How-To Research Tutorials Home

To search the SDSU Library catalog for books and ebooks:  

On the Library homepage: 

1. Scroll down and select the Collections button 
2. Locate and select the Books & ebooks button 
3. Enter the author or title of the book you are looking for, or keyword or search terms to find a book that discusses a particular topic
4. Click on the Search button to run the search
5. Look through the search results.

You can also limit your results to books after you search and have a set of results.  To do this:

1. Locate the Books filter located under the Resource Type heading in the Tweek my results box on the left side of the page
2. Select Apply Filters to update the results.

Tips 

• Select Load More Results at the bottom of the page to see more pages of results. 
• Change your search terms and/or use the filters on the left to modify your search if needed
• Click on the title to see more information about the book including a description and maybe even a chapter list.

 When you find a book you are interested in, look for the Available at location.  

• If it is an ebook click on the link and follow any instructions
• If it is a physical book make note of the location in the library. You can click on the Location link to view the general area on a library map
• Make a note of the call number. This is the address of the book. It will tell you where to find it on the shelves.  Call numbers will be listed on the spine of each book. 

To see what books SDSU Library has by a particular author:

1. Select the Advanced Search located above the search box on the library home page
2. Change the Any field dropbox to the left of the search box to Author/contributor 
3.  Enter the name of the author in the search box 
4. Click on the Search button

Look through the results.  If the author has a common name you may want to add additional details like a title or a keyword for the subject they write about. 

If you want to see if the library has a specific book you can search by the title of the book in OneSearch. To do this:

1.  Enter the title in the search box on the library home page. You may want to put the name of the book in quotation marks if you are sure of the title. 
2. Look through the search results.
3. To limit the results to just book look for the Books filter located under the Resource Type heading in the Tweek my results box on the left side of the page
4. Select Apply Filters to update the results.

Look through the results

If your book is listed check to see if there is a link to an ebook copy or the location, call number, and availability of the book.

If you do not see the book, check to see if it is available through another library: InterLibrary Loan: Getting Materials SDSU Does Not Have 

Skip to the reading call numbers portion here