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Finding Books
quick links to places to search for books
researching with books
- It’s fun to find books!
- Some great ways to find books
- And even more search techniques
It’s fun to find books!
Everyone can find a book in a library, right? Right, providing you know how. One great way to look for library material is to search the catalog. This often works surprisingly well.
Sometimes it doesn’t work so well. The problem is that library catalogs don’t always contain all the relevant information available. What information they contain is very useful, but limited because only a certain amount and type of information is included in each item’s record.
What this means to you is that when you are searching the library catalog for a topic, you will only find relevant books if your search term is listed as the main topic of a book. Obviously, there might well be books in the library that have sections on the topic you are looking for, but you’ll never know!
One of the quickest ways to locate material in a library is to simply ask for assistance at the counter. The library staff members behind the service desk have mad skills and are happy to help you in your exciting pursuit of information!
Some more great tools to help you locate library material
- WorldCat is the world’s largest network of library content, a united catalog where you can search for material at thousands of libraries at the same time. But that’s not all!
- Art Bibliographies Modern PNCA subscribes to this database for students to use. It searches magazines and books, and some carefully selected websites. But wait, there’s more!
- Google Book Search
Google Book Search looks in the actual contents of thousands of books, so it is much more comprehensive than a library catalog. If you find a book you want on Google Book Search, look in the library catalog to see if we, or another library, has it.
- Amazon Like Google Book Search, Amazon searches in the contents of many of their books. It is not as useful as Google Book Search, but can sometimes help you find books you might not know about. Again, check the library catalog to see if we own it.
- Bibliographies
One of the most overlooked sources for finding books (and other resources, too) is the bibliography (also called “Works Cited” or “Further Reading,” or other names) at the end of a book or article or website. The author lists all of the sources they used in writing the book or article. The bibliography should have sources appropriate to your search, too.
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search techniques
When searching a library catalog, keep in mind that
- Don’t search by SUBJECT! Libraries use “subject headings” to identify what a book is about, so they can decide which section to put it in. Our library uses the Library of Congress subject headings, which use some pretty uncommon language (example: “Cookery” instead of “Cookbooks”). If you don’t use their exact term, your search might not work. Instead choose “Search All” or “Keywords” or some similar option.
- Did you spell the artist’s name right? Use Google as a spell checker and make sure you’ve got the name right.
- If nothing comes up for the artist you are searching for, try looking for books using other facts about the artist. For example:
- type of art (minimalism)
- movement (feminist or feminism)
- subject (portraits)
- medium (printmaking)
- location (san francisco)
- specific piece
- Ask the library staff. Your library staff is highly educated and wise in the ways of research. Come to us and let us help you!
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other places to search for books
- PNCA Library Our collection is quickly growing, and we have thousands of outstanding books, magazines and DVDs on contemporary art, design, and theory. And we’re close to home!
- Multnomah County Library Very large collection. Can order books from other branches.
- Portland Art Museum Excellent collection of exhibit catalogs. Cannot check things out.
- Portland State University Also has incredible exhibit catalog collection. If you want to check things out from this library, you can join as a student for the rate of $25 per year.
- InterLibrary Loan Both PNCA and Multnomah County Library can borrow books for you from libraries you don’t have access to, both near and far. Search “WorldCat”: to find what you want to borrow. This can take up to 10 days, so plan accordingly.
- More on Area Libraries