Books at SCU
OSCAR is the SCU Library catalog. It will tell you what physical books SCU owns and what ebooks SCU licenses for your use. It will also tell you about other materials the library owns, but mostly it's used for books.
OSCAR is the 2nd tab on the library website, and it is directly linked below.
- OSCAR - SCU Library Catalog This link opens in a new window
- Advanced Search in OSCARThis option gives you the most customization of your search. You can specify which fields to search for terms, limit to material type or location, and much more.
- Author & Title Search in OSCARIf you have an author for your work, start out by doing this special search in OSCAR using both the author and title.
Use the format: LAST NAME, FIRST NAME for the author. - Title Search in OSCARSometimes it's best to do just a title search. If the title is very long, you can shorten it to 6 or 7 words.
- Simple Search in OSCARIf you're having trouble, broaden it out by doing a simple search. This landing page gives you the other search options as well. This search option will bring you back results ABOUT your work in addition to the work itself.
In the above example, the search command will bring back records for only ebooks that have the word railroad in the title and the word chinese in the subject heading. This is much narrower than leaving the field on the default "any field." It is only possible to do a sophisticated search like this by doing an advanced search.
Books Through Link+
If books are not available at SCU, search Link+. It is a consortium SCU belongs to that pays a private courier service to ferry books around libraries all throughout California. Books take 2-4 days to arrive to SCU and you'll get an email when they are ready to pick up at the Help Desk.
Look for the Link+ button in OSCAR to jump out of OSCAR and into the Link+ catalog.
Or do a search directly in Link+
- LINK+.To borrow physical copies of printed books, use the LINK+ catalog to find and request books and other materials to be sent here from many other libraries in California and Nevada.
Books Not Available at SCU or in Link+
If a book is not available through SCU or Link+, you will have to submit an Interlibrary Loan request for it. It can take up to 2 weeks to receive the book from the lending library, so plan ahead.
If you already know the title of the book and other publication information, go ahead and submit a book request in the ILL portal.
To discover books on your topic, search World Cat.
- WorldCatA combined library catalog for North American (and some European) libraries: Use this to find records for millions of books and other materials in libraries worldwide, representing 400 languages.
- Interlibrary LoanA library service that obtains books, articles (PDF), book chapters (PDF), and other materials from libraries outside of the LINK+ network. You can also use this request form to get PDFs of chapters and articles SCU Library already owns.