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How to Search the Catalog

The easiest way to find out if a title exists in HeinOnline is to run a Catalog search. A Catalog search will search across the entire HeinOnline catalog, including MARC21 records. Keep reading to learn how to search the catalog.

Video Tutorial

Watch this short tutorial to learn how to search the HeinOnline catalog.

 One-Box Catalog Searching

Using the intuitive one-box search, users can easily search for terms within a publication title or the author of a publication at the title level. For example, let’s perform a quick search for FCC Record, also known as Federal Communications Commission Record.

image of one-box catalog search

NOTE: To run a catalog search, users must use the drop-down option only, as this feature searches a different index than the other menu choices.

From the results page, we can see that HeinOnline not only contains the FCC Record, but also the Decisions and Reports of the FCC, including the Second Series. Listed to the right of the results are the collections in which the titles reside.

Keep in mind that results might contain collections to which you do not subscribe.

image of catalog search results

Users can also use the Catalog search to find publication titles that contain a keyword or phrase. For example, let’s search for COVID-19, to see that HeinOnline contains more than 1,000 titles with that term.

Facets on the left-hand side of the results page allow users to refine their search by collection/library, subjects, publication type, and/or date.

Advanced Catalog Searching

Now let’s explore advanced catalog searching. From the HeinOnline welcome page, or any database, users can find the Advanced Search option under the main search bar.

The Search the Catalog option allows users to perform an advanced catalog search. It provides additional search fields such as publication title, author, ISSN/ISBN, series, subject, or publisher.

image of searching the catalog within HeinOnlne's advanced search

For example, let’s say you remember reading a book in school about the law of torts by William L. Prosser and need to locate it. Use the Author option to search for Prosser and the Publication Title option to search for Law of Torts.

Users will notice the Publication Title option includes an autofill feature.

image of autofill when searching the catalog

The very first result shows the book we were looking for. Click the title to open up the book.

image of catalog search results in HeinOnline

The Search the Catalog option also includes a link to the Catalog Subjects tool.

image of catalog subjects tool

The Catalog Subjects tool includes thousands of catalog subjects coded at the title level by Cassidy Cataloguing, the official cataloger for HeinOnline. Browse the A-Z index listing by either Count or Name. The count represents the number of titles in HeinOnline pertaining to a subject.

image of Catalog Subjects in HeinOnline

Use the search bar to quickly locate a subject. For example, search for civil rights. Auto fill will appear if there are multiple listings for the word or words being searched.

image of autofill in Catalog Subjects search

Results will include all titles in HeinOnline that have been coded to the specified subject.

image of catalog search in HeinOnline

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