Searching the library catalogue - what every student NEEDS to know

It has become increasingly clear to library staff that an alarming number of students are STILL unacquainted with looking up book details and checking availability on the library catalogue.
Being able to look up bibliographic and availability details on the library catalogue is a basic skill that all third level students should have. A significant amount of traffic at the enquiry desk is taken up with students' requests to look up book availability for them. Library staff are only too happy to train students on searching the library catalogue with the assumption that, once they are familliar with catalogue searching, they can save themselves (and library staff) time by checking a books availability before they come to the library. However, there is still an unhealthy percentage of students who are unwilling to look up catalogue details for themselves.

Library staff want to be as accomodating as possible in assisting students with their book searches, however, as (we assume) all students are here to learn, we'd rather help you to help yourselves as it were. Learning how to search the catalogue and locate the library material you need is an important part of your overall learning experience while you are here at DBS. Being able to log onto the library website to check the catalogue availability details for the items you want also saves you (and us) a lot of time. Searching the shelves for a book in a library which contains over 50,000 titles over several sites is (to say the least) a not a very productive use of your library time. Learning these basic skills will also help you if you choose to study elsewhere when you have completed your studies at DBS as most academic libraries are multi site and insist that students use the catalogue to independently locate all material.

To help you get to grips with using the catalogue, in addition to print guides and guides on the library website (under 'library guides') we have produced a series of screencast online tutorials which take you through the steps in searching the library catalogue in real time. The guides show you how to perform a basic search, an advanced search and how to renew and reserve books yourself using your library catalogue PIN.

Here is the first part, with parts 2, and 3 to follow. These are also located on the main library site under 'library guides/library catalogues'

Enjoy, and most importantly...learn