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Catalog Help

• About the Catalog
• Search Tips
• Keyword Searching
• Limiting a Search
• Library Locations

About the Catalog

Our OPAC (Online Public Access Catalog) contains the holdings of Seattle University Law Library. You may use the terminals located behind the Circulation Desk in Open Reserve to search the catalog.

The Catalog provides access to books, periodicals, federal and state government documents, video and audio cassettes, reference materials, maps, continuing legal education books, law exams, and microfiche or microfilm titles. Lists of course reserve materials are accessed by course or professor under the menu option "Search Course Reserves." Records for a selective number of books include the table of contents in a contents note. These contents notes may be searched in the keyword index.

The Catalog does not provide access to periodical articles, CLE articles, individual judicial opinions or cases. It also does not contain the holdings of any other library.

Search Tips

• Begin with the main search screen. If another screen is displayed, click on "Start Over."
• Select a search type from the menu under "Search the Library Catalog."
• Capitalization and punctuation are not necessary. The Catalog ignores punctuation marks by replacing them with a single space.
• When searching for a title, do not include any initial articles, such as "a", "an", or "the."

Keyword Searching

• You can use truncation in KeyWORD searching by typing an asterisk after the root of a word. For example, tax* retrieves tax, taxes, taxed, taxation, taxable, taxi, etc.
• When you enter more than one word in KeyWORD searching, the Catalog searches for those words directly next to each other. If the Catalog does not find all of the specified words, it will offer to display records that contain some or only one of the words requested.
• When you enter an “AND” between words, the Catalog will search for both words in any combination.
• When you enter an "OR" between words, the Catalog will search for records that contain AT LEAST ONE of the words, but not necessarily all of the words.
• When you enter a "NOT" between keywords, the Catalog will exclude any words found after the "NOT" command.
• Try to use unique words or unique combinations of words, since the KeyWORD queries search the author, title, subject, and table of contents indexes.

Limiting a Search

Once you have retrieved records from a search, you have the option to narrow your search by clicking on the "Limit This Search" command, which appears on the menu above your search results.

You may narrow your search by one of the following parameters: year of publication, type of material, government publication type, words in the title, author or subject, location within the Law Library's collection, and publisher. Many of the limit options provide a menu to choose from. You also have the choice of using the boolean operators "or, not," & "and" to construct your secondary search.

If your limit search does not retrieve any results, the original search results are still available to be viewed.

Library Locations — What Do They Mean?

3rd Floor

National Reporter System; ALRs; State Codes; Monographs, yearbooks, and serials that fall within Library of Congress call numbers A-KEZ.

4th Floor

Monographs, yearbooks, and serials that fall within Library of Congress call numbers KF-Z.

Court Level

Law reviews, periodicals and other materials located below ground; access by elevator only.

Micromedia

Microfiche and Microfilm located in room 204 on the 2nd Floor.

Reference

Reporters, codes, loose-leaf services, multi-volume treatises, and general reference materials located on the 2nd Floor for easy access.

Reference Desk

General reference materials (dictionaries, almanacs, etc.) located behind the Reference Desk on the 2nd floor.

Reserve

Hornbooks, nutshells, course reserve materials, videos, and current exams located on the 2nd Floor.