Audiovisual materials are searchable through the library’s online catalog. Generally, you can search for an audiovisual item as you search for a book in the library. The following are a few tips to find audiovisual materials faster.

Important note:

Use “limit to” option in basic search if your initial search results in too many hits. Choose “Videorecording” or “Sound recording”. Use the “Type” menu in advanced search to get only audiovisual materials.

Searching by title:

1. If you know the exact title, choose the “Title begins with” under the “Whitin” menu. DO NOT type the title in “Keyword anyword” option because the result would be too many unrelated items that include one or more words from the title you are searching for.

2. If you know only a few words of the title, choose the “Keyword in title” option in basic search” menu. You may also use the “Advanced Search” option. Be sure to choose “And” between the search boxes to get results that include all keywords.

3. If you're searching for a song or piece of music, remember not to confuse album title with song or composition title. You can search for album titles the same way you search for book titles in "Title begins with" search option. But for individual songs, art-songs (lieder), opera arias, and other titles, use the "Keyword anywhere" option. Put the title in quotation marks and click search. If the title of the song is not unique and many composers have songs with the same title (such as "Serenade", etc.) , use both composer's or performer's last name and the title in your search.

Searching by subject:

You can search audiovisual materials by subject. Choose the “Subject” option in “Basic Search” menu for your search. If you are not satisfied with the results, try the “Advanced Search” option. Be sure to choose “And” between the search boxes to get results that include all keywords. For searching musical forms use the inverted form. For example, use "Concertos, piano" to find all the piano concertos in the catalog. Use the "Type" menu to get sound recorsings, video recordings, music scores, or books.

Searching by author, composer, director, or performer:

Unlike books, usually, the main entry for audiovisual materials is not the personal name of any composer, author, performer, director, etc., especially in case of collections of various pieces by different composers, authors, performers, directors, etc. It is recommended that you use the "Keyword anywhere" search option. Use only the last name to get more results. Use the "Limit to" menu in basic search options to limit your search results to a specific format. Use the "Type" menu to the same in advanced search options.  

Browsing movies:

Choose the “Subject” option in basic search and type “Feature films”. The result is an alphabetical list (after titles beginning with a number) of all movies in the collection. You can limit your search by language, date, etc. in advanced search option.