To find books, ebooks, articles and ejournals search the library's online catalog WorldCat or search the library's list of Databases A-Z. Please check with librarians to see if any journals or magazines are held in the library.
First, try a simple keyword search such as Civil War. Keyword searches produce a large amount of results. This type of search is broad and less precise. Fortunately, most online catalogs and databases have features to help you refine your search terms. Refinement features may include author, year, format, content, audience, or sub-topics.
Creating a search strategy:
Next, try Boolean searching. This type of searching allows you to combine keywords using operators AND, OR, and NOT.
To narrow your results use AND with two or more concepts. Example: Civil War and Reconstruction
To broaden your search use OR with synonymous or related words.Example: Civil War Or War Between the States
Sometimes one of your search terms may produce a list of results that includes articles that are not relevant to your topic. Using the operator NOT eliminates words from your search and reduces the number of results. Example: Civil War NOT England. The word England will be excluded from the search.
The basic search is the default. When using the basic search your results can be refined at the results page.
You found a book you need, but the Tech library does not have it, and the ebook is not accessible. Or maybe it is an article you want, but Tech does not have the journal, or the electronic resource does not provide full-text access. What do you do? Use Inter-library Loan Services. You can request a book or an article from a participating library in-state or out-of-state.
To request items through ILLiad, Interlibrary Loan management system, you must first create an account to identify yourself in the system. Please use the link below to register. Once you establish an account your personal information remains on file and future submission will not be necessary. Your WVU email address will enable the Interlibrary Staff to notify you promptly about the fulfillment of your requests. Your personal ILLiad account also allows you to track your requests.
Go to Illiad Logon and register as a new user or logon as a returning user. Use your WVU Login.