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Welcome to the San Diego Mesa College Online Library Tutorials
Finding a Book Using the Mesa College Library Catalog
There are several ways to find a book using the Mesa College Library website.
One is using our Super Search Tool we will discuss this option in another tutorial.
In this tutorial we are going to find a book using the library catalog.
The link to the library catalog is found on the library’s home page down at the first bullet called “Library Catalog: Books and More”.
Start by clicking there.
You will then get this screen that has navigation tabs at the top and a search box underneath.
The search box is set to search for your book using “Any Keywords”.
This will look for all of the words that you put in the box in every title and description used for the books in the library catalog.
However you can use the drop down menu to search for your book using a different criteria such as “title-keywords” or “author- last name,
first” name depending on what you know about the books you are searching for.
For example I will stick with the default “any keyword” search and type in the words: gun control.
Then I will click the red “search” box. The system tells me I have 152 books that match my search query.
Here at Mesa we work with our sister colleges: Miramar and City so you will notice that the first book that I pulled up is called
“Taking Sides: Clashing Views in Crime and Criminology” and it is only available at Miramar College.
This means that if you would like to check out this book and you are a Mesa College student you either need to go to the Miramar library and
check it out or go to the Mesa College Reference Desk and fill out a form with the librarian who will make sure the book gets sent to Mesa and a
library staff member will contact you as soon as the book arrives.
Other things to note about this book is that it is located in their circulating collection, the call number is where you would find it on their
shelves and it is checked in. If it were checked out you would see the date it is due here to the right.
The 3rd book in our list is available at both Mesa and Miramar.
You can see that the Mesa book will be located on the 3rd floor in the main book stacks
however the status of this book is “in cataloging” so it is not available for check-out yet.
The good news is if you go to the library reference desk and put in a request for this book we can probably get it to you within one and 24
hours from the time you fill out the form.
If we scroll down to book #6 we will see that “Cartels at War” is checked out.
If you would like to be the next person to have this book you can go to the library reference desk and we will help you fill out a form and if no
one else has put in a request for the book ahead of you, then you can have it next.
A library staff member will contact you as soon as it comes in.
If you were interested in making this list smaller you could go to the drop down menu at the top right hand side of the screen and choose a
limiting factor for your list.
For example if you were only interested in books that were owned by the Mesa College Library you could click here
and you will see the list drop down to 125 results
and you can see that the first book on the list is no longer from Miramar alone.
Additionally you may be interested in our e- books.
You could go back to the drop down menu and click “online resources”
now you have only 20 titles in your list and they are e-books owned by Mesa College.
You can find out about how to access e-books in another tutorial of our online library tutorial library.
Once you have found the book you are looking for, simply take it to the circulation desk on the 1st floor and check it out using your San Diego
Community College District ID card.
Most of our books are available for 2 weeks at a time and you can check out up to 10 books at a time.
If you need help searching for material feel free to contact a librarian either in person, on the phone or through live chat.
Just click the “Ask a Librarian” link from any of the library’s main pages.
And that is Finding a Book Using the Library Catalog