Library Search

During your time at Napier, you’ll find that by far one of the most important tools to help in your studies is our university Library Search.

Library Search is the search engine you can use to browse the library catalogue here at Napier. This includes giving you information about the location of physical books on our library shelves, as well as links to read e-books or online journal articles available through the databases the university has access to. Please keep in mind that some of our more specialised databases, such as EBSCO are not included in library search results; those ones will have to be searched separately.
You can also use Library Search to request books or to check your library account if you want to see the return date for any of your books.

Accessing Library Search

You can get to Library Search through the tile on your student app, and each of our campus libraries has computers set up as designated catalogue machines that are set to only be able to access Library Search.

From the homepage of Library Search, you’ll also find helpful links for information about the library; you might have even found this blog through the link under the social media header.
Above the search bar, you’ll see there are some other library-related links, such as one for our interlibrary loan service, but you’ll learn more about these in other blog posts.

Firstly, before looking for something on Library Search its best to make sure you’re signed in, which you can do by pressing Sign In on the top right, then selecting University Member from the pop-up.

This is important because many online resources, such as e-books or journal articles, require you to be signed in to access them, and you also have to be signed in if you see a physical book you’d like to request.

Once you’re signed in, you can also click your name from the top right and select Library Card to see your library account listing the books you have on loan.
You can also select the pin icon in the top right corner to look at your favourites.

Library Search Results

Through Library Search, you can browse through our library catalogue, searching by title or author, with options to filter results based on format (such as physical books or online articles), campus library, author, and subject matter. This can be useful as some searches can bring back an overwhelming number of results (you can see in my screenshot below that I got back over 2000 results!), and it can help to use filters to make your search more specific.

When you click on one of the search results, you’ll be taken to an information page about resource. Here is an example of what the information page looks like for a physical book:

This gives you the basic information you would need on where to find the book in the library, how many copies are available, and the option to request that the book be held in reserve for you.

Library Search Requests

As you can see under “Location Items” you’ll be told which of our campus libraries the book is being held at, if it is part of the main book stock or a different collection (such as the research collection) and the call number for the book which you can use to find the book on the shelf. Books are organised on the shelves in order of call number and within that call number are in alphabetical order based on the three letters at the end.

Selecting Request under Get It will give you the option to have the book be set aside for you to collect at one of our libraries.  You can also select for the book to be sent to whichever of our libraries is most convenient for you to get to. Please note that books will only be set aside for one week.

You can also use the links under Send To to make links that lead to this library record. This can be helpful if, for example, you’re helping another student with their work and you’re trying to direct them to a helpful source they can use. You’re even given options to make the link in different formats

You can also press the red pin icon next to the spanner to pin the record to your favourites bar, just in case there is a record you need to keep coming back to.

When looking at an online record instead of seeing the shelf information or an option to reserve the material, instead you’ll see the different links you can use to access the material. Your university account grants you permission to read this material, so make sure you are signed in to your account on Library Search.

You’ll also be able to search further in this journal to see if they’ll be other articles relevant to your research.

Library Search Issues

If you’re having issues accessing a link through library search, such as if the link is broken, then you can report the issue by clicking on the red spanner icon at the top of the record. Fill out some quick information about the issue you are having.  And a member of the library team will investigate and get back to you.

This was intended to be a short introduction to Library Search, but as you can see, it went a bit long just because there’s so much to talk about!

Library Search might seem a bit daunting at first. But as you use it, you’ll find yourself getting familiar quickly.
Remember that if you have any questions at all, the library staff are more than happy to lend a hand.

By Matthew Ferrie