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Academic Inquiry Seminar (AIQS)

This guide serves as an introduction to KSL resources that may be helpful for your AIQS assignments.

Get Online Help

Reminder: Online Access

  • Library resources require going through CWRU Single Sign-On.
  • The best method is to follow links from the library website.
  • When logged in and a browser window is not closed, access should continue from resource to resource.
  • Remember to close your browser when done.

Finding Books with the CWRU Library Catalog

The library catalog is one of the primary ways to find sources of information available to you as a student at Case Western Reserve University.

When might you want to use the catalog rather than a database or Search Everything?  Here are a few examples:

  • You are looking for a specific book
  • You want to see what books the library owns written by a specific author
  • You want to find books on a specific subject or topic
  • You want to explore other holdings in the library, such as DVDs, videotapes, sound recordings or government documents
Each of these can be found by using the catalog.  The screen shot below shows you what the catalog looks like. You can click on the image or link below to open the catalog.  In the additional boxes below, you can learn more about specific ways to use the library's catalog using the drop down menu.
 

Screenshot of the KSL Catalog

Search by Title or Author

This is the most straightforward way to search the catalog. Use this search if you are looking for a specific title or want to see what books we have written by a particular author.

Note that this search also works for videos and DVDs! You can search by title for a movie, or by author for an actor or director.

Search by Keyword

Searching the catalog by keyword is the broadest way to access the catalog.  The catalog will search for the words you enter anywhere within the catalog record of the book- in the title, subject headings, table of contents, notes fields, etc.

When to use keyword

Keyword search is best used when you have a topic to search, particularly if you are unsure of the official Library of Congress Subject Heading for that topic.  An example might be "climate change".  The search results will be returned sorted by relevance.  Click on date or title links to sort by those fields. Click the link below to see what books we have on this topic!

Search by Subject

Searching by Library of Congress Subject Heading can be useful in many cases.

  • If you already know the LCSH of your topic, you can search this directly
  • For books about a person, you can use the person's name (lastname, firstname) as a subject search to find books about that person.
  • Note that MeSH stands for Medical Subject Heading- these are used for topics specific to the health sciences.

Library Account

After logging in, you'll be able to see and do several things related to your library account, including:

  • See what books you have checked out
  • Renew books
  • Check any outstanding OhioLink requests
  • Find out if you have any fines
  • See your preferred searches, if you have created any