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Student Guide to Library & Archives Services

Books, EBooks and Book Chapters

CROSSSEARCH: 

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! 

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. 

NAVIGATING THE LIBRARY STACKS: 

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.

Watch this video  or visit our Call Numbers guide to learn more about how call numbers work. 

SEARCHING FOR EBOOKS AT HOLY CROSS:

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: 

In addition to our collections, here are some other places that you can look for ebooks:

SEARCHING FOR BOOK CHAPTERS:

Locating book chapters that you may want to read can take a little more time. Here are some creative ways that you might find book chapters: 

  • CrossSearch -- some, but not all, of our books have tables of contents in the catalog that you can check; 
  • Google Books typically have limited previews, but if you can see enough to locate a helpful chapter, we can get you a copy; 
  • Similarly, Amazon.com previews; 
  • Google Scholar sometimes includes citations for book chapters (and searches across Google Books); 
  • Databases (some, but not all, include book chapter citations specifically; America History & Life is one); 
  • Citations in bibliographies of articles, e-books, or other books that you may have checked out before we closed. 

You can also try searching WorldCat, which searches the collections of libraries around the world (including ours!). Sometimes the information about a book is listed differently in WorldCat, allowing you to find sources that you would never have pulled up in our own catalog. 

Each of these strategies can be used to....

(1) Find the titles of book chapters in our own libraries, which library staff can scan and send to you; or 

(2) Find the titles of book chapters held by other libraries, which can be requested on Interlibrary Loan.

REQUESTING BOOK CHAPTERS: 

If you are unable to access a print copy, librarians working from Dinand can still scan an individual chapter or portion of a book to deliver to you. You can also request book chapters via Interlibrary Loan and receive them electronically. 

 Instructions for using Document Delivery & Interlibrary Loan (including finding book chapters)