Using Novanet to Find Books
Learn how to use Novanet with our online Novanet Tutorials.
Novanet is the online catalogue of books, periodicals, and other materials owned by Saint Mary's University and other university and community college libraries in Nova Scotia.
Novanet can be accessed on any computer with an Internet connection. You can search the Novanet catalogue using Basic Search or Advanced Search. You can also log on to the catalogue to check your library record and renew books. When you open the Novanet catalogue, the system automatically takes you to the "Basic Search of NOVANET Catalogue" screen.
Searching for a BOOK in Novanet | TOPIC Searching in Novanet | LOCATING books within the library
Searching for a BOOK in Novanet
Basic Search provides you with several search options, including the ability to search by title, author, subject, or call number. It also lets you search by keywords.
Searching by keyword is useful when you know only some of the words in a title or subject heading, or only part of an author's name, such as the surname.
Example: You want to find out if a Novanet library owns the book Advertising on the Internet, by Robbin Zeff. The following examples illustrate the different ways you could search for this book.
Search by keyword in TITLE:
After you click "Go", Novanet will display a list of titles that contain these words.
Browse an alphabetical list of TITLES:
After you click "Go", Novanet will display an alphabetical list of matching and nearby titles.
Browse an alphabetical list of AUTHORS:
After you click "Go", Novanet will display a list of matching or nearby author names.
A useful strategy when searching in a catalogue or a database is to start with a keyword search, browse through your search results until you find items that are relevant to your topic, and then look at the subject headings contained in their catalogue records.
Example: You are looking for books on the topic of advertising on the Internet.
Using the Basic Search screen, type the following keywords: advertising internet in the 'Search by keyword' box. Select 'Any field' and click 'Go'.
Search by keyword in ANY FIELD:
A keyword search in 'Any field' will retrieve all records containing the word(s) you type. Your words may appear anywhere within a record. The catalogue will display a list of titles, such as this example, Internet Marketing: foundations and applications:
To find more books on the same subject, refer to the SUBJECTS listed in the record.
The entries next to the Subject are known as Subject Headings, and most items in Novanet have been assigned at least one of these. A subject heading is a standardized term used to describe the content of an item. Books that address the same topic are likely to have at least one or two subject headings in common.
Click on a subject that matches your topic, and the following pop-up will appear:
If you click on the "Go" button under the "Find more items in Novanet", you will see that over 55 items contain the subject heading "Internet Advertising".
LOCATING books within the library
Library holdings information is provided under the 'Owned by' column in the search results list.
If the item is available for loan, the status of 'In Library' will appear within the Due date fieid.
If Saint Mary's owns the book, it will be shelved on either the second or third floor of the library: books with call numbers A - PR 3999 are shelved on the second floor; books with call numbers PR 4000 - Z are shelved on the third floor. If the book is owned by another Novanet library, you can either visit that library or use Novanet Express to request that the book be delivered to Saint Mary's. If the book is not listed in Novanet, you can use the Interlibrary Loan Service to acquire the book from a library outside of the Novanet consortium.
A Quick Review
A successful search of Novanet may include using both keywords and subject headings.
- Conduct a keyword search first, using the 'Any field' searching option.
- Examine the results of your search and identify those records that are relevant to your topic.
- Look at the subject headings attached to these records and identify those headings that best match your topic.
- Click on the subject headings(s) you identified to find more records relating to your topic.
Last Modified: March 26, 2009
This page last modified Tuesday, 17-May-2011 15:34:51 ADT