It is good to know about the possibility of searching the great national libraries’ catalogues on the web. If you use a meta search tool you can search a great number of international catalogues simultaneously. But if you want to borrow course literature it is better to search the local libraries.
bibliotek.se
In bibliotek.se you can make joint searches in Libris (the research libraries’ collections) and BURK (the public libraries’ collections). The result list can be limited to a region or place, which can be good if you want to know what libraries in the vicinity have the book. If you want to know if the book is in a library in Blekinge you choose the “southern region”. There you can also choose a place.
Karlsruhe virtual catalogue
The Karlsruhe catalogue is a meta search tool that searches seveal large European library catalogues simultaneously. You get a standardized result list, and only when you choose one of the results you are linked to the library that holds the document.
British Library
which is Great Britains over 250 year old national library, and one of the worlds largest libraries, has a collection of more than 150 million records. In the main catalogue you can search for books, journals, music sheets and maps among other things and many of the documents can be ordered. There are also special catalogues of newspapers, manuscripts, maps, pictures and sound etc.
Eva Norling
2005-05-29
