Using the Brock Library Catalogue
The assumption to this point in the research process is that you have not had to use the Brock Library Catalogue in any depth. The call numbers and floor locations of the Reference books we have used thus far would have been provided for you on the Community Health Sciences Subject Guide (or other guides). Now we are ready to use the catalogue proper. It is absolutely essential that you learn how to use the catalogue in whatever library you are using because the catalogue is the heart and soul of the collection. It contains all the materials that the library owns and tells you where they are located, if they can be borrowed, and the type of materials they are (e.g., books, journals, newspapers, videos, government documents, etc.).

The Brock Library Catalogue is available on the internet by accessing the library home page at http://www.brocku.ca/library. You can search the collection by the standard title, author, subject and keyword functions.

Author search
Use this option for personal authors (e.g., Tulchinsky, Theodore ) or corporate authors (e.g., Centre for Addiction and Mental Health). Corporate author searching is very important to see what publications the library has that have been published by an organization and/or government department. Ask for more help at the Reference/Information Desk in the library if necessary.

Title search
Use this option for book titles that you know (e.g., The new public health: an introduction for the 21st century).

Keyword search
Use this option to find materials in the library if you do not know particular authors and/or their works. This search option allows you to try and find out what materials the library has by topic or subject. When you enter words in the search box the system looks for those words from the title, subject heading and notes fields of each library item in the Brock Library collection. For example, if you wanted to find out what materials the library had on single parents you would enter the words single and parents, then enter.
The results for the example above would give us several book titles such as the following reference:
Good enough mothering? :feminist perspectives on lone motherhood edited by Elizabeth Silva. London; New York: Routledge, 1996.
The screen would also show us that the book was located on the 9th floor of the library, on the shelf at the call number HQ 759.915 G66 1996 and that the book was available in the library.

Keyword searching allows you to quickly find out what materials the library has without having to know the exact Library of Congress Subject Heading. You can combine keywords using AND or OR to narrow or expand your search and also use multiple variations of a word by using the truncation symbol * (e.g., parent* would search parents, parenting, parenthood, etc.)

Subject search
Another way to find materials by topic is to use subject headings, or topics assigned to each library item that reflects the subject matter of the item. Libraries use Library of Congress Subject Headings which you can consult in the Reference Information area of the library if necessary. From the search screen, choose subject and enter your subject. For example, entering public health would yield a number of possible sub-headings under public health and if we choose community health services we would see a possible 5 items. By scanning these entries and choosing one of them we would then get the shelf and floor location of that item.

Subject searching is very useful to you since it groups together library materials under recognized subject headings and allows you to view similar items in the library collection. Keyword searching and subject searching take a little practise but once you gain a little experience using them you will improve your skills in no time.

Limiting your search
Using the "limit this search" option from the catalogue screen is an extremely useful strategy to help you narrow your search. If your keyword or subject search yields many items and you wish to view only those items from a certain date (e.g., 1990) onwards, you would click "limit this search", then choose the year of publication option from the drop down screen and enter. Similarly you can limit your search by material type (e.g., video) or where located (e.g., reference book collection, or government documents collection) by choosing these options.