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CalCat: Discover California’s Libraries

What can CalCat do?CalCat can show you where materials are

located in California libraries

Books, CDs, DVDs,

Recordings, music scores and more

With the information provided by CalCat,

you can borrow these materials through your local library’s

Interlibrary Loan Service

This presentation will introduce CalCat and demonstrate how it may be used to locate materials held in Monterey Bay Region libraries.

Here’s the scenario…

• You need to help a family member to locate reading materials in large print format

• You know how to use your library’s catalog, but finding large print editions for everything you need isn’t easy!

• CalCat can help

A note• CalCat lists books from distant libraries

• Always take a moment to check your local library’s catalog first

• The catalog is usually found right on the library’s home page

A check of your local library’s catalog shows no results for the book you looking for, a large-print edition of Mario Puzo’s The Godfather.

Who else in the area might own it?

Your library’s web page will have a link to CalCat. Here is an example of one that does.

Let’s start by checking California’s public libraries, first

This is CalCat, the California Libraries catalog

This is the Basic Search screen

To start with, use the drop down menu to limit your search to a region (Optional)

Enter what you know about the item you want

Godfather

Puzo

Click Search

Note those tabs: they show that there are 34 items listed in CalCat, including the movie, the soundtrack as well as the book

Here are the results for the title Godfather and author Puzo

…but what about large-print editions? Use the pull-down menu to locate them

Now you can see that two libraries in the Monterey Bay Area own this book in Large Print format

Click Libraries to find out which libraries they are

Click on the library name for more details

That brings us to the local library’s catalog. You can get call number information, and even find out if the book is on the shelf

If you’d like to borrow it from one of these libraries, ask a librarian at your local library to assist you

• Remember: always check your library’s catalog, first

• If your library doesn’t own the item you need, you can use CalCat to help you locate a library that does, in your area, in your state, or elsewhere in the world

This concludes

CalCat: Discover California’s Libraries

This concludes

CalCat: Discover California’s Libraries