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RS 100 - College Skills: Using the Catalog

A guide to familiarize students with locating fiction books in the library.

Using the online catalog

To locate a novel for your assignment, there are a couple of ways you can search our online catalog to locate an item you will be interested in reading.

If you are looking for a book by, for example, Stephen King, type in their name and click Library Catalog from the dropdown menu. You can narrow the results further. Under Refine Your Results, click Author/Creator. You should see your author's name and the number of results available. Click on the author's name. 

If you're interested in reading a biography or memoir of a particular person, just search for that person's name in quotes, and select Library Catalog from the dropdown menu.

If the search results say a book is available, you can check it out for 30 days. 

You can search for a specific genre (Science Fiction, Historical Fiction, Horror Fiction, etc.) in Primo. To do so, click on the Advanced Search link. Under Any Field, select Subject. Type in your desired genre, and be sure to use "Fiction" as part of the search term. Under Material Type, select Books. Click Search.

Results are displayed by Relevance. Under Refine Your Results you can select Date - Newest or Date - Oldest. 

Primo video tutorial

The following video will teach you how to search for print and electronic books using Primo, the library's online catalog. 

Catalog notations

As you search for books, you'll find that most of them have a conventional call number on them (PZ4 .A13 2007). Others, may have a few other letters in front of the letters that begin a call number. Here's what those letters mean.

  • CIRMC - This means the book is part of our McNaughton Collection, a collection of current popular fiction. This collection is a great place to find a book for your project. These books are located on the library's first floor.
  • JUV - This means the book is part of our juvenile collection. These books are located on the library's first floor.
  • JUDVD - A children's DVD. These are next to the juvenile book collection.
  • LOCAL - This collection includes selected local history items and books that librarians have deemed "rare." These books are kept in a locked cabinet and are library use only. See a staff member to use.
  • MEDAU - This denotes an audio book (book on CD). These are located on the library's first floor across from the McNaughton Collection.
  • MEDVD - This denotes a DVD. These are located on the first floor next to McNaughton Collection.
  • REF - A reference book, used for research. These can only be used in the library and are located on the first floor.
  • YABKS - A book in our Young Adult collection. This collection is mostly fiction titles, with some nonfiction. This collection is located on the library's first floor.