Material not held in any of Bowdoin's libraries can be obtained for you, through our Interlibrary Loan service. Ask a library staff member for more information and request forms. The other academic libraries in the state have differing policies about use of materials by outsiders. If you are interested in traveling to another library to get material yourself, call the library first or talk to the Science Librarian to find out what restrictions there may be on your use of periodicals held in other libraries. The catalog contains bibliographic records for books, video recordings, CD-ROMs, periodicals and sound recordings.
Most research begins with a subject search.
This function is both very powerful and very flexible in an online catalog. The best results are still obtained through use of standardized subject headings found in the Library of Congress Subject Headings books. Subject headings are also often subdivided into more specific categories, such as by place or by subtopic. There are many WWW sites posted by researchers, educators, and research facilities around the world. Read WWW documents critically, and explore other pages at a Web site to understand where the information is coming from and whether it is authoritative and credible enough to use in your work.