Building Materials Research Guide: Books and eBooks

Searching for books in CLIO

CLIO is the online catalog for the Columbia, Barnard and Union Theological Seminary libraries. (Read more about CLIO here). Doing a Quicksearch across all of CLIO will search:

• Catalog
  Books, journals, U.S. government information, online resources, videos, and more
• Articles+
  Journal articles, e-books, dissertations, and more
• Academic Commons
  Digital repository of Columbia research
• Libraries Website
  Information about the libraries from the Libraries Website
• GeoData
  Columbia's catalog of geospatial data sets
   

• Some materials-related subject headings to try searching:

• Also try doing keyword searches for specific materials: adobe, clay, earth construction, pisé, rammed earth

• Another way of finding related materials is to use the virtual shelf browse feature, which appears at the bottom of CLIO records. By clicking show, you will see a list of related material in call number order, regardless of whether it is located onsite, offsite, or whether it is print or electronic.

To quickly search just for books, try searching in only the catalog section, as shown in the image below.

 

If you don't find results right away, try to use different keywords related to your topic. If you find a book that looks helpful, take note of the subject headings in the record, as shown in the image below. Clicking on these will take you to other books with the same subject heading.

 

LC Subject headings (click links to automatically perform CLIO subject searches):

• Building materials
• Building materials > Technological innovations
• Composite materials
• Composite materials > Technological innovations
• Materials science
• Materials > Technological innovations

LC Subfields:
climatic factors
environmental aspects

 

• Another way to find related materials is to use the virtual shelf browse feature. By clicking on the view button, you can see a list of titles arranged by call number, regardless of which Columbia library holds the title, whether it is onsite or offsite, or whether it is print or electronic.
   

 

Searching for Books in WorldCat

Searching WorldCat will show you materials from libraries around the world, and when accessed through CLIO or the links in this guide, will also highlight what is in Columbia's library collection, as shown in the image below.

Searching WorldCat is a good step to follow searching in CLIO. WorldCat sometimes has more detailed records for books, including those held in our libraries, and can lead you to books you might not have found otherwise if your search term is not in the brief record contained in CLIO. For example, if your search terms are in the table of contents or abstract and the CLIO record doesn't have those pieces of information, the WorldCat record will find your search terms and direct you to the book at Columbia. For books that are not held by Columbia University Libraries, WorldCat gives you the ability to see where the book is held. 

Request scans from items at Columbia Libraries or offsite using the scan link in the CLIO record as shown below. Users may request one article, one chapter, or one page range.