Sometimes, there are special searches that you might want to do, like see all the new books we have in, or an audiobook version of a famous novel, or see a listing of all the DVDs the library owns, but you just can't figure out how to ask that question to our catalog. Never fear! As you'll soon see, once you know what to do, you can get to this information in no time.

We'll start with examples of searching for:

• Audiobooks
• Videos
• New Items

For all of the searches we are going to do in these examples, the first thing you'll need to do is go to our library catalog. It will probably help if you open that link in a new window, so you can refer to this page as we go along. Right-click on the link (or control-click for you Mac users) and select "Open Link in a New Window" to do so.

For these first examples, we'll need to do more than the basic keyword anywhere search that is our catalog's default. So, from the first catalog screen, click on the button at the far left that reads "Search the Catalog."

Audio Books

The library catalogs audio books under the subject heading "Talking Books." So, to browse all the audio books we own, on both cassettes and CDs, you should check the box next to Subjects and type Talking Books in the text field [].

If you're a savvy searcher, you may be saying at this point, "Hey, but you can use limits, can't you?" Well, yes and no. If you already have a specific title or subject in mind, you can set limits to limit your search to, say, only Adult DVDs. This would be useful, for example, to find out which branches own The Lord of the Rings on DVD. But setting limits doesn't help you to browse all the DVD titles at the library.

You can also browse only the cassettes, only the CDs, and only Children's audio books. To perform any of these searches, check the box next to Authors instead of Subjects. Then type what is shown in the table below into the text field, depending on what you want to search for:

You Want	You Type	Example
Cassettes	Books on Tape
CDs	Books on CD
Children's Cassettes	Children's Books on Tape
Children's CDs	Children's Books on CD

Videos

The same techniques work for videos, too. To browse all DVDs and VHS tapes that the library holds, do a Subject search for Video Recordings []

Just as with the audio books above, you can browse different types of videos by entering your search phrase with the Authors box checked, as shown in the table below:

You Want	You Type	Example
VHS	Videos
DVDs	Videodiscs
Children's VHS	Children's Videos
Children's DVDs	Children's Videodiscs

New Items

If you want to find out what items the library has recently put on the shelf, you can! Start the same as in the examples above by clicking the "Search the Catalog" button on the main page. From there, click the little round button at the top of the screen that reads "New Items."

On the New Items search page, you can search for items added to the collection anytime in the last year. Combining this with one of the examples from above on this page, you can do a search to browse only the type of media you want to see. For example, to find children's audio books that we've added in the last month.

So, there you go. You can combine what you've learned on this page with many other subject headings to narrow your search to just the items you want. Good luck!

Published by John on 19 February 2007. Last Edited on 19 February 2007