Curtin Singapore
Curtin Singapore

Help

Contacting the library

If you can't find what you are look for, if you need our help, or if you want to tell us something:

Library account

You can check your library account via OPAC to:

Procedure

ee the library staff to reset your password or if you have any problems using the system

Important notes

Shelf arrangement in the library

Books and journals in the Main collection are shelved together in one sequence, in Dewey Decimal Classification number order. The shelves are grouped into large blocks each containing a part of the sequence of classification numbers.

To find the item on shelf, search Library Catalogue (OPAC) and note the collection map and location prefix. This will tell you the exact location of the book.

Location prefix

G General
T Past trimester textbook
L Lecturer's resource
P Periodical
R Reference
N Newspapers
A AV materials

Dewey Decimal Classification

000 General works
100 Philosophy
200 Religion
300 Sociology
400 Language
500 Science
600 Technology
700 Arts
800 Literature
900 History and Geography

Online tutorials

The Curtin University library website has tutorials on a range of research and information skills topics.

Search techniques

Analyse the subject by asking yourself:

Identify the keywords and understand the keywords or concept and what it means to you by:

Using Boolean logic, "AND", "OR" & "NOT"

Example: I want to find information on how home schooling affects development

Keywords Concepts Boolean search
Home schooling Home schooling Home schooling AND socialisation

Home schooling AND social development home schooling AND social skill

Home schooling AND socialisation OR social development

Home schooling AND socialisation OR social development OR social skill

Home schooling AND socialisation NOT social skill, etc.
Social development Socialisation or Social development or Social skill

To search for consecutive keywords, you MUST USE inverted commas " " or it will search for each keyword separately.

Using truncation

Truncation allows searching from root form of words to different endings. Enter a minimum of three letters of the word followed by a recognised symbol e.g. an asterisk *

Example: politic* will retrieve politics, political, politically, politician, politicians.

It is important to know that the asterisk used in this example is NOT universal.

Different databases and search engines use different symbols for truncation. A few examples are:

politic* or politic? or politic+ or politic#.

Be careful where you truncate a word. Truncating a word incorrectly will retrieve unwanted matches.

Using wildcard characters

Wildcards allow you to find a word or phrase using an asterisk (*) or question mark (?) to represent any other character that may appear in the same place. They can be used to replace one or many alphabetic characters in the search. The asterisk (*), stands for any character or characters, and the questions mark (?), stands for a single character. Wildcard characters are not permissible at the beginning of a word. When using wildcard characters, two alphanumeric characters must be used before the wildcard. The fields that are exceptions to this rule include Last Name, First Name and City. In these instances, wildcards can be used as the second character.

Some examples:

Dav?d = David, Davis-Floyd
Sm?th=Smith, Smyth

Useful links

Other libraries' catalogues

Universities

Others

Other e-Resources

Acronyms lookup

An acronym is a term formed from the initial letter or letters of each of the major parts of a compound term. You can use the following websites to search the acronym and terms.

Almanacs & factbooks

Calculation & conversion

Currency Converters and Exchange Rates

Dictionaries & Thesauri

Directories & Encyclopaedias

Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) free publication

International Organisations

Maps & Atlases

Statistics