of records. Click on any of the titles in the list to view the full record for the item. Be sure to note the location (General Collection, Reference Collection, etc) as well as the call number and the status. It can save you time looking at the right call number in the wrong place, or looking for an item which is currently checked out or missing. If you have any questions about where the locations are or what the status means, please ask at the Research Assistance Desk. If you retrieve an unwieldy number of records (over 30 or so), you might want to look into the techniques for sorting or limiting your records.

Subject v. Keyword Searching

A keyword search often yields more records than a subject search, because it looks for your terms in more places in the record. While a subject search only looks at the Library Of Congress Subject Headings for an item, a general keyword search will look for your terms in the title, contents, notes, etc. A keyword search, however, may yield some records that are less relevant.

Author Searching Use an author search when you know the author of a particular work, or when you want to find any books BY someone rather than ABOUT them. To search by author, click the AUTHOR button at the top of the screen. A text box will open up and you can type in your author's name. Put in the last name first, followed by a comma and then the first name or initial. If you are unsure of the first name, just type in the last name. If you are searching for something by a corporate author, simply put in the name of the corporation. If the name you entered matches only one author in the database, you will get a list of works by that author. If the name matches more than one author, you will get a list of authors from which to choose. Select one of the authors and you will get a list of titles. Click on any of the titles in the list to view the full record for the item. Be sure to note the location (General Collection, Reference Collection, etc) as well as the call number and the status. It can save you time looking at the right call number in the wrong place, or looking for an item which is currently checked out or missing. If you have any questions about where the locations are or what the status means, please ask at the Research Assistance Desk.

Title Searching If you know the exact title of the work in which you are interested, or at least the beginning of the title, you can use a title search. To search by title, click the TITLE button at the top of the screen. Type as much of the BEGINNING of the title as you know. (It will not work to type in various keywords from the title. If keywords are all you have, you will need to do a keyword search instead.) All the titles that have your terms in the beginning of them will appear. Click on your title in the list to view the full record for the item. Be sure to note the location (General Collection, Reference Collection, etc) as well as the call number and the status. It can save you time looking at the right call number in the wrong place, or looking for an item which is currently checked out or missing. If you have any questions about where the locations are or what the status means, please ask at the Research Assistance Desk.

 

Number Searching Number searching is rarely used, but can, at times, be helpful. To perform a number search, click either the ISBN/ISSN button or the Call Number button at the top of the screen. If you select Call Number, you will get another menu that lets you select the type of call number for which you are searching. Click the link for the type of number search you want to do, then enter your number in the text box. If your number matches a number in the system exactly, you will get that individual record. If it doesn't, you will get a list of numbers which are close, and you will have to click on them to find out the titles to which they correspond.

 

Sorting or Limiting Your Search There are a number of ways to limit or sort any search you do which yields a large number of records. To limit any search AFTER you have performed it, from your title list click the LIMIT/SORT button at the top of the screen. Simply use the pulldown menus and text boxes to enter your limits, then click the button at the top of the screen which says "Submit." You can limit by LANGUAGE, MATERIAL TYPE, WORDS IN VARIOUS FIELDS, WHERE THE ITEM IS LOCATED, OR THE YEAR OF PUBLICATION. For example, if you did a subject search for "ghana," you could then limit it to WHERE THE ITEM IS LOCATED: MEDIA COLLECTION to get a nice videorecording called "Healers of Ghana." You can also SORT your results by the year of publication.

 

 

CHECK THE LOCATION AND STATUS!!!

Once you have located the records for the books you want, be sure to note the LOCATION as well as the CALL NUMBER and the STATUS. All of these are important and will save you time looking in the wrong place or looking in the right place for a book which is checked out or lost. If a book is missing, the STATUS box will say so. If it is checked out, the STATUS box will say "Due..." and give a due date. Even if that due date is three weeks ago, that book is still checked out--it's just overdue. The only statuses that indicate a book will be on the shelf are "available" for books you can check out and "library use only" for books you can't.

We use the Library of Congress Classification System to organize the books in the library. Click here for a breakdown of it. .

This page is maintained by Mary Fairbairn. Last updated 10/04/06.