Catalog and Database Tutorials
We are able to provide some research help anywhere, round-the-clock, with web-based instruction in the use of our Library's catalog and databases. Our video tutorials offer you animated lessons with voice narration, showing how to conduct some of the most common searches and operations in our Library catalog.
We also provide detailed text tutorials to help you figure out how to use our catalog and databases. The text tutorials will continue to offer the most detailed and comprehensive information. But if you prefer to listen to audio instructions and watch a demonstration, you may benefit from viewing the short animated video lessons.
- Library catalog
- Library catalog videos
- Online databases
- Metasearching
Learn how to login to the Morton Library catalog, to access your own personal account information, see the items you have borrowed, renew an item, place a hold or booking request, or set your catalog preferences.
Searching EffectivelyUse both basic and advanced search techniques to find what you need in our collection -- including commentaries, sermons, media and curriculum items, theses and dissertations -- and find out how to email, print or save your search results.
Morton Library Catalog Video Clips
Our video files offer you another way to learn the basics of the Morton Library online catalog. These brief recordings -- about two minutes or less -- will show you how to conduct the common operations everyone needs, plus some of the more specialized searches. You can use speakers or headphones/earbuds to listen to the audio portion of the recordings.
Several of our most valuable indexing instruments are provided to us by the same vendor, known as EBSCO. For this reason, they look very similar and function in a similar way. Each of them will give you access to full-text articles and citations in scholarly journals or in multi-author edited books.
The exception to this rule is the technique for Scripture searching in the ATLA Religion Database. Because it has special features not found in the other databases, there are tutorial pages expressly designed to teach you about these features, such as the Hierarchical Scripture Authority or canonical index.
Metasearching : "Search a Lot of Stuff at Once"
Some of you will be familiar with the metasearching instrument we have used in the past, known as MetaLib. We have discontinued our subscription to that service, and now subscribe to another resource we hope will perform this function better.
The purpose of this utility is to allow you to search our indexing instruments, Library catalog and other resources in one operation ... without having to go to lots of different sites and do your search again and again. This tutorial explains how to access this function, and how to get it to perform for you as you expect. [This tutorial is still in preparation but the utility can be used now.]
