TCC Library: Find a source again

Welcome to TCC Library "How Do I...?"

Find the information you need. Get your questions answered here.

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Need more help? Try using Ask WA, our statewide librarian chat service for reference help. 

Basic Steps:

• Don’t worry! This happens to everyone.
• Figure out what you do know about the source. Academic sources are organized in some consistent ways: by author, subject, title, etc. You can use these pieces of information to find any source again. We call these important pieces of information access points.
• Some information about your source is very helpful when you’re searching. Pay particular attention to:
  • Title
  • Author
  • Publication
  • Publication date
  • Subject words
• Try searching from the options below:
  • For books, search the Library Catalog. Don't know how? That's ok! Take a look at the "How do I?" page - Find a book, ebook, or DVD in the Library.
  • For articles, try Super Search on the library’s homepage. Confused by Super Search? That's ok! Take a look at the "How do I?" page - Find articles.
• Start with the most specific piece of information you have. For books, that will be the book title. For articles, the article title.
• If the title doesn’t work (or if you don’t have it) try the author. If that search brings too many results, add some keywords to your search.
• If you have a publication date, most search tools will let you narrow to a specific date range.