KSL's Catalog is one of the primary ways to find sources of information available to you as a student at Case Western Reserve University. You can access it from the library homepage at case.edu/library.

KSL Homepage Catalog Link.png

When might you want to use the catalog?

Here are a few examples:

You want to find a specific book
You want to see what books the library owns written by a specific author
You want to find books that deal with a particular subject or topic
You want to explore other holdings in the library, such as DVDs, videotapes, sound recordings or government documents

Each of these can be found by using the catalog. The screen shot below shows you what the catalog looks like.

How to Get Started Searching

To begin your search, choose what type of search you would like to do from the dropdown menu.

Search by Title or Author

The most straightforward way to search the catalog: search this way if you have a specific title you are looking for, or want to see what books we have written by a particular author.

Note that this search also works for videos and DVDs! Search by title for a movie, or by author for an actor or director.

Search by Keyword

Searching the catalog by keyword is the broadest way to access the catalog. The catalog will search for the words you enter anywhere within the catalog record of the book- in the title, subject headings, table of contents, notes fields, etc.

Note: Keyword search is best used when you have a topic to search, particularly if you are unsure of the official Library of Congress Subject Heading for that topic. An example might be "global warming". The search results will be returned sorted by relevance. Click on date or title links to sort by those fields.

Search by Subject

Searching by Library of Congress Subject Heading (LCSH) can be useful in many cases.

If you already know the LCSH of your topic, you can search this directly by choosing "Subject" from the dropdown menu.
For books about a person, you can use the person's name (lastname, firstname) as a subject search to find books about that person (for more information about finding biographical information, click on the tab at the top of this page.)
When you are viewing a Catalog record, you can leap into a Subject search by scrolling to the bottom of the record and choosing one of the Subject tags. This will lead you to more entries with the same Subject tag.