Library Catalogs
At UCLA there are several different library catalogs to search for materials:
- UC Library Search This link opens in a new windowCatalog of all materials owned or licensed by the UCLA Library and many other campus collections, including books, journals, magazines, videos, microfilm, computer files, and online resources. Note that the Catalog lists journals owned by UCLA, but not the individual articles inside them. To identify specific articles, use a Database that indexes articles. As our in-house system, the UCLA Library Catalog contains up-to-the-minute status information on what's checked out and allows you to do things like renew your books or recall books checked out to other people.
- HathiTrust Digital Library This link opens in a new window
This link opens in a new window
A repository of scanned books contributed from academic institutions across the United States, including UCLA. Books still in copyright are scanned and searchable, but the full text scans will not become available online until their copyright expires.
Tips for Book Searching
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When searching for books, here are a few strategies to start with:
- If you are not sure of where to start, do a KEYWORD search for relevant terms or phrases; Put the phrases in "quotation marks".
- If you already have a relevant book or article in hand, use its bibliography/references to find other sources.
- Do a subject heading search in a catalog (see box to the far left).
- Use ? to truncate a word, e.g., american? will retrieve american and americans.
- Powell Library Floor PlansCheck to see where your call number is located.
- Young Research Library Floor PlansCheck to see where your call number is located.