NURS 20010: Interpersonal and Communication Skills For Health Care Professionals: Finding Books

1. Search the KentLINK catalog for books and other materials owned by University Libraries
2. Search the OhioLINK catalog to find additional titles available from the libraries of Ohio's colleges and universities.
3. Still need more?  Ask the library staff for assistance or check Worldcat, ebrary, or Google Books. 

Use the <Request item> button to request books not held at the Salem Campus Library.  Books will be delivered by courier in 2-4 working days. 

OhioLINK, is a consortium of 89 Ohio college and university libraries and the State Library, that work together to provide Ohio students, faculty and researchers with the information they need for teaching and research.

The OhioLINK Library Catalog contains 11.5 million unique titles from its 89 member libraries, two public libraries and the Center for Research Libraries.

Begin by searching the KentLINK catalog.  It includes all the materials (books, periodicals, videos, government documents and more) owned by the 8 Kent campuses. It includes some items that do not appear in the OhioLINK central catalog.  It does not provide information about articles published in periodicals, however.   

Search by keyword, title, subject or author.  For an introduction to keyword searching, try this tutorial on KentLINK Keyword Searching. (Use speakers or headphones for audio.)

Remember that subject searching can be more efficient if you know the subject heading that best matches your topic.  For a subject search to succeed, the words you type in must actually be used as a subject heading.

EXAMPLE:  <Subject> Psychology, Pathological  NOT Abnormal psychology

Finding books KSU libraries do not own.  Use the OhioLINK catalog to search for and borrow books not available at Kent.  OhioLINK is available at http://www.ohiolink.edu

To find edited books required for your assignment, look at the title information in  the full record for the book.  The title of the book is followed by a /.  The information that follows is called the "statement of responsibility.  Information about the editor (if there is one) appears here.  

Another way of determining if you have an edited work, is to check the CONTENTS section of the record.  If the book consists of articles or chapters written by multiple authors, it probably has an editor as well. 

Click here to see an example of the catalog record for an edited book.  (Use headphones for audio.)

To construct a search for an edited work try including the word "edited" in your keyword search. Here's an example:

The search results include this book.  Notice the editor information after the slash where author information usually appears

Academic libraries use Library of Congress call numbers to keep materials on the same subject together on the shelves. These call numbers, found on the spine of the book, serve as the "address" for the book on the shelf.  They use a combination of letters, numbers, and decimal numbers.   

To find an item on the library shelves, search the catalog to identify the location, call number and status of the item you want. 

How to Read a Library of Congress Call Number is a short video from the University of Arkansas Library which explains how to read a call number.

Finding Books on the Shelf is an online tutorial that covers identifying the call number, status and location of items in KentLINK. part of the module is specific to the Kent campus library (such as the library building guide).

1. Identify the key concepts related to your topic.
2. Combine key concepts using  Boolean operators AND, OR, and NOT.
3. Put quotes around short phrases that represent a single concept-- e.g."body image."
4. Use truncation to search for words with the same root-- e.g.patholog*
5. Evaluate search results to identify new search terms.
6. Refine your search.
7. Perform new searches. 

These books feature articles or other written pieces collected in one volume by an editor.  The individual chapters may include reprints of important journal articles and/or original papers written to provide different perspectives on a single topic.  The authors and editor are scholars, researchers, or other experts.   The books can be useful to students for setting articles in broader context and for providing different perspectives.

Instructors may place materials on reserve in the Library to ensure that everyone in a class has access to them.  Some materials are availavle onlijne through E-Res, the Library's electronic reserve system. 

Other materials are available at the Library's circulation desk.  Special shorter loan rules apply, and some items may only be used in the Library. 

Search for  materials on reserve, electronic and otherwise, at Kent State University, using the Reserves tab in KentLINK.