BLY 101: Life Science I: Finding Books

To find books and government documents in USA Libraries' collections, use SOUTHcat: USA Libraries' Catalog.

• Catalog tips and tricks:
  • Keyword searches – use quotation marks to hold phrases together ("biological diversity")
  • Truncation – use ? after the root of a word to find all its variants (biolog? finds biology, biologists, ...)
  • Browse the Subject(s) field in records to find the right words for searches. (Example: Try doing a keyword search for conservation biology then look at the subject(s) field in several records. You’ll see that another subject term is endangered animals. Click the subject heading to find more records with this subject.)
• Revise and refine your searches.
• Watch for repeating call numbers and browse stacks in that area.
• Pay attention to the Location and Status fields. You will need this information to locate the item in the library. The Location field will also tell you whether or not a book can be checked out. A book that's shelved in Marx Library Reference cannot usually be checked out, while one in Marx Library Bookstacks can.

The University Libary subscribes to ebook collections that could be useful for life sciences. Except for Ebrary, many of these titles have been added to our catalog so you will run across them when you do a SOUTHcat search. For the native interfaces, use these links: