The Levy Library provides a specialized collection of books both in print and online. You should search differently depending on if you know exactly which book you are looking for (i.e. you know the title, author, etc.) or if you are looking for a book about some topic.

From the Levy Library Homepage, connect to the Catalog. Select title from the drop-down menu and type in the book's title (Hint: you usually don't need to include subtitles) then click Search.

Or, you could select author from the drop-down menu and enter the author's name in the format lastname, firstname.

If there's more than one record that matches your search, you will see a list of titles. Click Details to see if a particular title is available.

If the location says Bookstacks, the book is in the regular bookshelves under its Call Number and is available to be checked out. It may also say Item Checked Out (if so, you may put a Hold on it to check it out when it is returned) or give another location, such as Reserves (ask at the Circulation Desk) or Reference (check the Reference Section). You can find information about borrowing books on our Circulation Services page.

If the Levy Library does not own the book you are looking for, you may look for other books on the topic, submit an Interlibrary Loan request so that we can borrow it from another library for you, or submit a request that we purchase the book.

You may also search for the title as an E-book – some E-books can be searched by title on our E-books page, others must be searched for in our individual E-books collections (listed at the bottom of our E-books page).

Our books are arranged by subject according to the National Library of Medicine classification scheme. You may check the Browsing our Bookshelves (PDF) handout for a call number range to browse, or you may search the Catalog:

From the Levy Library Homepage, connect to the Catalog. With words or phrase showing in the drop-down menu, type in as few keywords as possible and click Search. Or, use the Advanced Search screen (often better when searching for a topic).

On the Advanced Search screen, use the drop-down menus to select words or phrase or other appropriate search fields (hint: the subject search field is useful if you know the precise Library of Congress Subject Heading for your topic; otherwise, use words or phrase).

Use a dollar sign ($) to truncate your search terms for a more effective search. E.g. the search diabet$ retrieves diabetes, diabetic, diabetics, etc.

The Search Results screen will show a list of records that match your search. Click Details to see if a particular title is available.

If the location says Bookstacks, the book is in the regular shelves under its Call Number and is available to be checked out. It may also say Item Checked Out (if so, you may put a Hold on it to check it out when it is returned) or give another location, such as Reserves (ask at the Circulation Desk) or Reference (check the Reference Section). You can find information about borrowing books on our Circulation Services page.

You may also search for Ebooks – our Ebooks page has several hundred useful titles arranged by subject; many more titles are available to be searched in our individual Ebooks collections (listed at the bottom of our Ebooks page).

If you can't find what you are looking for or have any questions, please don't hesitate to Ask a Librarian!