Since the Library organizes its book and video collections by broad subjects, you should expect your source material to come from various places in the Library. The most important library tool for interdisciplinary research is the Library Catalog. Bowdoin's online library catalog is the primary instrument for accessing the collections of the Bowdoin College libraries. The catalog contains electronic bibliographic records for books, video recordings, CD-ROMs, periodicals and sound recordings. For the government documents collection and manuscript and rare books housed in the Special Collections and Archives suite, specialized indexes must be consulted.
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. There is a set of Subject Headings in the Science Library near the computers. To be certain you do not miss anything that could help your research, it is a good idea to check here to find out what subject terms are used to describe your topic. You may borrow books and some other materials from Colby and Bates, and you may place requests for these materials yourself.