• Getting Started
• Searching
• Results
• Printing, E-mailing, & Saving to Disk

What's in the Catalog?

The Glendale College Library Catalog contains bibliographic records of approximately 100,000 books, over 23,000 of which are ebooks. In addition, there are over 2,500 freely accessible Internet resources evaluated by librarians, and 2xx periodical subscriptions. Special collections include Annual Reports, Atlases, Compact Discs, Juvenile Collection, Reference, Reserve and Women's Resource Center.

Getting Started

Accessing the Library Online Catalog web page.

• In GCC Library - Double click the Online Resources icon on the library computer screen and choose Library Online Catalog.
• From Home - Access the library web page (http://www.glendale.edu/library). Click on Find Books and more under the Research column or the tab Catalog at the top of the page. No password is needed for remote access unless you are using Electronic Books.

For information on using Electronic Books from home, please refer to the following tutorials:

• Accessing Electronic Books
• Creating a netLibrary Account to Access Electronic Books

How to Search for Books: Basic Search

Use the Basic Search option (see example below) to do simple searches.

• Keyword Anywhere searches all fields in the catalog record, including the ones described below. In addition to terms, you can search numbers, such as, ISBN or ISSN. This is a good search to start with if you are not sure of the exact title or subject(s).
• To locate books ABOUT a subject (person, place, concept, etc.), use one of the Subject searches (use Library of Congress Subject Headings)
  • Use Subject Keyword to search for terms in all Subject fields, in any order.
  • Use Subject Browse to view a list of subjects to select from. This search is especially useful if you are not certain what the official Library of Congress Subject Heading is, or if you are looking for topic ideas.
• To locate books BY an author, use one of the Author searches
  • Use Author Keyword to search for names in all author fields, in any order.
  • Author Browse lists names of authors in last name, first name order.
• To locate books or journals by their EXACT title, use Title Search
  • Use Title Keyword to search all title fields, including series titles, in any order.
  • Use Title Browse to search for an EXACT title by typing in the beginning of the title.

(Never include the, a, or an at the beginning of a title. See example below.)

Figure 1

1. Type your search term in the search box
2. Use the "within" menu to search for the terms in a particular field
3. Click Search

Figure 1 - Image above is a screenshot of the Basic Search screen displaying a title search for "The Bluest Eye." Initial articles are excluded in title searches, so the search terms entered in the search box are bluest eye.

Other Searches:

• Journal Title searches all print periodicals available in the library, including newspapers, magazines and journals.
• Call Number Browse searches Dewey Decimal system classification and local classification call numbers (used for ESL Collection).

 

Quick limits are available using the Limit To drop down menu. More limits are available in Advanced Search.

How to Search for Books: Advanced Search

Use Advanced Search for more complex searches. Advanced search allows for more flexibility when doing research on a particular topic or person. To refine your search results, use Boolean operators to narrow or expand your search and use a combination of fields to search within. See example below:

Figure 2

1. Type search terms in the Search box
2. Select to search all of these, any of these or as a phrase (all of these is the default)
3. Use the "within" menu to search for the terms in a particular field
4. Click Search

Figure 2 - Image above is a screenshot of the Advanced Search screen displaying an advanced search for the topic "Does violence in mass media cause aggression in children?" In the first search box, we enter the term violence and we are searching it by default as all of these and within Keyword Anywhere. In the second search box, which is connected to the first by the Boolean operator AND, we enter children and synonyms such as teenagers adolescence youth boys and girls. This time, we select any of these as we are looking for items that contain at least one of the string. Knowing in advance your terms are official Library of Congress Subject Headings, we select Subject Keyword to search within. In the third search box, we enter media and variations of types of media, such as Internet, television or video games. Finally, we click Search to retrieve results.

Limits may be applied such as Location limit, which allows for limiting books by specific type. Location limits include:

• All Materials - Main Campus (this limit excludes books located at the Garfield Campus)
• Books (limits to print circulating books on the upper level only)
• Electronic Books (limits to books available electronically)
• Electronic Reports (limits to freely accessible electronic reports available on the Internet)
• Electronic Periodicals (limits to periodicals available electronically, either freely or by library subscription)
• Electronic Resources (group limit which includes all electronic materials, including books, reports, periodicals and web sites)
• Exclude Electronic Resources (group limit which includes all print materials available at GCC Library)
• Garfield Campus (limits to circulating and reference books available at the Garfield Campus)
• Online Resources (limits to freely accessible web sites evaluated by librarians)
• Reference (limits to the print Reference Collection, for library use only)

In addition, limits are available by language, year, place, format, type, and status.

Results Screen

Search results are displayed in a variety of ways (see examples below).

• In Basic Search, when you do a Browse Search, such as Subject or Author Browse, results display an alphabetical list of headings. Click on a heading to view the titles our library has on that subject or by a particular author. See example below for Subject Browse results of "United States history."

Figure 3

Figure 3 - Search results for Subject Browse. The image above displays a list of subject headings with the number of titles the library owns in parenthesis next to each corresponding heading. For example, the first heading in the image shows that there are 8 titles on the chronology of United States history.

 

• In Basic or Advanced Search, when you do a Keyword search, such as Keyword Anywhere, Subject, Author or Title Keyword, results display a list of titles. See example below:

Figure 4

Figure 4 - List of Titles. The image above displays the first three titles of the search results. For each item, title, author, date of publication, call number (for print resources), availability and location is displayed. Click on a title to open the bibliographic record with additional information about the item.

Printing, Exporting, E-mailing, & Adding to List

You can print, export to bibliographic software, email, or add to a personal list all or select records. (Note, you must be logged in to Add to List, and the catalog will keep the list in your personal account to access next time you log in). First, select what records you want to print/export/email/save by selecting individual records, all records on a page, or all retrieved records in a search.

Figure 3

Figure 3 - Screenshot of Print, Export, E-mail or Add to List options available from title results screen. Next to these four buttons, Select checkbox is available for current Page and All records in a search. Individual records may be selected by clicking on the checkbox next to each title.