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English Composition Course Guide

A guide for students in ENGL 110, 155, 210, and other composition courses.

How to find books

Finding Print & Electronic Books

You can use the Library catalog, OneSearch, to look for books available in print or electronically. Use the tabs below to find detailed information on finding print or electronic books.

print and ebooks

Searching for Print Books

To see if we have a book you need or to see what books we have on any given topic, we will use OneSearch  To access OneSearch, you can start by using the search box right on the library homepage.

one search

 

Here you can search in the following ways:

  • By title – if you know the title of the book you need, search for it!
  • By author – search for books by a specific author
  • By keyword – Need a book on the history of slavery in the United States? Pop your keywords search terms into the search bar to find books related to that topic.

Hint: use the filters on the right hand side of the results page. Try limiting the search to books under “resource type” to get a list of books only.

Resource type filter

 

Once you've found a book you want, the next step is to locate it in the library. To do so we need the call number, which indicates the books location within the library:

Call number

 

Please see this page to see what floor of the library your call number will be on. This one starts with an E, so we know to go to the 5th floor to look for it.

There are some books that you won’t be able to find on the shelves in the library. These are called “reserves” and are not available for loan; they must be used in the library only. The result in OneSearch will indicate that a book is on reserve:

Reserve book

 

In this case, please take the call number to the circulation desk and they will retrieve the book for you.

You may not find any results for a specific book . This could mean that we do not have it, but another CUNY library might. Just go to the drop down menu next to the search bar and search CUNY instead of just CCNY. This will allow you to search the book catalog of all CUNY libraries:

 

If you locate the book in another CUNY library, you can have it sent to City College for you to pick up. This is called a CLICS request. For nstructions on how to make a CLICS request, see this page.

The book you’d like might be available as an ebook! If so, you will see a “full text available” link under the title. Just follow the link to view it:

full text available link for ebooks

Searching for Ebooks

There are multiple ways to search for ebooks. The OneSearch platform allows for focused searching of books available electronically. There are also searchable collections of ebooks outside of OneSearch. A full list of Library ebook collections is available here.

To limit your results in OneSearch to electronic books, use the filters on the right side of the screen and limit to both Books and Full Text Online

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Instead of having a call number location, ebooks will have a green Full Text Available link. Click through (and log in using your CCNY email credentials if prompted) to access the book online.

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