1. From the library home page, start entering your search terms in the Northwestern Library Catalog and click Search.

Search Tip #1: It’s best to start simple. What’s one word that captures the broad outline of your topic idea?

Search Tip #2: To focus your research, combine search terms by separating each with the word AND (in all caps).

Search Tip #3: When your search terms are an exact phrase of 2 or more words, be sure to wrap these words in quotes.

Below are some sample search strings for this topic:

              homelessness

“homeless youth”

homelessness AND addiction

homeless AND “mental health”

homeless AND “social work”

1. The library catalog’s default setting is to search everything: articles from library databases, audio visual materials, ebooks, and books on our shelves.

So, you’ll want to tweak your results to just see books in print. Start by selecting Available at NCCC to the left of your screen.

You can further refine your search results by selecting Books:

Finally, look at the results to get the section and call number of the book, if it's available. The call number is like the address of the book, telling you where exactly it sits on the shelves so you can easily locate the item.