Finding Books:

Use the MTA Library Catalogue to search for books, e-books, journals, magazines and newspapers (but not articles).

You can use the catalogue to find out if the library has a particular journal or magazine (Lettres Québecoises, for examples); however, to search for articles within that journal, you'll need to use a journal index/database (see #4 below).

The on-screen examples and Help pages in the Library Catalogue provide tips on how to perform the various types of searches (keyword, title, author, subject, etc.)

For more details, see:

• How do I search for a book?
• How do I find a book in the Library?

Reminder: we have a card catalogue too!
The online Library Catalogue contains records for all materials acquired since 1980 as well as many older works that have been re-catalogued. Certain pre-1980 materials do not yet appear in the online catalogue and may only be found using the card catalogue.

Other Library Catalogues:

To search the holdings of other libraries, see the Other Library Catalogues page where you will find links to other Atlantic University Libraries as well as links to resources such as WorldCat which allows you to search the holdings of many libraries simultaneously.

WorldCat can be a useful resource for identifying the complete bibliographic details of items (a first edition, for instance) not held by the Mt.A Libraries.

When searching the Library Catalogue for critical books (livres critiques) *about* an author and his/her works, you can search by Keyword or by Subject.

What's the difference?

SUBJECT searches are performed using Library of Congress SUBJECT HEADINGS. These work in much the same way as tagging works on Facebook, Flickr, etc.

Subject Headings are standardized terms used by academic libraries across North America to describe what an item is about. A single item (book, film, etc.) may have one or several different Subject Headings.

Useful Subject Headings when searching for information about a specific author or work of literature include:

• Name of author (Last name, first name)
• Name of author (Last name, first name) -- Criticism and interpretation.
• Name of author (Last name, first name). Title of a specific work.

For example: 

• Proust, Marcel, 1871-1922.
• Proust, Marcel, 1871-1922 -- Criticism and interpretation.
• Proust, Marcel, 1871-1922. À la recherche du temps perdu.

Note that each of the three lines above represents one complete subject heading.

KEYWORD searches allow you to search for a word, words or phrase(s) anywhere in the library catalogue record (author, title, subject, notes, etc.).

Keyword searches also allow you to combine words and phrases using AND, OR, NOT (these are called boolean operators).

The following guide explains how to search effectively using AND, OR, NOT:

• Boolean Searching on the Internet, L. Cohen.

Examples of keyword searches:

• proust and history and ideology
• proust and sprinker
• recherche and temps and sprinker

Any of the above keyword searches will find the following title:

History and ideology in Proust : a la recherche du temps perdu and the Third French Republic by Michael Sprinker.

Notice how the keywords can be words from the title or the author's name. Keywords can also be words from the Subject Headings.

Search Tip:

Try starting with a few keyword searches.

Then, once you've found one or more books related to your topic, click on the Catalog Record tab and take a look at the Subject Headings: you can click on each of the subject headings to see a list of all other books in the library that have the same subject headings.

Browsing the subject headings may also give you ideas for additional words to use in your keyword searches.

Finding Articles:

To search for critical articles (articles critiques) published in scholarly journals, you'll need to use a Journal Index or Database.

Each field of study has its own specialized indexes and databases.

For French-language literature, two of the main indexes are the MLA International Bibliography and Repère.

For more information and to access these indexes and databases, go to:

• Indexes and Databases by Subject: French.

Search Tips:

Keep in mind that while the MLA and Repère databases do, in some cases, link to the full-text of articles, their primary function is to serve as a searchable index of critical works in the field of literary studies.

In other words, these databases help you identify the critical works that have been published on an author, a novel, etc.

Some of the items you find in these databases will be accessible electronically; others may be available in print in the library. Others still may not be available at the Mt.A Libraries but may be requested via interlibrary loan.

When the full text of an article isn't immediately available in an index/database, searching for articles is a two-step process:

Once you've performed your searches and have a list of items you'd like to find (that's step 1), the next step is to look up the source in the library catalogue (step 2). For articles, this means looking up the title of the journal or magazine in which the article was published. For book chapters, it means looking up the title of the book.

Example: to find out if we have this article in the library:

Ezra, Elizabeth. "The Death of an Icon: Le Fabuleux Destin d'Amelie Poulain." French Cultural Studies 15.3 (2004): 301-10.

Look up the title of the journal, French Cultural Studies, in the Library Catalogue. There you will find out if we have the journal in print in the library (we have it from 1999 to 2006) and whether the journal is accessible electronically (we have full-text access from 1990 in the database, Sage Journals Online). You can also use Journal Finder to search for journals accessible in digital format in library databases.

For more details, see: How do I search for articles?

Consult the Preparing a Search Strategy guide for tips to help you begin to prepare an effective search strategy when researching a literary topic.

Descriptors
Certain journal indexes, such as the MLA International Bibliography, use descriptors. Descriptors are, like Subject Headings (see above), terms used to describe what an article, chapter or book is about.

How to limit a search by publication date or to a particular source:
Most indexes and databases allow you to do this. Consult the Help or Tips page(s) in the database you are using for specific instructions.

Truncation and Wildcards:
The truncation and wildcard symbols are special characters used to find variations (different forms, spelling, etc.) of a word.

For example, in the MTA Library Catalogue, the truncation symbol is $ -- use to replace an unlimited number of characters at the end of a word.

example: histor$ will find history, historical, histories, etc.

The wildcard is ? -- use to replace a letter within a word.

example: wom?n will find woman and women.

Truncation and wildcard symbols vary from database to database. In MLA, for example, the truncation symbol is *.

How to determine when a novel was first published:
Reference books such as specialized encyclopedias and dictionaries (see section 1 for examples) often provide a summary of an author's works and will usually indicate when a work was first published. Complete bibliographic details for first and later editions of a work may be provided or you may need to look in another source (another reference book, a library catalogue) to find all of the information you need.

Questions?

You may contact a librarian at the Reference desk, by phone at 364-2564, by e-mail at infodesk@mta.ca or by meebo chat.