Skokie Public Library's Guide to...
Skokie Public Library Catalog

The Skokie Public Library Catalog is available on most computers in the Library and is also accessible from outside of the Library through the Internet. The Catalog helps you retrieve information on materials at Skokie Public Library, including books and audiobooks, videos and DVDs, music recordings, CD-ROMs, and more.

Available to everyone!

Typical uses
Basic searching
Modifying your search
Important note about subject searching
Special features
Advanced word searching
Print, email, and saving options
Other catalog resources

Typical Uses

The Skokie Public Library Catalog lists the titles, authors, and subjects of the books, videos, music recordings, audiobooks, musical scores, DVDs, CD-ROMs, foreign language materials, magazines and newspapers, and English as a Second Language (ESL) materials owned by Skokie Public Library. Use the Catalog to find location and availability information for these materials.

Features of the catalog:

Find the location of materials owned by the library
See if materials are available for check out
Place reserves (also called "holds") on items that are currently checked out or on order
Enter purchase suggestions for items you think the Library should add to the collection
View a list of the books and other materials you have checked out or placed on hold
View your fines
Renew items you have checked out and cancel reserves
Access the Catalog through the Internet (from home, school, or the office)

Basic Searching

The Catalog was designed so that the most popular search, the Title Search, is available from the very first screen. If you know the title of the book, CD, or movie you're looking for, you can type it right into the search box.When you are typing words into the Catalog, you don't need to worry about capitalization or punctuation.

Beyond the basic Title Search, you can use the pull-down menu near the top of most search screens to select an Author Search or a Subject Search, or you can select one of several different searches from the choices on the main menu.

If you are looking for...		Then do this...
Books or audiobooks by a particular author or... Movies by a particular director or with a particular actor or... Children's books with illustrations drawn by a particular illustrator or... Recordings or music scores by a particular composer or performer		Select Author from the pull-down menu and type in the author's last name and as much as you know of the first name. or... Select the Author Search from the menu and follow the instructions on the next screen. Examples: morrison toni kubrick stanley wells rosemary chicago symphony orchestra


If you are looking for...		Then do this...
A book, audiobook, movie, music recording, a magazine, a newspaper, or CD-ROM by title		Select Title from the pull-down menu and type in the first words of the title. or... Select the Title Search from the menu and follow the instructions on the next screen. Examples: to kill a mockingbird sound of music


If you are looking for...		Then do this...
Materials (books, videos, etc.) on a particular subject *Please see an important note about subject searching		Though you can search by subject by using the pull-down menu or selecting Subject Search from the main menu, we suggest that you use the Word Search to find books and other materials on a particular subject. Examples: civil war coin collecting


If you are looking for...		Then do this...
Something by a particular author, director, actor, audiobook reader, or illustrator and you know a word in the title		Select the Author & Title Search from the menu and follow the instructions on the next screen. Examples: mozart & figaro steel & home


If you are looking for...		Then do this...
Titles in a particular series		Select the Series Search from the main menu and follow the instructions on the next screen. Examples: baby-sitters club opposing viewpoints series


If you are looking for...		Then do this...
A newspaper, journal, or magazine article		Use one of the Library's many article databases to search for articles within magazines or newspapers. The Catalog is not used to find individual magazine and newspaper articles.

Modifying Your Search

Once you've done a search, the Catalog provides you with a tool to narrow your results list using the Modifying Your Search function. With this feature, you can:

Search only for certain formats or types of materials -- such as DVDs, videos, compact disks, large-type books, biographies, or audiobooks
Limit to materials in foreign languages; the Catalog enables you to limit your search to nine different languages
Sort your results so that the most recently published titles are listed first or sorted alphabetically by the title or the author's last name
Narrow your search to materials only in a particular department of the Library -- such as the Youth Services Department

Modify your list of results by selecting the button once you have a list of results on the screen.

Important note about subject searching

In order to organize all of the materials in libraries so that people can find them, most libraries categorize the items in their collections using a standardized list of subjects called Library of Congress Subject Headings (LCSH). Many of the words used to categorize these materials are not necessarily the words that you would think of when trying to figure out the subject of an item. For example, if you were looking for Chinese cookbooks, the LCSH would be "Cookery, Chinese."Unless you use the exact words in the subject headings, your search will not work.

