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Children's & Young Adult Literature Research Guide

Library Search for Books

Use the Library Advanced Search to find children's books in the WMU collection.
If you already know the title or author, use the pull-down arrow to select Title or Author

SEARCH TIPS: 

  • If you are using a phrase in your search, be sure and put it in quotation marks, e.g., "african americans"
  • Use the asterisk * at the end of keyword(s) to pick up variant endings of words, e.g., child* will retrieve child, child's, children, children's, childhood, etc.
  • You can use the "OR" connector to string similar terms in the same box, e.g., folklore OR folktale* OR myth* OR legend*
  • You can combine terms in your search, e.g., type "native americans" in the first box, and poetry in the box directly underneath, to find poems about Native Americans
To find Books in the Historical Children's Book Collection :
  • Use the pull-down on the left side and select call number.  
  • Type in the word HIST in that field and hit the Search button.
  • If you want to look for particular types of books, e.g., folklore, just type the pertinent keyword in the second box.

Books about children's books

Boolean Operators and Symbols

Boolean Operators are words or symbols used to combine keywords in a search.

The most commonly used operators are: AND, OR, and NOT. When used in all caps, search engines (Library Search, databases, and Google) recognize them as a specific function. These are best described by using Venn diagrams.

Click the tabs at the top of this box to learn more about each operator.

Use AND when you want to limit your search to a specific combination of words.

If you are researching social media but receive too many results about social media users or the social media site itself when you only want information on social media about the experience of influencers, you could use AND to make sure you only receive results with both terms in the item record.

OR will expand your search to results that have one, the other, or both search terms in the item record.

If you are researching something with a name that varies depending on the context, you can use OR to make sure the system is searching all possible versions of that term. For example, some information on LGBTQ+ topics uses the term "LGBTQ" while "homosexual" is more commonly used in medical texts. If you want both, use OR to combine your terms.

Use NOT to narrow your search and eliminate instances of another term.

If you are searching with a term that is part of a larger term not relevant to your research or that term is also used in a different field, you may need to use NOT to remove results. For example, if you are searching for the portrayal of witches in the media and use the term "witch," you may receive results about The Witcher, a book, video game, and Netflix series. To remove these results, use NOT.

To use NOT in Google searches, use - (minus sign).

Though some Advanced Search features of search engines allow you to have multiple search boxes with drop-down menus for Boolean Operators, you can use multiple operators in single line searches.

( ) Just like in math, parentheses are their own groupings. This part of the search is done before it is combined with any other part of the search.

" " Quotation marks make sure that two or more words are in that exact order or are found with that exact spelling.

* An asterisk functions as truncation. It can be used to find words with multiple endings. For example, teach* will search for teach, teacher, teachers, teaches, and teaching.

? A question mark functions as a wildcard. It can be used to find words where only one letter is changed. For example, wom?n will search for women, woman, womyn, and womxn. Another example is Latin? will search for Latina, Latino, Latinx, and Latine.

example advanced search using separate search boxes

example advanced search using one search box

Both of the searches above will function the same even though they are written differently.

Call Numbers

Waldo Library uses Library of Congress Classification (LCC) for the majority of our collection and Dewey Decimal Classification (DDC) for children's books. DDC call numbers can be read as a regular number with a decimal while LCC is a bit more complex with letters and numbers. The videos below explains how to find books using an LCC call number. If you need help, go to the Service Desk at the front entrance.