Check our help guide for using Omni.
Detailed information about how to search Omni is available in the Omni Search Tips guide.
Search Omni to find books, journals, videos and other materials owned by the Library. You may search by keywords, author, title or subject headings.
Subject headings allow you to search for resources on a particular author or topic and are often more productive than keyword searches.
Keyword searches work best if you have multiple concepts or topics and need only a few books.
For a comprehensive subject search, search with subject headings as well as keywords.
Searching Omni
Start with a keyword search, but expect to revise it.
Keyword Searching TIPS|
Search Technique |
What It Does |
|
quotation marks |
Searches for exact phrase |
|
Truncation * |
Searches for all forms of a word |
|
Boolean operators (AND, OR, NOT) |
Lets you broaden or narrow your search |
When searching OMNI for books, use the facets located on the search results screen, to limit your search results to books & ebooks.
When you find relevant results, note the subject headings assigned. Refining your search using the same subject heading terminology may yield more precise results.
For example:
muslim? AND christian? AND crusades
Use the results to find relevant titles and identify assigned subject headings for your topic in order to find similar books.
(muslim? OR arabs OR saracens) AND (christian? OR frank? ) AND crusades
Relevant subject headings include:
Byzantine Empire-History
Christianity and other religions--Judaism--History
Christianity and anti-semitism--History
Church history--Middle Ages, 600-1500
Crusades
Crusades First, 1096-1099
Crusades Second, 1147-1149
Crusades Third, 1189-1192
Crusades Fourth, 1202-1204
Crusades Participation Female
Europe Church history 600-1500
Islam Relations Christianity
Islamic Empire History Latin Kingdom 1099-1244
Jews History 70-1789
Latin Orient History
Mongols History To 1500
Papacy History To 1309
Richard I, King of England, 1157-1199
Saladin, Sultan of Egypt and Syria, 1137-1193
Templars History
Mediterranean region Civilization
Mediterranean region Ethnic relations
Mediterranean region History
Western Mediterranean History
Standard Subdivisions
Library of Congress Subject Headings use standard subdivisions under place names (countries, states, cities and other geographic divisions) to classify works. Here are some for history, which can be further subdivided by time period.
--history
--civilization
--economic conditions
--foreign relations
--intellectual life
--personal narratives
--politics and government
--social conditions
--social life and customs
WorldCat
The combined online catalogues of tens of thousands of libraries around the world. You can request books in WorldCat that are not held by Queen's Library by using our interlibrary loan serivce.
Catalogues from Other Libraries
Links to other academic library catalogues in Ontario and beyond. (The list of catalogues is located towards the bottom of the page.)
Request Materials
If the book (or journal article) you want is not available at Queen's Library, you can place a request through Omni or interlibrary loan by using our blank request form.
