Using the ACCD Online Catalog
A Northwest Vista College Library Tutorial

Did you know...

  • You can use the online catalog to see what books, videos, DVDs, CDs, magazines, journals, and newspapers can be found in the Northwest Vista College Library.
  • You can also use the catalog to see what is available in the libraries of the other colleges in the Alamo Community College District (ACCD).
  • You can access the catalog 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, from the NVC Library Home Page.
  • You have access to 30,000 electronic books through our catalog.

TYPES OF SEARCHES

To access the catalog, click on the link for Library Catalog on the Library Home Page.

AUTHOR SEARCH - to look up materials by a certain author, type in the author's name in this order: last name, comma, first name. For example, Hemingway, Ernest.

TITLE SEARCH - If you know the title of the book you want to look up, click Title and then type in the title, omitting the words a, an or the at the beginning of the title. For example, to search for A Farewell to Arms, enter Farewell to Arms.

KEYWORD SEARCH - Enter one or two key words on your topic. Keyword searching is very flexible. You can use your own terminology and combine search terms to focus your search. Here are some examples:

•Enter the word India - to search for materials with the word India somewhere in the title, the subject heading, or the content description.
•Enter the words ancient India - to limit your search to works on ancient India by searching two words combined in a phrase.
Enter the words India and religion - to focus your search using the Boolean Operator and to combine search terms so that you are  searching for works dealing with India and religion.

To limit to Ebooks – click on Keyword and change Material type to ebooks.

SUBJECT SEARCH - In a Subject Search you use the subject headings established by the Library of Congress to locate materials on your topic. One way to identify appropriate subject headings is to find a good book on your topic and see what subject headings are used to describe that book. You can then click on those subject headings to find more materials on the same subjects.

For example, by doing a Keyword Search of India and religion, you can retrieve the title of a work like Hindu and Sikh faiths in America. One of the subject headings for this work is India--religion. You can then click on that subject heading to find more materials with that subject heading.

SEARCHING OTHER ACCD LIBRARIES

  • As a Northwest Vista College student, you can check out books from the other libraries in the Alamo Community College District.
    Here's how:
  • You can go to the other campus and use your NVC student I.D. to check out materials.
  • Or you can ask an NVC librarian to request that the item be sent over to the NVC library for you.
  • To search the catalogs of ALL the ACCD libraries, make sure ALL LIBRARIES is selected from the drop-down menu to the left of the Search button.
  • If you are searching from off campus, ALL LIBRARIES is the default search.
  • If you are searching from the NVC campus, NVC Library is the default search.

This page was created on 4/7/08 by Linda Reeves and was last updated on 9/6/07. Comments or suggestions about this tutorial can be sent to Linda Reeves .


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