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A title search allows you to browse for items by title, including series titles (e.g. Studies in Psychology) and journal titles (e.g. Newsweek, Journal of Religion).
Please note that journal articles and newspaper articles are not listed in the catalog. For that, you'll need to use an online periodicals index, such as Academic Search Premier or Search360.
Start at the beginning of the title (excluding initial articles). Type as much of the title as you want in the correct order.
Omit initial language articles - even in foreign languages (a, an, the, le, la, etc.), but include articles within the title.
| hobbit | Not "the hobbit" |
| ninos de la guerra | Not "los ninos de la guerra" |
| express | Not "L'Express" |
If an initial article is part of a proper name, include it in your search:
| Los Angeles Times | Include the article because it is a proper name. |
Do not drop initial prepositions:
| On Wall Street | Retain "on" in the title - it is a preposition, not an initial article. |
Apostrophes, colons, semicolons, and case are ignored by the catalog when searching.
| Sophie's Choice | Same results as "sophies choice" |
Use abbreviations or initials only if that is how it appears in the title. If you aren't sure of the proper form, try searching both ways.
| dr. strangelove | Not "doctor strangelove" |
| doctor zhivago | Not "dr zhivago" |
Periods should be included when they appear within an abbreviation. Please note that abbreviations in titles do not consistently have periods and that you might have to check under both forms. The catalog uses the form that appears on the item.
| a.j. ayer a life | Not "aj ayer a life" |
| u.s.a. today | Finds the item by Erskine Caldwell |
| usa today | Finds the newspaper |
If the item was published in the United Kingdom or the British Commonwealth, try the British spelling if you don't find what you're looking for.
| color and color theories |
| colour and colour theories |
Numbers may be either spelled out or in numeric form. Try both ways to be sure you find all items.
| twenty thousand leagues under the sea |
| 20,000 leagues under the sea |
The following special characters can be included in title searches: +, #, $, @, %, but also try your search with the symbol spelled out to be sure you find all items.
| C++ | Also try "C plus plus." |
| symphony #2 | Also try "symphony no. 2" |
You can restrict your title search just to the words you enter by using the vertical bar ("|"). This can be helpful when looking for items with short titles that otherwise would retrieve many more items than desired.
| love| |
| american history| |
UNIFORM TITLES are titles added to the catalog record to bring together items that have complex or variable titles. Religious, legal, literary and musical works are likely to have uniform titles. Some examples:
| Bible. Latin | ... finds Bibles in Latin. |
| Sonatas guitar | ... scores or recordings of guitar sonatas. |
If you retrieve too many entries from your title search,
click on the Limit/Sort button to narrow down your
result set. The most commonly used lmit is Web Resources
For information on all available Limit/Sort options, follow this link.
| Science| | Limit to: ... Web Resources |
If you aren't sure of the beginning of your title, or know only some of the words, try a KEYWORD search.
Please contact a Reference Librarian for assistance with the problem you're having.
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