Hong Kierkegaard Library LibGuide

A guide for Hong Kierkegaard Library patrons and visiting Kierkegaard scholars.

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Librarian

Catalyst

The Hong Kierkegaard Library is part of the Bridge Consortium, which includes the libraries of both St. Olaf College and Carleton College. Items from all member libraries can be searched using Catalyst, located online at: https://wp.stolaf.edu/library/. Look for the search box, as pictured below, to begin your search.

You may select from either a Simple or Advanced search option. Please select the appropriate tab, below, to learn more about each search option.

Searching in Catalyst

The Simple Search can be performed from the library home page. Enter the keywords, title, author, or other information into the search much as you would when browsing the web. This will return a listing of all relevant items of all types held by libraries across the St. Olaf campus.

For example, if we searched for "Søren Kierkegaard" using the Simple Search this will return 11,718 results of varying material types including articles, books, dissertations, newspaper articles and audio/video materials.

If you are looking specifically for a book or an article, you can perform a Simple Search of just those resource types from the library home page by selecting the relevant tab before entering your keywords, as pictured below.

Clicking the Advanced Search button, located under the Catalyst search box on the library home page, will take you a new screen as pictured below. Note that you can return to the Simple Search option by clicking the button located outside and to the right of the Advanced Search box.

The Advanced Search option offers you the ability to refine the initial search results, allowing for greater precision and more efficient searching when you know what you are searching for. Searches may be refined by material type (e.g. Books, Articles, Audio/Visual), language, and date range.

For example, as pictured below, if we search again for "Søren Kierkegaard" but refine our results to material type Books with a date prior to 1856, we narrow the number of results from the original 11,718 down to 106.

Using the search filters, you can build an Advanced Search using a combination of fields (e.g. title, author, subject, publisher) and Boolean operators (i.e., AND, OR, NOT). If you know the ISBN or ISSN of the resource you are seeking, you can perform a targeted search using that field.

Try the following search tips to help you search like a pro!

Narrow Your Search	Broaden Your Search
Combine search terms using the Boolean operator AND (all caps) to find more relevant resources (e.g., Kierkegaard AND Wittgenstein).	Use the Boolean operator OR (all caps) to combine multiple topics (e.g., Existential OR Existentialism).
Use "double quotes" to find exact phrase matches (e.g., "Hong Kierkegaard Library").	Use * to truncate roots of key terms to find variations and pluralizations (e.g., Existential* → Existentialist, Existentialists, Existentialism).
Use the Boolean operator NOT (all caps) to exclude any irrelevant terms from your search (e.g., religion NOT Christianity).	Use ? to insert a wild card so that your search results include words with multiple spellings (e.g., wom?n → woman, women).