Tag Archives: searching

Out of the Stacks and into the Catalog: Featured Collections and New Book Displays

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By Maria Barker, Library Assistant

Although the Texas State Library and Archives Commission has “closed stacks” — meaning certain materials are pulled by staff and brought to researchers in the reading rooms rather than allowing patrons to publicly browse — there are tools to help unlock the information held within. Over years of processing materials and roving the stacks, staff members have identified a number of themes that go beyond their classification on the shelf. To highlight these hidden collections and to showcase the stream of titles coming into the library, about every six weeks staff create book displays in the Reference and Genealogy reading rooms for patrons to enjoy.

An aisle in one of the seven floors of closed stacks at the Texas State Library and Archives Commission.

The New Books displays feature books that are new to our collections.  In addition to regularly reviewing and acquiring titles through our collection development efforts and depository commitments, the library also receives donations and suggested titles from the public. If you’re interested in the library’s donation policy or have suggested titles, please email ref@tsl.texas.gov.

The Genealogy New Books display is located in our Texas Family Heritage Research Center.

The Featured Collection contains books selected and arranged by library staff around a particular theme or event. The current display showcases the variety of Texas Children’s Books in our collection.  Previous displays include “Oh the Places You’ll Go- Texas Style”, an exploration of Texas’ vacation spots, a WWI centennial display, and a display focusing on Texas Music and Film.

In our reference reading room, located on the 1st floor of the Lorenzo De Zavala building, the Featured Collection display and New Books display sit side by side near the reference desk.

If you can’t visit our book displays in person you can find updates on the latest Featured Collection here, through the Out of the Stacks blog.

To see a list of new titles, visit the library catalog and click on “New Materials”.

The “New Materials” link is on the gray menu bar near the top of the webpage on the library catalog at www.tsl.texas.gov/catalog.

Click on a collection name to see a list of recently acquired material for that collection.

Click on a collection name to see a list of new material.

Click on a collection name to see a list of new material.

When you click on “TSLAC Genealogy” from the New Material Lists page, you are directed to a list of titles. Click on a title to see further details about our holdings and the catalog record.

Stay tuned for more library catalog features, tips and tricks, and walkthroughs in our upcoming posts!

To learn more about searching the catalog, check out our previous post, Out of the Stacks and into the Catalog: The Basics.

Out of the Stacks and into the Catalog: The Basics

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By Stephanie Andrews, Library Assistant

By searching the library catalog, many of the Texas State Library and Archives Commission’s titles and holdings can be discovered from the comfort and convenience of home. In the library catalog, you can find publications covering topics such as: Texas history, Genealogy, United States federal documents, and much more! In fact, the State Archives’ finding aids can also be found in the library catalog. In this blog series, we will explore the features, functions, and various search strategies that you can use for navigating the library catalog.

Today, we will start with the basics. To get to the Texas State Library and Archives Commission’s (TSLAC) library catalog, first visit our website at www.tsl.texas.gov  and then click “Archives & Reference.”  Next, click “Library Catalog” on the following page.  To access the catalog directly, you can type www.tsl.texas.gov/catalog into the address bar of your web browser and press the Enter key. Here you can conduct multiple types of searches, access your patron account, and find contact information for the Reference staff. In this post, we’ll look specifically at the search box, search results, and how to get item details.

The TSLAC library catalog homepage.

The TSLAC library catalog is a shared catalog. It stores our titles as well as those for the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality (TCEQ) which leads us to our first few quick tips:

  • Click “Keyword”, “Browse”, or “Exact” depending on the type of search you are doing. An in-depth look on the types of searches you can do will be covered in an upcoming post.
  • Select “TX State Library & Archives Comm” under Library. This limits your search to titles in our collections. Otherwise, you may see items held by the TCEQ.
  • Pressing “Enter” on your keyboard will default your search to a “Words or Phrase” search. Try using the other search buttons, ”Author”, “Title”, “Subject”, “Series”, or “Periodical Title” to narrow your search. We will take a closer look at these search options in a future post, as well.

Let’s try a search using these new tips! I’ll do a keyword search for the word bluebirds. You can try this same search at home by typing “bluebirds” into the search field then selecting “Texas State Library & Archives Comm” and pressing Enter on your keyboard.

Once you do, you should be redirected to the same results screen as pictured below. If you searched for bluebird instead of bluebirds, you probably see a different set of results. Hint: when doing searches, try different variations of spelling(s) and/or variations on plural/singular spellings to find different titles.

A search results page, listing several results in blue.

Once the search results appear, you can click on a blue link to be redirected to more specific information about the keyword, title, subject, author, publisher, or periodical you searched for. For this search, I’ll click on the top result that appeared; “Bluebirds in Texas” by Noreen Damude and published in 2016.

The Item Details screen shows you detailed information about the title.

In the image above, we have highlighted the two main sections that you need to know. The first shows the item information which is highlighted by the purple box. Here you can see the item’s title, author, publisher, publication date, and even a physical description of the item.

The second portion shows the TSLAC holdings information which is highlighted by the green box. Here you can see the item’s call number, number of copies, type of material (book, DVD, etc.), and the item location. The first and last pieces of information here are important because the call number and location is what staff need to know to retrieve the item for you. It’s also important to note the location may say TSLAC or Liberty. TSLAC denotes that it is at our location in downtown Austin and Liberty denotes that it is at our location in Liberty, TX.

Not finding what you’re looking for? Use the Reference Desk contact information found on the right side of the catalog homepage to get in touch with a Reference staff member for assistance.

That’s all for this blog post, but stay tuned for future tips, tricks, and walkthroughs from the TSLAC Reference staff. Happy searching!