Books Search Tips

There are over 4 million titles in our catalogue and we've made it easy to find every single one. Click the links below to find out about searching for books.

Author Searches

Title Searches

Subject Searches

ISBN, Publisher and Keyword Searches

Searches for books in languages Other Than English

Audio Book Searches

If you don't find what you're looking for, it may be that it isn't available from our catalogue at the moment.

On the Advanced Search Books page, choose an author by typing directly into the Author box.

• Exact Name: enter the author's name exactly as it appears on the book. You can enter it Firstname Surname or Surname, Firstname. Use this to narrow a search for an author with a common name, such as Stephen K Roberts. But remember, if you enter "R B Fuller", you will not find books listed under R Buckminster Fuller.

• Last name, First Name (or Initials): enter the authors name one of the following ways:

last name, first name(s)--Smith, John Robert

last name, first initial(s)--Smith J R

first name, last name--John Smith

first initial last name--J Smith

last name--Smith

The search will find books in our database under names that seem to match your search specification. By entering "J Smith", you might find books by Joseph Smith, J T Smith, John W T Smith or John Maynard Smith.

Unfortunately, it's difficult to search for books with two or more authors who share a last name, such as Will Durant and Ariel Durant. Try searching using just the last name (eg: Durant).

• Start of Last Name: if you're not sure how to spell the author's surname, enter your best guess for the first several letters. For example, "Solz" will find the Russian author Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn. For authors with multi-word last names, enter only the first word or the start of the first word.

Hint: if the author has a double-barrelled surname, use a comma (eg: Harvey Jones, John or Harvey-Jones, John). To search without a firstname or initials, type the complete surname, followed by a comma (eg: St Aubin de Teran,). If this does not find all the books by the author, try searching by the last word of the author's surname. If you discover an author with a multi-word surname listed by the last word in his or her last name, please e-mail us.

On the Advanced Search Books page, select a title by typing directly into the Title box.

• Title Word(s): enter the main words of the title. It's best if you leave out common words such as "on" and "the", eg: "little house prairie".
• Start(s) of Title Word(s): include the beginning (three or more letters) of the main words in the title. Eg: "eng pat" will find, among others, the Michael Ondaatje novel The English Patient.

On the Advanced Search Books page, select a type of subject search by clicking one of the categories directly below the Subject box. The default type is Subject Word(s).

• Exact Subject: at the bottom of many book entries in our catalogue, you will see lists of subjects. You can use this option to search our catalogue using one of those subject phrases. For example, "Fantastic Fiction" will find many utopian and fantasy novels.
• Start of Subject: look for books that are indexed under a subject that starts with the words you enter. For example, "world war" finds books about World War I and World War II.
• Subject Word(s): list words in the subjects you want to search for. This search will find books with subjects containing at least one of the words you entered.
• Start(s) of Subject Word(s): list the beginnings of words (at least three letters) in the subjects you want to search for. This search will find books with subjects containing the initial letters you entered. For example, "wom sci" will find science fiction novels by women as well as books on female scientists.

You can search for up to six ISBNs at one time. Separate the ISBNs using the | symbol.

To restrict your search to titles by a specific publisher, enter the publisher's name in the appropriate field. To optimise your chances of a successful search, try entering the first word of the publisher's name. For example, enter "O'Reilly" to find all titles by O'Reilly and Associates.

You can also enter relevant terms in the "Keyword" field. For example, enter "program" in the Keyword box and "O'Reilly" in the Publisher box to find all titles by O'Reilly & Associates that include the keyword "program."

Our catalogue lists books in languages other than English, and although a large proportion of these are in French or Spanish, a number of other languages are represented.

Unfortunately, it's not possible to search by language, but you can search for specific books in the same way as you would search for any English language book using an Author or Title search.

To search for audio books click "Browse Categories" at the top of any Books page. On the Browse Categories page, click either Audio Cassettes or Audio CDs to start browsing through the bestsellers and subject areas.

To find a specific audio book, on the Advanced Search Books page, enter the Author and/or Title, and select "Audio book" in the Format box.

Audio book editions are indicated by the cassette logo to the right of the title on the search results page.