Hints for Using the Our Library Catalog
Yes, you can see if a book has been checked out. Please read all five hints if you are having problems.
- Author, title and subject searches work just like a card catalog
- No articles (a, an, the)
Last name comma first name
Library of Congress subject terms (for example cookery instead of cooking)
- Keyword
- Searches for a SINGLE word anywhere it may appear in authors, titles, subjects and notes.
- Be sure to click on the "view holdings" button to get more information
- And scroll down to look at the bottom of the page. This is the most direct way to find out if the book is here or has been checked out.
- Are you looking at this page in translation?
- Suspend translation. The catalog won't work if the translator is running.
- Are you looking for a non-English title?
- The catalog software does not work the same way it works for English titles. Whereas you will find The Cat in the Hat under Cat you will find El Gato Ensombrerado under E for el. You need to enter the leading article for most (but not all) non-English titles.
Please note, this is just a library catalog. You can see what we have, whether or not an item is available, and the due date if something is checked out. But you cannot place holds or renew your own books. Please call us at 301.891.7259 to do that.
If you are feeling adventurous you might want to try a Boolian search
With this search you will be looking for a single word anywhere within the title and/or/not a single word within the author list and so on.
If you choose your operators carefully your search will be very
precise. Choose any combination of adjacent fields. For example: dickens in the
author field AND france in the subject field should bring up Tale of
Two Cities (assuming you forgot the title).
You can also
just use a single word in a single field to get a quick keyword search.
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