How to Find a Book

Books in Our Collection

• PILOT, the online catalog of Stapleton Library, is the first place to look for books in our collection.  Here you will find entries for books in paper, microform, books on tape, or in  electronic format in any of the library collections. To access PILOT, go to our library web page, choose Books and More,  and choose Online Catalog.

Reference books

• Items found in the Library's reference department provide useful introductions to subject areas and offer selective bibliographic leads.  To limit your PILOT searches to reference books, click on "Search Limits," and then choose Location, Stapleton Reference, and click on Set Search Limits to save your settings. Your search screen will read "Search Limits are now in effect!!."

Electronic Books

• Thousands of books private and public collections of electronic versions of historical and current books are available through the Internet. To access them try the following:
  • Netlibrary
  • University of Pennsylvania On-line Book Page
  • Internet Public Library—On-line Texts Collection
  • Google Scholar   -- includes scans of some complete books and allows you to look at sections of thousands
    of peer-reviewed papers, theses, books, preprints, abstracts and technical reports from broad areas of research.

Direct Borrowing of Books from Pennsylvania Libraries

• PALCI EZBorrow(Pennsylvania Academic Library Consortium, Inc.) is a web gateway which allows simultaneous searching of academic library catalogs in Pennsylvania.  PALCI cooperative borrowing allows patrons to borrow books directly from these collections. To search other collections and place orders, choose Books and More, click on PALCI and log on with your 16 digit I-card number. Ordered books can usually be picked up at the Circulation Desk in about four days.

Books to Order Through Interlibrary Loan

• Search the Worldcat, database to find the bibliographic entries for books owned in libraries all over the country. From the library web page choose Articles and More, then choose All Databases, and then Worldcat. Use bibliographic information from the records you find there to order material on Interlibrary Loan. Online request forms are available from ILLIAD at http://libs0700.lib.iup.edu/illiad/illiad.dll .