Using Library Catalogs

To locate books held by the Libraries of the Claremont Colleges, search Blais, the Libraries' online catalog.

• Blais is searchable by author, title, key word, subject, and call number
• Blais gives library location, call number, and status of items in which you are interested

To search for books held by other libraries, use one of these catalogs:

• MELVYL, the online catalog of the University of California libraries, provides access to books at UC libraries and journals at UC and Cal State libraries. Search MELVYL to verify if a nearby UC or Cal State library has a book or journal you need, especially if our Libraries don't have it.
• WorldCat on FirstSearch provides access to over 36 million records of any type of material cataloged by OCLC member libraries.  Along with books and titles of journals, Worldcat includes citations to manuscripts written as early as the 11th century, videos, recordings, maps, archival collections, and other material.

To search for a person, as AUTHOR or as SUBJECT HEADING, search by last name, first name:  Shakespeare, William.

To search for a topic:

• Use Library of Congress subject headings to search by SUBJECT HEADING:  World War, 1939-1945--Women.
• Use KEYWORD searching when a subject heading search is unsuccessful or when you're not sure how to phrase a subject heading.  For example, "Darwin and bioethics" doesn't work as a subject heading, but it does work in a keyword search.  Type Darwin* and bioethic* as your keywords.  (Using the asterisk retrieves variations on the word: Darwin, Darwinian, etc.)
• If you don't know a book title or a subject heading, use KEYWORD searching to find books on your subject.  It may help to describe your research topic in a sentence, for example, "I need books on African dance in America." Then use the most descriptive words from that sentence (Africa* and dance and America) as your keyword search terms.

Pay attention to the subject headings in the records your searches retrieve.  Sometimes you will find better ways to search.  For example, the record found in the keyword search above (Darwin* and bioethic*), includes social Darwinism as one subject heading.  Click on the subject heading to move to other records with that subject. This mode of searching--using a keyword search to find records with pertinent subject headings--works with most databases.

(NOTE:  Use the same subject headings you found useful in Blais when you want to search other catalogs such as the University of California's MELVYL or Worldcat in FirstSearch.)

Using Bibliographies to Find Books

Subject bibliographies are books that offer an organized, comprehensive list of published and unpublished materials on a specific subject.  They often include books, journal articles, and primary sources like archival collections, on a given subject. Bibliographies are good tools to consult if you are looking for a lot of information on a topic. If you need to do research on a topic that has not been done before, you can lso use them to tell you what has already been published on a subject. However, subject bibliographies do have one drawback: they do not include the most recent publicationson a topic. If you need to find current articles, use a journal index that covers research on your subject.

Usually, bibliographies are located in the Reference Collection in the Libraries, but they may also be shelved along with other books on the same topic.  To locate a bibliography on your topic in the Libraries, search by subject in Blais, the online catalog, and look for the subheading "Bibliography." For example,

Painting, Chinese—Bibliography
Law Enforcement—United States—Bibliography
Wilde, Oscar, 1854-1900—Bibliography

You may also find bibliographies at the end of chapters in your textbooks, at the end of books, at the end of encyclopedia articles, and at the end of articles in scholarly journal. These bibliographies may be very useful to your research.

Need more help?

When you need help on your research project, talk to your professor, stop by the Reference Desk at one of the Libraries, make an appointment to talk with a Reference Librarian, or talk with someone in the Writing Resource Center on your campus.