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Student Guide to Library & Archives Services

Books & eBooks

SEARCH FOR BOOKS

CrossSearch is the Libraries' multi-search "discovery" tool. CrossSearch searches a cross-section of journal articles, newspapers, CDs, images, and many other types of resources available through the libraries. It is also our main library catalog -- the tool you use to find books, journals, films, and other items physically located in the library, as well electronic versions of those items. 

To leave out individual articles and focus on things like books and films, you can use the Catalog Only limit in CrossSearch. 

Watch our video tutorial 📺 to learn more about CrossSearch. If you're not a CrossSearch fan, you can also use the Library Catalog to find books. 

Search Tips

Try searching for books using a very basic keyword search. Books tend to be on broad topics, so the terms you search with should be broad, too! Once you've found a few books that look interesting to you, you can use clues from the books to help you find other books. For example.... 

  • Call Numbers. Books on similar subjects are in similar areas of the library.  

  • Vocabulary. Check the records in the library catalog for vocabulary in the tables of contents, titles, descriptions or other information that you might use for future searches. 
     
  • Subjects. Every book in our catalog is marked with at least 1 "tag" that tells you what the book is mostly about, and links together other books on that same topic. You can click on the tags to find a list of all other books using that tag. 

FIND BOOKS IN THE LIBRARY

At Holy Cross, we organize our books using a system called Library of Congress Classification or LCC. LCC is based on the subject of the books. Each letter represents a specific subject. Each subject is broken down into more specific letter sections, each of which is further broken down into number ranges for specific topics. Most call numbers have additional  numbers and letters on the end of them, which are used to give each book a unique spot on the library shelves. 

  • Reference Books are in the Main Reading Room. These books must stay in the library. 
  • Books whose numbers begin with letters A through G are on the Mezzanine level (1 floor down from the Main Reading Room).
  • Books whose numbers begin with N or TR are in the Visual Arts Wing on the main level. 
  • Books whose numbers begin with letters H through Z are mostly on the Ground (bottom) level.
  • Books whose numbers begin with M are in the Music Library in Brooks Hall.
  • Books whose numbers begin with Q, R, S or T are in the Science Library in Swords Hall.

You can learn more about how to find things in the library by visiting our guide to call numbers: 

FIND EBOOKS

To search for e-books located at Holy Cross, use CrossSearch.

Then, use the Resource Type limiter in the side navigation to focus your search on ebooks. 

You may also want to search in our specific ebook collections: 

When searching within a specific ebook collection, you will be able to search the full text of each book allowing more detailed searching. For example, you may search the library catalog and not find any titles on your topic, but a search in ebrary might find a book with one chapter focused on your topic.

Accessing eBooks

In most cases, your best option is to use the "Read Online" feature for our e-books. Most academic ebooks do not work with devices that you might use to read personal ebooks, such as a Kindle or Nook (believe us -- this frustrates librarians too!). There is software that you can download onto a PC or iPad, but this can be difficult to use, so if you have a stable internet connection, we recommend reading online. 

However, if you would like to download the software, or if you are having trouble accessing any particular ebook, please feel free to contact us (libref@holycross.edu) or see our ebooks guide linked below: 

NOTE that most ebooks do have limits on printing. Each publisher has different functionality and rules for downloading and printing ebooks. 

Other eBooks
Here are some other places that you can look for ebooks: