TIPS FOR SEARCHING

The Home page of the library catalogue displays two browse boxes:  

New to the library (in the last 90 days)

New Journal issues (received in the last month)

Basic Search – for keyword searching

• Leave out common words that slow the search down
• Searches and index of various key fields – author; title; publisher; subject; summary
• Will return results in material type sets
• Click on any of these to see the results
• Be aware that extensions of words are not included for example when searching for apprentice you will get results for it and apprentices but you will have to do a separate search for apprenticeship/s
• Click the back button to check other material types
• Once you have your list you can select relevant ones of interest and check the box next to each ones of interest then expand the entry to see full record.
• From here if a logged in member you can also select to Save Records to My Profile
• When you do this it will ask you to give your list a name - this will be remain in the My Profile section until you delete it.

Advanced Search

Here you can search by Author,  Title or  Subject

You can also search by Other -  All; Call Number; Publisher; Notes; Public Note; Summary.

Notes will include details such as 'Available on Computer 20 only'  

Public Note – can search by donor name

Summary – an abstract or further information about the contents

• Be careful with subject searches as our subject classification is very different to what you will find in most other catalogues.
• If a red hyperlink appears in a record (Bathurst N.S.W); (New South Wales ‐ parish registers, Catholic) you can click on this and see all other entries that relate to that ( this has only been added since c. 2009 – we are retrospectively adding it to  records catalogued before that date)

• You can select to limit your search to Location – 379 Kent or Villa Stack

• Display:

you can select to change the number of results on a page
you can change how the results are ordered by Call Number; Title; Author

When logged in using your Member login

• see your Saved Search lists
• MIDAS user Requests
• MIDAS Saved Searches
• See your User Details

We recommend you search the catalogues from home before you come into the library -  then you are not using valuable research time doing something you can do in the comfort of your own home at a time that suits you, and can arrive armed with your list of resources you want to check.

Electronic resources

Within the library at 2/379 Kent Street CD material is available through the computer systems via the Electronic Resources interface.

Some CDs will not run through this system and they will be found on PC20 (Stand Alone). The library catalogue will indicate this. In most cases the CDs are loaded onto PC20 but occasionally you may need to ask the volunteers for the physical CD in order to run the program. A list of these will be found next to PC20.

Click here to view a podcast about Searching the Library Catalogue