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Course Guide for CPLT101-1: "Library of Babel: World, Text, & Adaptations"

Professor Wenxin Liang

Using the Library Catalog

To search the library catalog, use Library Search. You can use Library Search to find books, e-books, journals, newspapers, archival collections, streaming media, DVDs, and more. Also check out the Library Search User Guide for more about using the library catalog. 

Note that you cannot use Library Search to search for individual articles, but you can search for the titles of journals. To find individual articles, you can search through databases, eJournals, or Articles +. For help with finding articles, see Finding Articles in this LibGuide.

Here are some other helpful places to search for books and titles:

How to Find Books

To use Library Search, simply type in your search terms in the search bar. For more specific searches, you can use the drop down menu to search for keywords, titles, authors, or subjects.

You can search for specific titles or phrases using quotation marks (" "). For example, you could search for titles like "the bluest eye" or "on earth we're briefly gorgeous."

For an in-depth tutorial of how to search the catalog, see the Library Search User Guide.

 

Subject Headings are specific words or phrases used to find and organize books and articles by topic. They are different from keywords in that they are specific terms assigned to a subject by an organization. Most subject headings used in the library catalog come from the Library of Congress.

When you find a book that's useful for your research, click on the subject headings in the catalog entry to see what other titles are in that category. Subject headings in literature include:

Epistolary fiction
LGBTQ+ fiction
Novels
Race in literature 
Shakespeare, William,1564-1616--Criticism and interpretation

If the book you need is checked out or if we do not have it, don't fret! You have a few options.

  • If the book is checked out, you can place a recall request through Library Search. Make sure you are logged into your Library Search account and click on Locate/Request This Item. The recall period is ten days, but if you need it sooner than that, get in touch with a subject librarian to help you.
  • You can request a title through InterLibrary Loan, who can borrow books, articles, and other materials from other libraries.
  • Emory students and faculty can also submit a purchase request if the library does not own the material you need for your research. 
  • You can also contact Reference at the Service Desk for help. 

 

A call number is like an address. It is a combination of letters and numbers that indicates where an item can be found in the library. 

Emory Libraries uses various classification systems to organize their books and materials. Woodruff Library, where the majority of titles in English and the humanities are held, uses the Library of Congress Classification System. Oxford Library uses the Dewey Decimal System. 

The locations of call numbers in Woodruff Library can be found here. 

 

eBooks

Emory Libraries has a large and ever-growing collection of ebooks. These include academic titles and popular reading. Check out Emory Libraries Guide to E-Book Collections for information about our ebook collections. 

Academic titles in literature and the humanities can be found in a number of databases, including JSTOR, Project Muse, and ProQuest Ebooks. Here is a full list of ebook resources in Emory Libraries.

For browsing popular ebook titles, see Emory Overdrive. Emory Libraries also has a McNaughton popular reading collection, which offers a selection of recent fiction and nonfiction titles available for check-out.

Audiobooks

Emory has two main platforms that provide you with access to streaming audiobooks: Naxos Spoken Word Library and Overdrive. For more information on streaming audiobooks, see this blog post from Emory Libraries.