How to find books: Finding books on a topic

Search the Enterprise catalogue for one or more keywords describing your topic to find some useful books held in the Library. This will show you both printed and online books (e-books). 

• Just type in one or two words that describe your topic
• Do not type in your essay title - just pick out the important words - keep it simple as you are searching the titles of books not their contents.

Example:

To find books on food security in Africa:

1. Type in the search box: food security africa
2. Click on Search

Tips!

Think about alternative search words to find more books on your topic - you could try searching for specific countries in Africa, for example 'food security kenya'

Too many results?

If your search retrieves too many results, look at the limit options on the left of the screen to narrow your results.

You could select the most recent publication dates, or if you are off-campus you could select the "Online" option to find materials you can access immediately.

You can apply multiple limits if you wish to get very specific results - select and apply each one in turn.

Books are located on the 2nd, 3rd and 4th Floors of the Library:

2nd Floor - computing, economics, education, law, politics, philosophy, psychology, real estate and social sciences

3rd Floor - agriculture, arts, business, construction, linguistics & languages, science and technology

4th Floor - archaeology, history, literature, maps

Explore the links below for more detail:

Finding books in the Library

To find a book on the shelf you'll need the floor it's located on and the Call Number. The Call Number gives you the specific location of the book - the numbers indicate the subject of the book and the letters show you which specific place on the shelves to look for it.

1. Note the floor location and the Call Number
2. Find your way to the correct floor and check the floor plan. Most books are in the blue 'Books' section - just make your way to the section containing your number. But if your Call Number has 'Large' at the start, you need to go to the pink 'Large Books' section containing your number instead.
3. Use the signs on the end of the shelves to find your way to the correct section.
4. When you are in the correct section look at the labels on the books until you find your number.
5. Once you've found the correct number, use the letters at the end of the Call Number to find the specific book - they are arranged alphabetically by these letters.

If you can't find your book, please ask a member of staff. We're here to help!

Most books in the Library can be borrowed. You may collect them from the shelves yourself and take them to a Self-Service Point to borrow - don't forget your Campus Card!

Loan allowances

All students may borrow up to 25 items at any one time for up to 6 weeks, subject to recall if someone else needs them.

Returning books

All items should be returned via the Book sorter, beneath the central staircase on the Ground Floor of the Library, or via the external Book Drop located to the right of the Library entrance. 

Delve into our e-books by searching Summon to find e-books and online book chapters on a topic.

Use Summon to find full-text articles, e-book chapters and other online sources in all subjects.

Everything you find should be available to read as the results are limited to sources covered by most of the Library's subscriptions. We have also included some good quality open access resources.

Search tips

Using the 'Refine your search' options

Once you have run your search on Summon, you can use the 'Refine your search' options on the left of the screen to limit your results.  Select 'book chapter' and/or 'E-book' under 'Publication type' to show e-books and e-books chapters relevant to your search. You can also limit by 'publication date', 'language' and 'discipline'.

To apply a limit click on the checkbox to the left of it. You can apply multiple limits in one category - for example, you can select both Journal articles and Book chapters together.

To exclude items from your search, just hover over the limit and click 'Exclude'.

If you want to find books beyond our collections, for instance if you are researching for a PhD and need to find everything published on your topic, try the following methods to find references to books on your topic.

Look at lists of references in other publications

• encyclopedias - there are often lists of references at the end of encyclopedia entries
• books - look at the further reading in books you have already 
• journal articles - look at the list of references at the end of any relevant journal articles, these often include books. Review articles are especially useful as they summarise research in a specific field - these are usually published in journals titled “Annual review of…” “Reviews in…”

Search relevant databases

There are a number of databases that give references to books and/or book chapters. Explore those relevant to your subject, in addition to searching the specific book databases suggested below.

If you find details of a book not held in our Library, we can usually get it for you from another library, via our inter-library loan service, or you may be able to visit another library which has a copy. 

You can also suggest a book for purchase using this form: