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Subject Guides • Computer Science

Is an Item in the U Waterloo Library?

Interpreting a Bibliographic Reference

Suppose you already have a list of references to items that you are interested is. These could be:

You now need to interpret each of these references, that is:

You can learn how to do this by familiarizing yourself with the Library publication entitled Finding References in the Library [How To: No.11]

Looking References Up in the Online Catalogue

As mentioned previously, in general, you look for the largest item in which the item you want could appear. For example you look up a journal title if you have a reference to a specific paper in that journal. Or if you want a book, you just look up the book title.

But there are some special techniques that are useful for some types of items. The publication mentioned above, Finding References in the Library, gives some hints for looking each of the different types of items up in the online catalogue.

What if I Can't Find It?

If you can't find an item that you want in the online catalogue, it is useful to check at the Information Desk, unless you are confident that you looked the item up in all the ways that are appropriate for that item.

If you want an item that is not at the UW Library, then you will want to use resources of other libraries. [the next step]


Librarian, Information Services and Resources
Last Updated: October 22, 2004