Library catalogue

The Library catalogue is a single platform that provides access to the University’s print and online collections. It’s the best place to find information for assignments and recommended readings from your lecturer.

Use the Library catalogue for: 

• simple keyword searches
• advanced searches that achieve more targeted results.

For optimal results, search subject-specific databases in addition to using the Library catalogue.

Sign in to your Library account before you start searching to:

• access results that are only available to Sydney staff and students 
• request items from other campuses, or not held at University of Sydney
• manage loans and requests
• save searches and set up alerts when new content is published.

Collections

The Library catalogue provides access to almost a billion: 

• books
• journal articles 
• theses 
• videos 
• Open Access resources and more. 

How to search the Library catalogue

Simple Search

Simple Search is easy to do:

1. Enter one or more words in the search bar.
2. Click “Search”.

Advanced Search

Advanced Search gives you a range of options to incorporate into your search strategy to achieve more targeted results.

Advanced Search Criteria

Filter your search with the following criteria:

• Our library or Our library + other institutions
• Any field – click the dropdown menu to specify if your search words or phrases should appear in the:
  • Title
  • Author/Creator
  • Subject
  • Call number
  • ISSN
  • ISBN
• Material type
• Language
• Publication date

Advanced Search tips

Boolean operators

Boolean operators are words and symbols, such as AND, OR and NOT, that can be used alongside keywords to limit or expand search results.

• AND (both) – limit your results by adding more terms which must appear in every item (e.g. britain AND monarchy).
• OR (either) – expand your results by combining synonyms with OR (e.g. britain OR “united kingdom”).
• NOT – exclude words that produce irrelevant results (e.g. web NOT spider).

Wildcards

Use wildcards (? or *) if you are unsure of spelling or want to include more than one variation.

•  ? replaces a single character (e.g., wom?n finds woman, women).
• * replaces multiple characters (e.g. cultur* finds culture, cultural, and culturally).

Refine your results

Once you have done a search, you may want to further refine your results. 

The Library catalogue results page provides the following options under the heading “Refine my results”: 

• Content type
• Publication date
• Subject 
• Language
• Library 
• Location
• Source
• Author/Creator
• Journal type
• New records

You can also choose to “show only” results that are:

• Open Access
• Peer-reviewed journals
• Held at library
• Available online

You can then sort your results according to:

• Relevance
• Date-newest
• Date-oldest
• Title
• Author