- An ISBN is the 10 or 13 digit number, usually printed on the back of a book with a bar code, that serves as a unique identifier for the book.
- Searching by ISBN is the best way to search because it will get you the exact title and edition that you need.
- Many professors include the ISBN on their syllabi or in their course management system.
If you don’t have the ISBN, try a title or author search.
Title search
- Enter all words in the title you are looking for. The search engine will try to find books that have all the words you entered in the title. Leave out words such as "a," "an," or "the."
- When including edition, use numeric values. For example, “1st edition” instead of “first edition."
Author search
- Enter all or part of the author name you are looking for.
- You do not need to enter a first name, but if there are a lot of books by authors with the same last name, it may help to narrow the results.
- You can enter the name in any order such as “John Smith” or “Smith John.” Avoid using a comma since it has a special meaning in the search.
Keyword search
- You can search by keyword but this approach is not recommended as it will likely return a large set of results.
- If you want to search by keyword, try a combination of author and keyword. For example, “Warren Accounting” where “Warren” is the author and “Accounting” is the keyword.
To refine your results, use the filtering/sorting options
- Filter options include product type and discipline area. Sort options include alphabetical sort (ascending or descending) and copyright year (ascending or descending).
