Olin Library: Philosophy: Finding Books

Book catalogs typically provide for seaching by author name, the title of the book, the subject heading assigned to the book, or keyword.

• Author. Normally you enter the last name first.
• Title. Type in as much of the title as you know in correct sequence.
• Subject Heading. This is normally the most precise way to look for books by subject, but requires you to find out what the "official" subject term is. Any time you identify a book in the catalog that is on your topic, check the subject headings in the record to find out terms that may be of benefit. The subject headings in the record will be live links that you can search on.
• Keyword. This search strategy will ask the computer to find your term anywhere in a record--author, title, subject heading, notes, etc. It can be very handy for identifying a list of books whose subject headings you can then review. It can also help find narrower information contained in individual chapters.

The following catalogs are in order from the most local to global.

• Drury Catalog Search for books, videos, etc. held by Drury University.
• SWAN Search for books, etc. held by 9 colleges/universities in SW Missouri including Drury.
• MOBIUS Search for books, etc. held by 68 colleges/universities in Missouri (including Drury) plus 2 public and the State Library of Missouri.
• Public Library Springfield-Greene County Public (with a branch one block west of Drury).
• WorldCat  Search for books, etc. held by libraries all over the world.
  

A note about Interlibrary Loan. If the book is in Drury, Swan or Mobius, you can request it yourself from within the catalog. From WorldCat, you can select ILL and request it as well.  If the book must come from someplace besides a Mobius library or WorldCat, use the interlibrary loan form below. It is free, but you will have to pay for any overdue fines you incur.

• Interlibrary Loan - Fill out this form as fully as you can and submit it to our ILL dept. where they will borrow the book as quickly as possible.

The power of a Google Book Search is that because Google has indexed so many books word-for-word, you can discover if an author, movement, concept, or subject has been covered in a book.  THEN you can see if you can borrow the book free through Mobius (1st choice) or WorldCat (2nd choice).  So don't look at Google Book Search as an end in itself - but rather another tool for your quest.

B			Philosophy (General)

   1-52 	Periodicals. Societies. Dictionaries.

   53-68	Methodology. Relation to other topics.

   69-99	General Works. Translations.

   105		Special Topics

   108-708	Ancient (600 BC - 430 AD)

   720-765	Medieval (430 - 1450 AD)

   770-785	Renaissance

   790-5739 	Modern (1450 AD - )

BC			Logic

BD 			Speculative Philosophy

   10-41	General Introductions to Philosophy

   95-131	Metaphysics

   143-236	Epistemology

   240-255	Methodology

   300-450	Ontology

   493-701	Cosmology

BF			Psychology (not covered in this guide)

BH			Aesthetics

BJ			Ethics

   1-28 	Periodicals. Societies. Collected Works.

   37-69	Methodology. Relation to other topics.

   71-977	History

   991-1185	General Works. Treatises. Advanced textbooks.

   1188-1295	Religious ethics

   1298-1392	Evolutionary, Genetic, Monistic ethics.

   1400-1500 	Special topics

   1518-1697	Individual ethics. Virtues and Vices.

   1801-2195	Social ethics. Etiquette.