Skip to Main Content

Research 101: Find Books

A guide to help you develop good research skills!


 

Search MICAL

Use MICAL to search for library books:


 

 

*Note: You won't find individual articles in MICAL.

How to Use MICAL

Ways to search MICAL

Options for searching MICAL:

Type of Search Its Purpose
Keywords Searches the title, table of contents, and subject heading fields of a record.
Advanced Search Limits a search by language, material type/format, location, publisher, or year of publication.  Allows the user to change the sort of criteria.
Author Searches author field.  Type the author or artist's last name first.
Title Searches title field.  "A", "an", and "the" will be ignored.
Subject Heading Searches by Library of Congress subject heading.  You must use the exact wording of the heading.
Journal Title Searches the Exact name of a journal.  Does not access the articles within the journal and does not usually include our electronic journals.
Call Number Searches by Dewey, Library of Congress, or Local call number.
MC Course Reserves Searches materials on Reserve, by professor or Class name.
Patron Record See the books you have checked out or renew your books.
Items to Acquire and Suggestions Offer suggestions about library services or resources to purchase


 

Using the Online Catalog

To learn more about advanced searching in the library's online catalog MICAL watch this tutorial.

Tips!

  • No need to use capital letters in MICAL.
     
  • Use a question mark (?) to find variant endings of a word.
     
  • You can key in a connector (AND, OR, or NOT), but if you key in just the keywords, the catalog will search as if there is an 'and' between the words.