About the Library Catalog

What does this search?

Use the Catalog to search for materials held or made available by the University of Chicago Library, including:

  • Books (print and ebooks)
  • Video (DVDs, streaming, etc.)
  • Recordings (CDs, LPs, streaming, etc.)
  • Journals, magazines, and newspapers (print and online)
  • Music scores
  • U of C dissertations
  • Some databases and websites
  • Content from the Hanna Holborn Gray Special Collections Research Center, including:
    • searchable Archives and Manuscripts Finding Aids
    • images from the American Environmental Photographs Collection, the Archival Photographic Files, and The First American West.
  • Links to Google Books
    • If the Library Catalog locates an item in Google Books, a link to the item appears. Mouse over the link to see whether Google Books includes a full or partial view.
  • Links to Hathi Trust
    • Hathi Trust is a collaborative effort of a number of research libraries, including the University of Chicago, to create a shared repository for their digital collections. In a full record, if the Library Catalog locates the item in Hathi Trust, a link to the item appears. VuFind also includes records for content that is available electronically in Hathi Trust, but not available in print at the University of Chicago Library.

What is not searched?

The Library Catalog does not include records for articles [in journals, periodicals and newspapers]. If you have a citation for a specific article, search for the name of the journal. If you are looking for articles on a topic, use one of the Library's article databases or Articles Plus.

What's the difference between the Library Catalog and ArticlesPlus?

The Library Catalog does not include records for articles, but ArticlesPlus does. ArticlesPlus allows simultaneous searching of a broad range of articles, books, and other collections. It searches all of the materials from the Library Catalog, a large proportion of the Library's available article content, and digitized collections of documents and images from many organizations.

Technical details

This catalog uses a customized version of VuFind 5 for its search interface. Bibliographic data is stored in an OLE system.