What is the difference between WORDS and SUBJECT searching?
How can I find periodical articles?
How can I find out if a periodical is shelved with current issues or if it has been bound?
Which videos does the library have?
How can I find conference proceedings?
How can I find the most recently published books on my topic?
How do I interpret a call number?
What is the Library of Congress classification system?
How can I obtain a book whose status is "In Process" or "On Order"?
What’s NOT in MARQCAT?
Why can't I export records?

What is the difference between WORDS and SUBJECT searching?
SUBJECT searching requires the official Library of Congress (LC) Subject Headings. While SUBJECT searching is usually more precise, LC headings can be quite different from common expressions. For example, the LC Subject Heading for the "French Revolution" is France - History - Revolution, 1789-1799. If you are not sure of the correct heading, try the keywords. MARQCAT will often indicate the subject heading used for keywords. If that is unsuccessful, try doing a WORDS search instead, then use the records you retrieve to identify and link to Subject Headings.

The WORDS search is very powerful because it scans many record fields (titles, subjects, contents, and corporate/organization names) and because WORDS can be combined with Boolean operators (and, or, not). For example, a search for the word wind will retrieve items such as the title Gone with the wind and subjects such as a wind shear. By using combinations, the WORDS search can be more precise. For example:

wind and (engineering or buildings)

Perform a SUBJECT search    Perform a WORDS search

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How can I find periodical articles?
If you already have a list of articles (citations) on your topic, use the TITLE option on the main menu to look for your magazine or journal title. Please use the full titles must be searched; ask for help if you have abbreviations.

If you don’t have a list of articles, please ask at the Reference Desk for suggestions for article databases to try or consult the list of journal and newspaper article indexes on MORE.

Perform a TITLE search

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How can I find out if a periodical is shelved with current issues or if it has been bound?
Please do a TITLE search for the periodical title. View the full record and click on the link labeled "latest received". You will see the status of all recent issues: "Arrived" denotes the unbound issues; " Bound" shows those, which have been bound and relocated; "To Bind" indicates those which are currently at the bindery with the date they were sent. MARQCAT will also tell you what issues are "Missing".

In a few cases, back issues are not bound: some newspapers are simply discarded; some newspapers and magazines are microfilmed instead of bound; some have online backfiles rather than print back issues. The MARQCAT record will indicate holdings in the various formats. Note that periodicals that are no longer received will not have this display. Click on the link at the top of the record labeled "Display holdings information" for location and holdings.

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Which videos does the library have?
All videos owned by the libraries are listed in MARQCAT with the SUBJECT HEADING videos. Click here to browse the MARQCAT list of over 2000 videos owned by the libraries. You can also select SUBJECT HEADING search and enter "videos" to see this list. To narrow, try the LIMIT feature, such as videos on the subject of women or with Shakespeare as the author.

You may also look up specific videos by title or use the director’s, producer’s, or writer’s name in an author search. If the search results are extensive, use the LIMIT or MODIFY button to restrict by the material type; this allows you to limit to videotapes.

An alternative is to use videos as part of a WORDS search, for example:

Shakespeare and videos

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How can I find conference proceedings?
Papers presented at professional meetings and conferences are published in a variety of ways: as a separate, one-time publication; as part of a journal or periodical; or as a part of a series of publications produced by an organization or publisher. The many variations by which proceedings are published and catalogued create complex and often confusing citations. How a paper is cited in an index or bibliography may be quite different from how the proceedings publication is recorded in a library’s catalog. Example: While the cited title may be Proceedings of the Pacific Rim TransTech Conference the MARQCAT record lists the title as simply Proceedings. The name of the conference is listed as the author:

proceedings and pacific and transtech
asce and advanced technologies (appears in this record’s content section)
transtech

Perform a WORDS search

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How can I find the most recently published books on my topic?
If you prefer SUBJECT searching, perform your search then use the LIMIT feature to identify the items published after the desired date. You may also want to use the Sort feature on the limit screen to sort your results in reverse chronological order.

If you prefer WORDS searching, use the Years limit on the WORDS search screen to focus on the date range you need. WORDS search results will be listed in reverse chronological order.

Perform a SUBJECT search      Perform a WORDS search

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How do I interpret a call number?

What is the Library of Congress classification system?

How can I obtain a book whose status is "In Process" or "On Order"?
Any member of the Marquette community may request these books by completing the pink form in person at the Memorial or Science Reference Desk or by sending the online In Process Form from the libraries’ web site.

"In Process" items are usually in the building and will be rushed for pick up. The book will be processed on a 24-hour basis and held for you at the Circulation Desk. "On Order" items have not yet arrived from the publisher and will be rush processed for your use when they arrive.

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What’s NOT in MARQCAT?

Special Collections and University Archives

University Archives: Administrative files, university films, photographs, audio, and video recordings, along with the papers of individual faculty and alumni, are not included in MARQCAT. On-line descriptive inventories for university records are available on the Department of Special Collections and University Archives web page.

Rare Books:

To date, approximately 75% of the rare book collection has been cataloged. Cataloging of the collection is scheduled for completion in 2003.

Manuscripts:

Descriptive inventories for manuscript collections documenting Catholic Social Action, Christianity among Indians of the Americas, and the J.R.R. Tolkien manuscripts are currently being prepared on on-line publication. A checklist of all of all manuscript collections is available on the Department of Special Collections and University Archives web page.

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Why can’t I export records?
In order to export records in MARQCAT you must accept a cookie. A cookie consists of data that is created by a web server, stored on your PC, and then passed back to the server. Marking records for export uses cookies to gather the marked records into the Export List. By default, your browser is configured to accept all cookies. If you have configured your browser not to accept any cookies, please change your settings so that your browser warns you before accepting cookies. This way you can accept the MARQCAT cookie only. If you have a software product installed on your PC that controls cookies, please configure it to accept the MARQCAT cookie. The cookie does not record any personal information about you, and it will not take up more than a tiny fraction of space on your hard drive.

Ask a Librarian

For more help, please call or visit the Reference Desk in any Marquette library.