For in-depth background information on a topic, it is tough to beat full-length books. UVic Libraries holds just shy of 2.2 million print volumes, in addition to our extensive collections of ebooks. This guide will show you how to restrict your search to only include books in UVic's collections, and how to filter for e-books or print books.
Books in UVic Libraries' collections are easily found using Library Search.
Start by searching for the book or books you are interested in using the search bar on the library homepage. The default setting will search by keyword, enabling you to search by author, title, or subject.
From your results page, look under the 'Refine your search' menu to the left side of the page. Under 'Content type,' select 'Books.' Occasionally, you may need to click 'Show more' to reveal this option, as was the case for the search below.
Your search results will now show books in UVic Libraries' collections. This may include both print and ebooks accessible online.
After applying the 'Books' filter as described above, you may be interested in restricting your search to include only print books.
In this case, you can use the 'Library' filter to restrict your materials to items found at that location only. Selecting one or both of the Mearns or Law Libraries will restrict your search to exclude most of the ebook results.
For some searches, you may still see more e-book results even after selecting the library. In these cases, we can try looking under the 'Location' filter at the bottom, and clicking the orange box to the right of the 'Internet Resource' option to exclude ebooks from our results.
Selecting the locations in the collection in which you are interested in searching - such as the 'Main collection' and 'Compact storage' - is another useful approach to exclude ebooks. However, this approach may also exclude some of the more specialized collections in UVic's holdings.
See the Locate your book video if you need guidance with finding books on the shelf.
After applying the 'Books' filter, it is quite simple to restrict your search to include only ebooks. Using your Netlink ID, you can access ebooks and other online resources through UVic Libraries, from wherever you can find an internet connection.
Looking under the 'Refine your search' menu on the left side of the search page, select 'Full text online' under 'Availability.' Your search results will now only display ebooks accessible remotely.
If your results are not displaying the title you are interested in, it may be outside of UVic Libraries' collections.
In this case, check out our guide to submitting an interlibrary loan for information on how to get access to this material.
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