Professor and Head of Research, Engagement and Scholarship
Catalog
The Library Catalog
Let's talk about finding books. The search tool we use to find out what print books the library owns and where they are shelved is called the library catalog. There is only one EIU Library catalog.
When you enter terms to search in the the catalog, what is returned to you is a list of book titles and the information on how to find the book. One part of the description is called a call number. The alphanumeric (containing letters and numbers) call number tells you in what order the book is shelved in the library. The location tells you in what part of the building the call number section can be found.
Article databases
You will also want to search for newspaper, magazine and journal articles. To find these sources we use a different search tool, an online resource called an article database. There are many article databases. The librarians have organized all the article databases that are available to us into different subject areas. A good general place to begin is the "Articles" tab search box on the library home page.
