Catalog search tips:
If you are able to travel to Barnard/Columbia to check out books, and if you are looking for a book that is not listed in CLIO, or if all copies of that book listed in CLIO are checked out, request the book though Borrow Direct. Books requested through Borrow Direct can take 1-2 weeks to arrive, due to the pandemic.
If an item is not listed or is not available through Borrow Direct, you can often borrow it through Interlibrary Loan (ILL). For a helpful table identifying differences between Borrow Direct and ILL, see this comparison chart from Columbia Libraries. More information about other ways to access texts and other items is available in Affordable Textbooks page of this guide.
WorldCat contains catalog records for over 2 billion items held by libraries around the world. It includes records for books, manuscripts, websites and internet resources, etc. Searching WorldCat is an excellent way of moving beyond the range of what Columbia has collected to the larger universe of what is actually out there. You can borrow many types of items listed in WorldCat through either Borrow Direct or Interlibrary Loan. You can click on the e-Link icon in the WorldCat record for an item to search for it in CLIO or Borrow Direct, or to connect to an Interlibrary Loan request form that will already be filled out with basic data for that item.
WorldCat Identities features a summary page for every name in WorldCat (currently some 30 million names) including named persons, organizations and fictitious characters. The pages include information derived from WorldCat and other sources (VIAF, FAST) plus with unique data derived or created through a variety of special processing activities (e.g., WorldCat Identities provides statistical data about how widely held a work is). A typical WorldCat Identities page will include a list of most widely held-by-libraries works by and about the identity, a list of variant forms of name the identity has been known by, a FAST tag cloud of places, topics, etc. closely related to works by and about the person, links to co-authors, and more.
CLIO is the library catalog for the Columbia Library System (including Barnard Library, but excluding Teachers College and some information from the Law Library). In CLIO you can find books and media materials, search for different kinds of databases, and find articles within those databases as well.
Ebooks and ebook chapters
To limit your search in the CLIO Catalog to ebooks, select the "Online" option in the Format box on the left side of the results screen:
When you click on a link to access an ebook, please note that you might be prompted to log in with your UNI and password. Once you do this, you should be able to view your ebook!
Look out for options to download portions of the text (like chapters, or pages in a specified range). Not all ebook formats include this option, but many do.
Scanned books available to read online via HathiTrust
Many books (and even some periodicals) that are normally available only in print, can now be read online via Columbia Libraries, in a partnership with the HathiTrust Digital Library. These books are not visible as "online" resources or ebooks in the catalog. Instead, they can be found by limiting your search results by Location, and selecting HathiTrust ETAS:
To read a scanned text online via HathiTrust, you will need to:
Keep in mind: You won't be able to download chapters easily from the reader. For saving individual pages, you might wish to use the screen capture feature on your device.
Using Interlibrary Loan to Request a Scan of a Book Chapter
In some cases, you might wish to access a chapter from a book that is not available to read digitally. To do this, you can make use of Interlibrary Loan. You'll need to know in advance the page numbers you wish to access.
From the CLIO Catalog, you can access the "Scan" option in the box on the right hand side of the item record.
Interlibrary Loan: This page will take you directly to the ILL form (for when you want to bypass CLIO). You can use the form to request a digital scan of a book chapter or article, as long as you have the basic information (title/author of source, page numbers). You can do this regardless of whether Columbia has a book in its collections.