Learn to Find, Access, and Manage Information

Ask a Librarian

More about Instruction…

Find a book on your topic
  1. Use the Books tab on the Libraries Webpage.
  2. In the search box, type the your keywords.
    • You don't need to use punctuation marks or capitals.
  3. Select Anywhere from the drop-down menu below the search box.
  4. Click Search.
  5. Notice the list on the left of the screen of ways to refine your results.
  6. Click the titles of items in the result list that fit your topic best.
    • To help you choose, consider the following:
      • Title of item: does it seem relevant to your topic?
      • Name of author: is it someone in the field you recognize?
      • Date of publication: how current is the book? (A book about medicine from the 1970s will be way out of date!)
    • To find more books like this one,
      • Click the book's title to open the record.
      • Scroll down to the heading Subjects.
      • Click a subject that is relevant to your topic. A list of similar subjects displays.
      • Click the one you're interested in to see all the books at UW-Madison related to that subject.
  7. Write down the book's location and call number.
    • You'll need both to find it on the shelf!
  8. Go to the appropriate library and pick up the book.
    • To find your call number on the shelves, ask a librarian for help or find a stack guide when you arrive.

<< Return to research steps

Concept
A word or phrase that describes the content of a book or an article (aka: Keyword).
Keyword
A significant word or phrase in the title, subject headings, contents note, abstract, or text of a record in an online catalog or bibliographic database that can be used as a search term to retrieve all the records containing it. (ODLIS)
Record
An entry representing a specific item in a library catalog or bibliographic database, containing all the data elements necessary for a full description, presented in a specific bibliographic format (aka: Bibliographic record). (ODLIS)

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