Exploring the Fontbonne Digital LibraryYou’ve taken the whirlwind tour through the Library building. Now let’s see what Library resources you can access from the desktop of your own computer.

The Jack C. Taylor LibraryTo reach the Library web page, start at the main Fontbonne web page (www.fontbonne.edu).

The Library link is under Academics.

Spend 20-30 minutes getting familiar with what is here. Notice the Quick Links on the left side of the screen. They can come in handy! Be sure to check out the information under the Students tab too.

Let’s get started by using Discovery Search in the center of the screen.

The Digital Library

Accessing Library Digital Resources

Discovery Search includes both Fontbonne’s digital resources and our classic catalog. (The box might look slightly different – don’t let that stop you!!)This is a powerful search and you will certainly need to learn how to narrow down your results to target what you need. But, of course, that’s what this course is all about, right?

If you are only looking for books or DVDs, you can also click on the Classic Catalog link. The Digital Resources link will take you to an alphabetical list of sources for articles, ARTstor images, digital reference materials, and statistical electronic resources.

Discovery SearchLet’s take a moment to explore how Discovery Search works. It is basically one huge index of Fontbonne’s classic catalog and all our article databases like Academic Search, HealthSource and JSTOR.

So, when you type in something like global warming the system is searching through all those resources to bring you back a results list of what we have that matches that term.

These results will be drawn from items in our Classic Catalog, (books and DVDs, e-Books), and from articles published in scholarly journals and popular magazines.

Let’s take a look…

Classic CatalogLet’s start with the catalog.

The Classic Catalog (which can also be searched separately) will show you what items the Fontbonne Library owns and where you can find them.

The Fontbonne Library houses over 95,000 physical items including books, journals & magazines, music CDs, movies (both educational and popular), curriculum materials and more. We organize these items using the Library of Congress Classification System (LC Call Numbers). To find a book or other item on the shelf you’ll need the call number for that item that is listed in the catalog.

Digital Resources - ArticlesFontbonne pays a subscription fee to be able to offer access to numerous digital resources. These include article databases. Academic Search and JSTOR are interdisciplinary in scope while Communication & Mass Media, Business Source and PsycARTICLES are subject-specific. A direct link to only these resources is here.

Searching Discovery

Back to global warming…You will usually start with a keyword search, but be aware that you have other options. If you know the author or title you are looking for – start there.

Results list Let’s take a closer look at various portions of this page.

Results - Left ColumnYou’ll notice, first of all, that we have 170,000+ results -- way too many to search through. So we will need to do some narrowing of our results to make this practical.

The links below will help you do that. There are numerous check boxes that you can select to help you focus your search and obtain only what you need. But first, you have to have some idea of what you need.

Are you looking for articles only? Check off Academic Journals.

If you scroll further down this column. You’ll discover lots of other options as well.

Click Update once you’ve made your selection.

Results – Center ColumnA quick glance down the results list will show that the first item is a Book and the second is a Video. These icons can be useful to give you an overview of what you have retrieved. Other icons include Academic Journal, Periodical, eBook, and News, among others.

The grey bar below the item title is where you can access the item. For books and other items from our catalog, this will be a link to the catalog record. For articles, it will be access to full-text if available.

Results – Right ColumnThe right column will usually include any images relating to your search. These are great for using in your papers and presentations.

Below that, Additional Resources will provide you links of other digital resources that are accessible to you but are not included in the Discovery Search. Subheadings (Reference, Current Events, etc.) help describe what you will find on these links.

This is the record of a book – the first item on the results list (see the icon in the left side of the record). The record provides more information about this item -- Subjects, Other Authors, Contents or Notes, if any.

LOCATION shows where in the Library the book can be found.The CALL NO will be needed in its entirety to find the book in the shelf.STATUS tells you where the book is right now. “Available” means it should be sitting on the shelf. Note that you can send a text message to your phone with this information – pretty cool!

In this example, your next step would be to go to the area of the Library specified under Location, such as Reference or 2nd Floor, and look for the book!

Results – Example: Book

MOBIUS is subdivided into smaller clusters. Fontbonne is in the Bridges cluster. You’ll need to know that information when you request a book from MOBIUS. You can search the catalogs of all 65+ libraries at the same time by clicking on the MOBIUS Catalog link back on your results list.

What if you need a book and can’t find it in the Fontbonne catalog?

Fontbonne is part of a consortium called MOBIUS. The 65+ libraries in this group have agreed to share resources with each other.

Requesting a MOBIUS bookSearching in the MOBIUS catalog works the same as in the

Fontbonne catalog. Once you have found a book you want to borrow, click on the Request link. A new screen will appear.

Select Bridges (Fontbonne's cluster) from the drop down box and click Submit Above Information. Then enter your name and Fontbonne ID # followed by a capital F (i.e.,123456F) to denote that you are a Fontbonne student. Select Fontbonne as the pick up location. Submit the request and you will receive a confirmation that your request will be processed.

Look for an e-mail in your Fontbonne e-mail account when the item is available for pickup at the Circulation Desk. Depending on where the book is coming from, it should arrive in about 2-4 days. Call the Circulation Desk if you have any questions.

Requesting books from MOBIUS is a great way to get materials when the Fontbonne Library doesn’t have exactly what you need. Since there a some public libraries in MOBIUS, you can get popular fiction as well!

Your request for Beyond the school gates : questioning the extended schools and full service agendas / Colleen Cumming was successful.

Item requested from MERLIN

Your request will be delivered to Fontbonne University, Library at BRIDGES when it is available.

Results – Example: Articles

Here is an article from an academic journal. Be aware that does NOT mean this has been peer-reviewed. (More on peer-review in Module 6. Just tuck that in the back of your head for now.)

Here is what you are looking at: Title of article Author, Journal title, date

published Abstract (summary) of the article Subjects of this article Link to full text of the article

Click on PDF Full Text to access the article.

Discovery SearchThat should get you started using Discovery Search.

As always, if you are confused or having problems with this, please contact your instructor or come visit the Library and ask one of the Reference Librarians on duty to give you more detail.

What else can I find in the catalog?

The library also has movies (many popular titles), cook books, novels, e-readers (Kindles, Nooks & Kindle Fires), and video games available for check out. Can’t find what you’re looking for? Please ask us!