How to Use the Catalog

Site Map

To access our catalog, go to our Web site at www.midyork.org and select the Catalog link.

LOGIN

We recommend that you login once at the beginning. Enter your 13 digit library card number, without the A, and 4-digit PIN.

Why? If you login as GUEST, the system will prompt for your card number and PIN every time you select My Account or Place Hold. Also, the "placed at" library for the hold will not match the pickup library; therefore, you may end up waiting longer for popular titles.

Pin

The PIN is usually the last 4 digits of your home telephone number. If not, please visit a member library to add or change your PIN.

Search/Home

|                               |words or phrase|‚

Enter word(s) or a phrase and then press the Enter key or select the Search button.

If you enter a single word, the catalog will find records with that word in any field.

If you enter more than one word, the catalog will find records with all the words if they all appear in the same field.

If you want to look for more than one word in different fields, such as author and title fields, then use the Boolean operator AND. For example, to find the title The Last Juror by the author John Grisham: grisham and juror

If you select a field from the drop-down menu, the catalog will look for the words only in that field.

library:

Mid-York Public Libraries|‚

If you want to limit the results to a particular library or group of libraries, select from the Library drop-down menu.

Search Rules and Tips

Case and punctuation are ignored.

? Question mark is a wildcard character
wom?n for woman or women or womyn

$ Dollar sign is a truncation character
librar$ for library or libraries or librarian

The following stop words are ignored by the catalog: a, an, as, at, be, but, by, do, for, if, in, it, of, on, the, to. Enclose your phrase in double quotation marks to prevent the stop words from being ignored.

Boolean Operators

The words AND, OR, NOT instruct the catalog to search in a certain way:

AND instructs the catalog to find records containing all of the specified words.
OR instructs the catalog to find records containing any or all of the specified words.
NOT instructs the catalog to find records containing the first word or phrase but not the second word or phrase.

Use parentheses to combine OR with other operators: (internet or web) and jobs
(cars or automobiles) not antiques

Power Search

Select the Power Search link to refine and limit a search; to browse by author, title, subject, series title or periodical title; and to browse by call number within a library.

Search for the desired material. If you get a hitlist, select the Full Details button.

Select the Place Hold link located to the left. The catalog may prompt you to log in using your library card number and PIN.

If you want a different Pick-up location, then change it using the drop-down menu.

Select the Place Hold button.

If the catalog displays any message other than "Hold(s) placed," then contact your local public library or use the Contact Us feature. The material may not be holdable or we may need to update your library card record.

Print/Email

The purpose of the Print/Email button is to build a Print/Email list to view, print or e-mail.

Find It Fast!

Explore the results of predefined searches on topics of interest to adults.

Kid's Library

Explore the results of predefined searches on topics of interest to children.

Knowledge Portal

Explore other library catalogs, including the Library of Congress, and selected ready reference Web sites.

My Account

View checkouts, holds and bills, renew materials and, if desired, change your PIN.

Contact Us

Send a question or comment. To access responses, select My Account, then Requests.
Availability

The Catalog is available at all times except Saturday night and occasional Sundays, or for short periods of time for maintenance. The catalog times out if there is no activity within a short period of time. You may log back in immediately.

Catalog enhanced content:

Search/Home
Recommended Reading	Best Sellers	Hot Sites…
What Others Are Reading	My Favorite Authors
	My Favorite Subjects

Full Details

that may be available for each title:

	publisher blurb		chapter, excerpt
	summary		review
	author biography		Novelist
	table of contents		URL

... and Research Resources

Mid-York and the New York State Library NOVEL program provide access to a variety of databases. To see what's available, go to our Web site at www.midyork.org, then select the Research Resources link. You may be prompted to login using your 13-digit library card number after you select a resource.