Other Sources to Find Books
- Google BooksA service from Google Inc. that searches the full text of books and magazines that Google has scanned, converted to text using optical character recognition, and stored in its digital database.
- HathiTrust This link opens in a new window
Digitized collections of some of the nation’s great research libraries, established in this repository to archive and share their digital content.
- Oxford Bibliographies This link opens in a new windowGood starting point for locating beginning sources on your topic.
- WorldCat (Discovery) This link opens in a new windowCatalog of books, manuscripts, websites, internet resources, maps, computer programs, musical scores, films, slides, newspapers, journals, magazines, sound recordings, articles, chapters, papers, and videotapes available at libraries worldwide. Cross-search OCLC databases: ArchiveGrid, ArticleFirst, Ebooks, ECO, ERIC, GPO, MEDLINE, OAIster, PapersFirst, ProceedingsFirst, WorldCat, and WorldCatDissertations.
What is Library Search?
Use the library search to find the following in ALL of the Vanderbilt Libraries:
- Books
- DVDs & Videos
- Articles (journal and otherwise)
- Reserve materials
- and more...
If you're overwhelmed, choose the Library Catalog option to remove articles, online dissertations, etc., from your results.
Library Catalog SEARCH TIPS:
- Use OR to search for related terms & expand your search
- example; sex OR gender
- Use * to truncate a word & return all possible endings
- example: poet* (will return poet, poets, poetry, poetic, etc.)
Where are the books?
Once you have identified the books you need by searching the library catalog, the next step is find the actual books in the library.
What building are they in and what floor are they on?
For the Central Library, there is this handy guide (scroll down to Call Number Location Charts).
What's This Number?
Need help making sense of the Call # you found in Library Catalog? or where to find the book in the library?
Click the link below for more information.