Because of this, we recommend that you use the Word Search when looking for materials on a particular subject. The Word Search will look for your search words in the title, subject headings, author, and summary information for the materials and will, more often than not, find what you're looking for faster than the Subject Search.

Once you've found a title or two on your subject, take a look at the Subject Headings, (found near the bottom of the screen) and you'll see what category they've been placed in. You can also find more materials on that particular subject by selecting that Subject Heading.

Examples of Library of Congress Subject Headings...		And what they really mean...
United States -- History -- Civil War, 1861-1865		Civil War
Cookery, Chinese		Chinese cookbooks or cooking Chinese food
India -- Description and travel		Guidebooks for traveling to India
World War, 1939-1945		World War II or Second World War
Canvas embroidery		Needlepoint
Coins -- Collectors and collecting		Coin collecting

Special Features

View Your Record

This features allows you to look at the list of items you have checked out, placed on hold (or "reserve"), or requested from another library. You can also renew checked out items and place or cancel reserves. You must have your Skokie Library card number to use this feature, which can be accessed from the Library or from home through the Internet.

Search Other Libraries

If the title you're looking for is not available at Skokie Public Library, you can access the catalogs of other libraries in the area and in the world through the Search Other Libraries link.

Limiting Your Search

Sometimes a search will produce a longer list than you expected. When this happens, you can try to narrow your search by selecting the button. Use the pull-down menus to select the particular types of materials (such as videos, audiobooks, large type books, etc.) that you're looking for.

Reserving an Item

If you've found what you're looking for, but it's checked out of the Library, you can request that the item be held for you when it is returned. You may do this by selecting the button from the screen that shows the information for your title.In order to reserve a book, you must have a Skokie Public Library card.

Youth Collection

If you'd like to search the Catalog for materials in the Youth Services Department, select the Youth Collection link at the bottom of the main search screen. This will make your searching quicker by targeting only youth materials.

Searching for Magazines and Newspapers only

By selecting the Magazines and Newspapers only link at the bottom of the main search screen, you will automatically limit your results to the magazine and newspaper titles that the Library owns.Keep in mind that when you search for Magazines and Newspapers, you are searching only for the titles of the periodicals the Library subscribes to, not the content of the articles within those periodicals.

To search for actual magazine and newspaper articles, use one of the Library's many online article databases available through the Articles from Magazines & Newspapers category of the Research section of our website.

Searching for Audiovisual Materials

If you'd like to search only for videos, DVDs, music CDs and cassettes, CD-ROMs, and audiobooks, select the Audio-Visual only link at the bottom of the main search screen. This will make searching quicker by targeting the type of materials you want before you begin your search.

Purchase Suggestions and Interlibrary Loans

Every so often, you'll come to the Library for a book, CD, or movie that the Library doesn't own. If the item was published or released within the last year, you can complete a purchase suggestion form, using the purchase suggestions link near the upper-right corner of each catalog screen. If the item you're seeking is more than a year old, we can try to borrow it from another library. To request an "interlibrary loan," speak with a librarian at Information Services, Readers' Services,Youth Services, or Audiovisual Desk.

Creating Lists

If you'd like to search the Catalog and compile a list of materials to look at all at once, use:

The button, if it's at the top of the screen
or...
The Save Marked Records button at the bottom of a results screen once you've put checkmarks in the Mark box(es) in the left-hand column

For information on printing, emailing, and saving these lists, see the print, email, and saving options section below.

Advanced Word Searching

If you are unsure of the exact ending of a word, type as much as you know followed by an asterisk (*). The asterisk will substitute for any one to five letters following those entered. Type two asterisks (**) to replace any number of letters.

If you type...		You will get...
child*		Items with the world child or children in the title, subject, or as an author.
environ**		Items environment, environmental, environmentalism, environmentalist, environmentalists, environments, and environs.

If you would like to search for words from titles, names of authors or publishers, subjects, series, or song or play titles, simply type in a couple of search terms. Our Catalog assumes an "AND" between the words.

If you type...		You will get...
Roman history		Books with the title Roman history and music recordings (if there are any) of songs called Roman history

Use quotation marks to search for search terms as a phrase.

If you type...		You will get...
"Roman history"		Books with the title Roman history and music recordings (if there are any) of songs called Roman history

To find records containing any of your search words, anywhere in the record, type "OR" between each of the search words.

