Hours: Monday - Friday 9am - 4pm*
Phone: 319-398-5553
Email: kirkwoodill@kirkwood.edu
*Note: Interlibrary Loan materials can be picked up or returned anytime during normal library hours.
The easiest way to search Kirkwood Library's extensive catalog is to enter what you are looking for into our search box on the library homepage reproduced here:
If you are not finding what you need after using the basic search box above, try the advanced search tips below.
Advanced Search Screen
First, try using the Advanced Search screen, found by clicking the "Advanced Search" link just above the search bar:
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This will open the Advanced Search screen that will give you several options for refining your search. First, you will see drop down menus to the left of search bars, these drop down menus allow you to select specific bibliographic data to search. For example, you can search for the author and title of a specific book that you want:
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As you can see from the example above, you can also add rows to our search. Using this example, if you had an ISBN number for a specific copy you want, you could add a row, select ISBN from third dropdown menu and enter the ISBN number. Note, that when searching this way, the system automatically uses the "AND" boolean operator which makes sure both of your search terms appear in the results list. If you want, you can change this boolean operator to OR or NOT.
Scrolling down on the page a bit you will see different ways to limit your search. For example, you can limit the search to include peer-reviewed articles only, resource format or year. Pay special attention to the "Library" options at the bottom of the page as the default settings have changed. Now, a search will only look for items held by Kirkwood Libraries. You can expand this search from Corridor Libraries to Libraries Worldwide:
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Select Database Searching
Finally on the advanced search screen is the option to search specific databases. By default, the catalog searches our holdings and most of are electronic content automatically, however, by selecting specific databases, you can perform a search for content within the selected databases. This can be useful if you are searching for highly specified content within a single discipline. This can be useful if you want to search multiple databases on the same subject at once rather than opening and searching within each database individually.
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Before using this database searching feature, we strongly recommend trying the standard catalog search first.
Change Search Parameters After Searching
You can use all of the search limiters mentioned above by selecting options from the left-hand side of the screen after conducting a search. So, if you use the standard search box and are not seeing what you need try using the limiters to see if you can narrow down your results. Note that if you click the box labeled, "Keep selections for next search," the system will remember the limiters you selected so you can reuse them for subsequent searching.
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Search Scope
Kirkwood Libraries have a great number of resources available, but we don't have everything. Our default catalog search will display works related to your search criteria held by Kirkwood. If there is a specific work that you are looking for and you don't see it appear in an initial search, simply select the "Libraries Worldwide" checkbox in the top left-hand side of the screen. If you need to run multiple searches, remember to check the "Keep selections for next search" box. See below for an example:
Default Scope
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Worldwide Scope
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