The BVU Discovery search box, located near the top of Library homepage will help you identify a wide range of materials: books, e-books, articles, and streaming videos. If you wish to limit your search to ONLY books and e-books
In the BVU Catalog, it usually works best to begin with a simple search. You can then narrow your search from the results page, using the options that will be presented in the left column of that page.
If you're looking for a specific item, you can do a simple search by entering the book title or the author into the search box.
If you need a book on your topic, but aren't aware of a specific book, you can enter a subject search term or phrase in quotation marks. Example: "bilingual education"
Note that if you do a simple search you may get many results and will need to look through many results for the right item.
From the search results page, you can limit your results by format, publication date and language.
If BVU doesn't have material available on your topic, you can switch your results to "Libraries Worldwide" to see what other options exist outside of our library. We have a service called Interlibrary Loan that can obtain those items for you at no charge.
Advanced Search
For more precise searching, use the Advanced Search. Click "Advanced Search" to the right of the search box. You can then limit your search terms to specified fields, like Title or Author or Subject.
To decide which item/s are relevant to you, view information on the results page. It includes basic information like the item's title, author, publication date, and availability. Click on the item's title to see the full record and more details about the item (e.g., full summary, relevant subjects, chapter titles where available).
Options to obtain the item are available to you in the "Access Options" box in the upper right.
If you are a Storm Lake campus student, the "Place Hold" button will signal that you will pick up this book at the Library Circulation desk in the next 48 hours. Our system will generate an email to you when the book has been located and reserved for you.
If you are an online student, the "Place Hold" button will signal that you want the book sent to your home address. Please plan to pay the postage to return the book to the BVU Library when you are finished with it.
When an item is not available at the BVU Library, or if it is checked out or lost, you can launch your request to get a copy from another library here. The interlibrary loan request form will ask you if want to pick up items at the BVU Library or have them sent to your home address.
First check the location and availability of an item.
For e-books, click on the "View e-book" button. You have the ability to save, print or email a limited number of pages. These icons appear near the top of the screen. The page limit is set by the publisher. There is a download option available, but it requires the user to set up additional accounts and then only gives access to the material for up to 7 days. Saving or emailing the content will allow you unlimited access to those pages.
If the content you want to save or email exceeds the page limit set by the publisher, simply close that search session and begin a new one. This will reset the number of pages you can save or email.
Print books have a physical library location. The call number for the book, which is needed to locate the book on the shelf, can be found near the bottom of the book description. If the item is available for checkout, the status will be Available with a green checkmark.
Library users may locate print titles themselves, OR you may Place a Hold on a title. To do this, click on the book title to go the full description and use the "Place Hold" button in the "Access Option" window in the upper right. **Online students can have books sent to their home (please plan to pay postage for returning the book to us). On-campus students can pick up the book at the Library Circulation desk. Please allow us a few hours after placing your hold to pick up the items.**
A call number describes the specific location of a physical library item. It consists of a combination of letters and numbers (e.g., HQ1762 .W63 1998). Once you have the library location and the call number, use the call number to locate the book on the shelves.
Start with the first letter in the call number. If the call number is HQ1762 .W63 1998, the first letter is H.