Learn how to SpartaCat, the library catalog, to find books in the library collections.
Why use books?
Books provide a focused overview of a topic. Books explore their topic thoroughly and provide detailed information. Books are often best suited for historical issues, however, there are books available on a wide range of current topics as well.
Basic Searching in SpartaCat
Keyword: If you are looking for a general topic (like "global warming"), it is best to start here. It will search the title, summary, table of contents, and publication information of each of our books and items for the word or phrase you enter.
Author: If you are looking for books by a specific person, search using this. For example, if you want to find books by Edgar Allan Poe, enter his name like this: Poe, Edgar Allan.
Title: If you know the specific title of a work, choose this option.
Subject: Search the Subject Headings list. These are like #hashtags. They are the main word or phrase used to catalog the book and reflect what it is about, but they may not appear in the title, summary, table of contents, or publication information the way a keyword would.
Pay attention to the shelf location of the book in the Library
Stacks: The largest collection on the Bethlehem campus library's main floor.
Monroe: Items are at the ESSA Bank & Trust Foundation Library at Monroe campus.
Reference: An area for multi-volume encyclopedias, dictionaries, and handbooks. These books can only be used in the library, they cannot be checked out or borrowed.
Media Tower: Item is a DVD, VHS, or CD (although children's and young adult materials are in this location too) in the Bethlehem campus library.
Online: Digitial e-Book or streaming video viewed by clicking the access link.
New Books: A special section of the Libraries for recent additions to our collection.
Browsing: An area in the Bethlehem campus library for popular fiction and nonfiction titles and bestsellers.
And don't forget to note the call number, which will help you find the book on the shelf, and it's status, which will tell you if it is on the shelf at the moment.
Finding eBooks
You can also search specifically for eBooks using SpartaCat.
After you have started a search, on your results screen, look for the Item Type search result limiter.
Select Electronic Books and click Include to add this limiter or filter to your search.
This removes any and all items that are not eBooks from your search results.
Accessing our eBooks
In the results, eBooks will be tagged with the words Electronic Resource and their location will be Online.
To view an eBook from the search results page, use the link labeled Click Here to Read Online. This Click Here to Read Online link also appears on the eBook's Item Details (or summary) page.
Clicking this link will open the eBook in a new screen. You may be prompted to login with your MyNCC username and password before you can begin reading the book.