UCF Library Catalog
The UCF Library Catalog locates books, multimedia, journal titles, and other materials in the UCF Libraries. Here are some tips on searching the catalog:
Author or Personal Name Searching: Search by last name, first name (or first and middle initial):
- Mencken, H.L.
- Murdoch, Rupert
Title or Journal Title Searching: While the entire title does not need to be typed in the search box, the title must nonetheless be in eaxct word order:
- The American Scholar = American Scholar
- The Adventures of Tom Sawyer = Adventures of Tom Sawyer
Subject Heading Searching: Requires use of Library of Congress subject headings. The following headings suggest the range of topics that may be pursued:
- Advertising
- Advertising – Food
- Advertising – Periodicals
- Body language
- Business communication
- Communication – Cross-cultural studies
- Communication – Political aspects
- Communication and culture
- Communication in families
- Communication in organizations
- Conflict management
- Content analysis (Communication)
- Culture conflict
- Cyberfeminism
- Information theory
- Internet
- Internet advertising
- Interpersonal communication
- Journalism
- Mass media
- Mediation
- Miscommunication
- Nonverbal communication
- Online journalism
- Persuasion (Psychology)
- Propaganda
- Public opinion
- Public relations
- Public speaking
- Radio broadcasting
- Rhetoric
- Semiotics
- Social conflict
- Speeches, addresses, etc.
- Television broadcasting
- Violence in mass media
- Visual communication
Anywhere or Keyword Searching: Useful if you are unsure of the correct Library of Congress subject heading. Try using two or three of the most significant words from the topic for which you are searching. An Anywhere search will find all occurrences of a word in a library catalog or a database. What follows are some examples of Anywhere searches:
- film and wom#n [finds: woman or women]
- child* [finds: child, child's, children]
- visual theory ["and" implied between words]
- city OR cities [finds: either word]
Format Limit: To find multimedia (e.g., CDs, DVDs, videocassettes, etc.), go to the Advanced Search screen. Under "Limit your search further by:" is a drop-down menu for format:
Other Catalogs of Interest
Search the Center for Research Libraries' vast collections of books, newspapers, microforms, journals, foreign dissertations, and other materials and request items via Interlibrary Loan (ILL).
Enter what you're reading or your whole library — it's an easy, library-quality catalog. Library Thing also connects you with people who read the same things.
The merged catalogs of libraries around the world, making it the world’s largest and richest database of bibliographic information. You can request items not owned by UCF via inter-library loan.
Communication Call Numbers
Most materials in the UCF Libraries are arranged according to the Library of Congress Classification System. Communication materials, which encompass a wide variety of topics (such as advertising, information theory, interpersonal communication, journalism, and mass media) are found in an equally wide variety of call number areas. For instance, items on interpersonal communication are located in the BF 637 range; items on nonverbal communication are in the P 99.5-99.6 ranges; items on public relations can be found in the HD 59-59.6 and HM 1221 ranges. For this reason, it is important to write down or save the call numbers, as derived from the UCF Library Catalog, for titles you are seeking in a specific area of communication.
Interlibrary Loan
The Interlibrary Loan (ILL) service enables current UCF students, faculty, and staff to borrow materials — such as books — from other libraries that are not available at the UCF Libraries.
Google Book Search
Google Book Search can be a useful tool for discovering books. However, keep these suggestions in mind for making the most of your Google book searching:
> Use the advanced search screen so you can do more targeted searches. For example, do a subject search rather than a keyword search if you are looking for books on a particular particular topic or period.
> Use the "Find it in a library" link to see if the book you want is available in the UCF Libraries.
> Not everything is in Google Book Search, so use Google in addition to library catalogs and databases, not instead of them.