This tutorial will help you find books using the Library Catalog.

Finding Books in the Library Catalog

1. Starting from the UW-Madison Libraries’ homepage, choose “Catalog” from the drop-down menu.
2. Enter a book title, author name, or subject keywords into the search box and select the “Submit” button.
3. Under the search box are options to limit your search, if you desire. For example, you can limit to only items available online or only print/physical items. The Library Catalog searches the collections of all UW System campuses. Another option is to limit your search to only items in UW-Madison collections.
4. From the results page, you can select a book title to see its full information page, which provides details about the book and where to locate it.

Advanced Search

• If you want to have more search options, you can use “Advanced Search.”
  • On the UW-Madison Libraries’ homepage, “Advanced Search” is in the left-hand corner under the Catalog search box.
  • Options on the “Advanced Catalog Search” page allow you to search by:
    • Subject
    • Call number
    • Publication Year
    • And more …
• On the right side of the page, there are options to limit your search. There is a “Format” list under “Limit Your Search.” You can use this list to limit your search results to materials of different formats. 
• Above the “Format” option, there is a list of “Locations,” including specific UW-Madison Libraries and libraries of other UW campuses. To limit your search to materials located at a specific library or libraries, select “Locations,” then select a UW campus, and next select a library or libraries.
• Under the “Format” option there is “Language” limit option. To limit your search to materials in a specific language or languages, select “Language” and then a language or languages from the list.

Searching Tips

• Results will include plural and singular forms, as well as common suffix and tense variations of your search terms
  • Note: Phrases such as climate change or celebrity culture may return results with variant endings (climatic change, celebrating culture), but records containing the terms you enter will rank highest
• Use quotation marks around phrases
  • Example: “George Washington Carver”
• Use the asterisk (*) as a wildcard to represent a single character and return all possible variations for a search term
  • Example: behavio*r
• Use the minus (–) symbol to ensure that a term or terms will not appear in your results
  • Example: bass -fish
• Include initial articles in known titles
  • Example: “The House on Mango Street”
• Limit your search to UW-Madison only by checking the “Limit to UW-Madison” box, or include all items at UW System by unchecking that box
• When searching by call number, enter the number with the proper spacing (for example, QT 260 T247a 1982)