Searching the Copley Library Website and Catalog
- Advanced SearchUnlike a basic search on the library's homepage, advanced search helps you find more relevant results, particularly when looking for books on your research topic
- San Diego CircuitThe San Diego Circuit is a great resource if you are having trouble locating books in Copley Library's catalog, because it searches on local library catalogs: UCSD, SDSU, San Diego Public and County Libraries. Books will be delivered to Copley within 24-48 hours, just pick them up at the Circulation Desk on the lower level.
If a book is not available at the USD Libraries you have two options:
Request your book from the Circuit (the combined catalog for USD, SDSU, UCSD, CSU San Marcos and San Diego County Public Libraries). If you find the book you need in the Circuit you can simply make an online request and have the book delivered to Copley Library.
If a book is not available through the Circuit, or if USD does not have access to a particular article, you can make an interlibrary loan request. ILLiad is the electronic system you use to request an item through Interlibrary Loan. To make a request, simply log in with your MySanDiego username and password. The library's Interlibrary Loan Department will borrow your book from participating libraries worldwide.
Select Books on Architecture
Cuando las áreas verdes se transforman en paisajes urbanos : la visión de Baja California by Call Number: HT169.M62 B353 2014ISBN: 9786074791440Publication Date: 2014
Urban Gardening and the Struggle for Social and Spatial Justice by ISBN: 9781526126108Publication Date: 2019-02-25
Fundamentals of Planning Cities for Healthy Living by ISBN: 9781839983740Publication Date: 2022-09-06The obesity crisis has affected many nations. It is also one of the factors listed as contributing cause to the COVID-19 fatalities. The common tendency is to blame people's dietary choices and sedentary habits. Yet, it can also be argued that social inequity and poor urban planning practices have largely contributed to a lack of active lifestyles. Low-density suburban sprawl, long commutes, food deserts, and diminishing green areas are some aspects that have led to reduced physical activity, among residents of all ages. The proposed book illustrates the decline of community planning for healthy living and outlines measures that can be reintroduced to foster active lifestyles. Each chapter stands for another subject that merits intervention and illustrates strategic approaches. Its uniqueness lies in its comprehensiveness. It covers the key principles of residential planning and offers principles of neighborhood design along with sustainable strategies, as well as their applications. The text is not limited to a theoretical aspect but offers contemporary well-designed and illustrated examples of communities and firsthand information about them that was obtained through site visits and interviews with their designers.
Library of Congress Subject Headings
Using keywords to search for materials in the library catalog can be hit or miss. Library books are assigned official terminology known as "subject headings." They are live links that you can click on, for example, if you do an advanced search in the library catalog you can use the drop-down menu to select "subject" instead of "keyword" and enter "Sustainable architecture." Once you hit enter or the "Search" button it will take you to all the items in the catalog assigned this subject heading. This is a great way to locate a lot of research materials at once on your topic, however, with a subject heading like "Sustainable architecture" you will get books discussing this subject from all over the world and not just about the Tijuana border.
Select List of Subject Headings:
Architecture -- Environmental aspects
Architecture -- Political aspects
Mexican-American Border Region
Regional Planning -- Mexico -- Tijuana (Baja California, Mexico)
More Librarian Tricks a.k.a. Boolean Search
Boolean operators allow you to combine your keywords to create a search that the databases can use to retrieve the results you need. The words AND, OR are the most commonly used Boolean operators. The third is NOT, which can be difficult to use because it might exclude useful results.
AND combines your search terms and looks for them together in search result. Example: A search for Muhammad AND Prophet will retrieve records that have both keywords: Muhammad and Prophet.
OR separates your search terms, finding records that contain either keyword. Example: A search for Muhammad OR Prophet will retrieve records all the records that contain either of the search terms as well as records with both of the search terms.
NOT finds records that only have the first keyword, but will exclude records that have both keywords or just the second keyword. A search for Muhammad NOT Prophet will find records only containing Muhammad and will exclude records that also include Prophet. This boolean operator is only useful when you want to exclude a topic that is often associated with your first keyword. For example, if you only wanted articles about Muhammad the prophet excluding the boxer Muhammad Ali, the search would be Muhammad NOT Ali. Just remember that this type of search is very narrow and might exclude records that also include information on your topic.
Librarian Magic
Phrases
Use quotation marks to search for exact phrases
Boolean Operators
- AND narrows your results (because all search terms must be present in the resulting records).
Ex: bridges AND history AND civil engineering (the black triangle in the middle of the Venn diagram below represents the result set for this search).
Note: Most search engines and databases will assume your search terms are connected with AND.
- OR broadens your results (because search results may contain either or both search terms).
Ex: university OR college OR higher education (the entire Venn diagram below represents the result set for this search).
Note: OR is especially useful if your search terms have synonyms.
- NOT excludes results with whichever search term follows it.
Ex: mercury NOT planet (the dark green section in the Venn diagram represents the result set for this search).
The order of your search terms matters when using NOT (results with the second search term will be excluded).
Proximity
Search for words that occur within a specified number of words (or fewer) of each other.
- Proximity operators are composed of a letter (N or W) and a number (to specify the number of words). The proximity operator is placed between the words that are to be searched
- Near Operator (N) – N5 finds the words if they are within five words of one another regardless of the order in which they appear.
- Within Operator (W) – W8 finds the words if they are within eight words of one another and in the order in which you entered them. Ex: the results for tax W8 reform would include “tax reform” but would not include “reform of income tax”.
Truncation
- Truncation is represented by an asterisk (*)
- Enter the root of a search term and replace the ending with an *
- Ex: comput* finds results with computer, computing, computation, computational, etc.
- Truncation can also be used between words (ex: a midsummer * dream will return results that contain the exact phrase, “a midsummer night’s dream”)
Wildcards
- A wildcard is represented by a question mark (?) or a pound sign (#)
- Using ? as a wildcard will only return results in which the wildcard is replaced by another character (ex: ne?t will find results containing neat, nest or next, but it will not find results with net)
- Using # as a wildcard will return results with or without an extra character (ex: ne#t will find results containing neat, nest, or next as well as results containing net)