I’m looking for information about a specific topic in mathematics. Where should I begin searching?

You have several options:

  1. Basic Keyword Search in the Online Catalog – If you have only a general idea of the topic you want, search the term in the “Keyword” field.

    To broaden the search, use the drop down box and select “All I-Share Libraries”. I-Share includes the resources of 84 Illinois libraries that belong to CARLI. Through I-Share, you may search, request, and borrow material held at all of these libraries. The I-Share catalog contains bibliographic information such as author, title, publisher, and year for most of these materials, as well as their call number and location. In the catalog, you will be able to see which libraries own a particular item and whether or not that item is available at any of those locations.

  2. Advanced Search in the Online Catalog – To narrow your search, use the “Advanced Search” feature. Search the term in the “Keyword”, “Title”, or “Subject” fields.  After receiving search results, you can further narrow your search by categories such as “Format”, “Location”, “Author”, “Topic”, etc. to avoid overwhelmingly large hit lists. If a particular title is close to but not quite what you want, click on terms listed under “Topics” in the item record for other titles on those topics.
  3. MathSciNet – You may search by author, journal title, or simply names or terms “anywhere.” This database includes journal, book, and proceedings titles.
  4. Zentralblatt MATH – This database is similar to MathSciNet but indexes some different titles. Search by author, title, or source. You can limit searches to a specific publication date range. Clicking on “classification” will provide you with information on different search strategies.
  5. Journal and Article Locator (JAL) – Locate e-journals and retrieve full-text articles.
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