If you type...		You will get...
schooling OR education		Books, videos, and other materials with the word schooling or the word education in their titles, subjects, song titles, or as authors. This is most useful when you're not sure of the exact words used to describe a certain topic. In this example, we used synonyms to find as many items on the topic as possible.

To exclude words in a search, type "AND NOT" between each of the search words.

If you type...		You will get...
gardening AND NOT flowers		Books, videos, and other materials about gardening, but not flower gardening specifically

To perform more than one type of search at the same time, enter an abbreviation for the search type before each relevant search word; type "AND" between each search abbreviation and word. Search type abbreviations are:

a:	for author
t:	for title
s:	for subject
n:	for note (most often used for song titles)

If you type...		You will get...
a:Dickens AND t:expectations		Books, audiobooks, and film versions of Charles Dickens' Great Expectations.
a:Beatles AND n:love		Recordings, films, and songbooks containing songs by (or inspired by) the Beatles with songs with the word love in their titles.

To find records containing words found close to each other, enter the word NEAR between the search words. Enter the word WITHIN and a number between search words to specify that the words should occur within # words of each other in the record (see examples below)..
Use parentheses group search terms together when using AND, OR, AND NOT, NEAR, and WITHIN.

If you type...		You will get...
chocolate NEAR cake*		Books and other materials about making cakes with chocolate.
America WITHIN 3 economi*		Books and other materials related to American economics.
*(Alaska or Canada) AND (adventure AND NOT vacation)**		Books, audiobooks, and videos about adventures in Alaska or Canada, but not about taking vacations in Alaska or Canada.

Print, Email, and Saving Options

To print a single page of information about an item, select "File" from the Print menu in the upper-left corner of the screen or use the Print icon from the gray menu bar.

If you'd like to print, save, or email the information about several items at once, you can "mark" each record, as described below, and then select the format you'd like to print, email, or save from the screen.

Marking Records

You can select items to add to a list in one of two ways:

Use the button which will appear at the top and bottom of a "full record" for an item. A full record screen shows you all the title, author, call number, availability, and subject information available for each item in the Library.
Put checkmarks in the boxes alongside the titles you'd like to print, email or save from "browse list" by clicking in them. The browse list is the list of titles produced by your search. It is important to click on the gray Save Marked Records button at the bottom of the screen once you have check-marked your titles.

Once you have created a list, use the button to choose your print, email, or saving options.

Tips for Printing, Emailing, or Saving

When printing, select Screen from the Send List To menu. Once you click on the Submit button, your list will display on the screen. Then, select "File" from the Print menu in the upper-left corner of the screen, or use the Print icon from the gray menu bar.
If you're planning to print the list of items you created, it's best to choose either Full Display or Brief Display from the Format of List menu. Full Display will show the full record for each item you selected. Brief Display will show the author, title, publisher, and call number for each item, but will not show you the availability of each item or whether each is in the Adult or Youth collection. The advantage of Brief Display is that you can fit many more items on a page.
To email your list of items, select the format you would like from the Format of List menu (each option is described above). Then, enter your email address in theMail To: box in the Send List To menu. The email address you enter will be used only to send your list.
To save your list of items to a floppy disk, select the format you would like from the Format List menu (each option is described above). Insert a computer disk into the computer’s disk drive and click on the gray Submit button. Select 3 ½ Floppy (A:) from the pull-down menu in the Save As box.

Other Catalog Resources

To search the catalogs of other libraries, use the Search Other Libraries link from the main Catalog menu screen. You can select from a list of other library catalog links.

Evanston Public Library Catalog		Search the collection of the Evanston Public Library. This catalog will let you know if an item is available on the shelf.
Morton Grove Public Library Catalog		Search the collection of the Morton Grove Public Library. This catalog will let you know if an item is available on the shelf.
Cooperative Computer Services (CCS) Catalog		Search the collections of twnety-two north suburban public libraries including two nearby libraries: Lincolnwood Public Library and Niles Public Library. This catalog will let you know if an item is available on the shelf.
WorldCat		Search the collections of thousands of public, academic, school, business, and special libraries all over the world at once. This is the catalog used most often for locating hard to find items to borrow through Interlibrary Loan. Note: this catalog will show you which libraries have which items, but will not show you if the items are available.

For information on borrowing materials from other libraries, please speak to a librarian at the Readers' Services or Information Services Desk.

Skokie Public Library's Guide to... Skokie Public Library Catalog