Books (and CDs, DVDs, etc.) are great sources of information, but there is more to library research than finding information in a particular book. Mirlyn, the Library's catalog, will tell you if the Library has a particular book, journal, CD or DVD, but if you want to know what is in a book, or need an article from a magazine or scholarly journal, or want to know if a person was mentioned in a recording, you need to use databases and indexes.

The databases and indexes the Library offers often focus on a specific area like engineering, or literature, or nursing, or sociology, or many other areas. (This makes them different from Mirlyn, which includes resources on just about any topic you can imagine ... but often only allows you to search what you would find on the cover of the thing you are looking for.) The Library purchases access -- in other words, we offer databases that you cannot see on the free web -- to hundreds of these subject specific databases on your behalf.

Finding the right database for your topic is the first step, and Search Tools can help. On its main page you can do a "Quick Search" using one of the 11 pre-selected, subject-based database groups. You can use Search Tools to browse databases by subject or to search for a particular database. You can even use Search Tools to build your own groups of databases that you can later search all at once, saving time and effort!

For additional information on Search Tools, see:

• Getting Started with Search Tools
• Using Search Tools