MARIAN Help Page

More About Title Searching


How do I search for a book when I know the title?

In the TITLE search window, type in the first word or first words of the title. After you submit the search, you will see an alphabetical list of titles.

Do "little words" count?

Articles ("the," "a," and "an") are not considered in making the alphabetical list. So if you are looking for The Bluebook: A Uniform System of Citation, you should just type

bluebook

or

bluebook a uniform

If you are searching for a title in a foreign language, you should also skip an article that is the first word in the title. For example in German, you would skip "der," "die," and "das" and in French you would skip "le" and "la."

Other "little words" (for example, prepositions and pronouns) are considered in making the alphabetical list. If you want to find Of Laws in General, you should type

of laws

If you want to find Toward a Feminist Theory of the State, you should type

toward a feminist

What if I only know some words in the title, not necessarily the first words?

Try a KEYWORDS search. A KEYWORDS search looks for words anywhere in the titles, conference headings, corporate names and contents notes fields.

Why is it that when I search for a title, I sometimes get things that have a different title?

Some publications are known by more than one title. For example, a book might have one title on its title page and a different title on its spine. In that case, a cataloger would list the title page title as its "title" in the catalog record and would list the other title as an "added title." Both of these are searched when you search by TITLE. Sometimes catalogers will also include an added title when a new edition of a book has a different title from the earlier editions.

Prosser and Keeton on the Law of Torts (5th edition, 1984), for instance, is a revised edition of Handbook of the Law of Torts (by William L. Prosser). Its cover title is Prosser and Keeton on Torts. You can find it in the catalog under any one of these three titles. That is, if you search for

handbook of the law of torts

one of the titles you will find is Prosser and Keeton on the Law of Torts.

How can I search for a series?

You can search for a series title just the same way you search for an individual book’s title. For example, Prosser and Keeton on the Law of Torts is part of the Hornbook Series from West Publishing. If you want to find other books in this series, type

hornbook series

in the TITLE search box.

Here are some examples of other series:

American Civil Liberties Union handbook

Intellectual property course handbook series

Legal text series

Nutshell series

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