To find books on a particular subject, perform a keyword search in the library catalogue.
For example: jazz history or contemporary composition.
Keyword searching like this often retrieves a large number of results so you may need to narrow your search by adding more words.
For example: free jazz history or contemporary composition music
Browse through the records retrieved and look at the hyperlinked subject descriptions that come with each catalogue record, e.g.
Free jazz -- History and criticism.
Music -- 21st century -- History and criticism.
You can then click on a subject description to find more material with the same subject. Note that not all the results will be books; there may be other media such as CDs, DVDs or music scores.
Don't forget that you can have books sent from other branch libraries to your campus for pick-up
For more information about using the catalogue, and constructing effective search terms, please see the Research Essentials guide.
Use the library catalogue to search for relevant books, printed versions of journals and newspapers etc.
Useful Subject Headings
Subject Headings are used in our Catalogue to group similarly themed material, like tags. It can be useful to search for Subject Headings to find multiple results grouped by topic. Below are some useful headings, but more can be found by searching the catalogue, using a Subject Search.
Items listed in other libraries (Australia and overseas) may be requested by University of Melbourne staff and students via Inter-Library Loan.
Can't find something, or what you need is unavailable? The following catalogues can be used to find resources in libraries around Australia and the World: