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The Undergraduate's Guide to the Yale Library System: Created by Students for Students: Helpful Tools

L & B Room

Orbis 101

Orbis is the Yale Library catalogue that includes many of the holdings in the library systems. It does not include newspaper or journal articles or items held by the Law School.

For help with articles, please contact your personal librarian or subject specialist. For items held by the Law School, please search the Morris Library catalogue. We are hoping to unify these different catalogues in one search engine in 2014.

Help with research (basic tips on entering key words in Orbis)

There are many ways to narrow your search in Orbis – you can search by keyword, title, author, subject or call number. You can find these options by clicking the drop-down menu next to the search box on Orbis.

Another great way to filter search results on Orbis is by setting “quick limits” – you can narrow your results by type – i.e. books, microform, sound recordings, archives and manuscripts  (Note: you can only use these filters if you selected “keyword” or “title” above). You can find the “quick limits” drop-down menu directly below the search box on Orbis.

Also – you can filter your search – on the search results list, there will be a box on the right that reads “filter your search.”

Find a book/item on Orbis that was really helpful and you would like more materials like it? You can visit the Orbis entry for the item – it will give you a call number (a series of letters and numbers that identifies the book) and the subjects it is listed under. The library organizes items by subject, so if you search Orbis through either the call number or the subject, you will find items the library has that are similar to the item you originally found.

Saving Orbis Records for Specific Items

If you found an excellent resource you want to save for future reference, open the Orbis entry about the item. If you scroll down to the bottom of the entry, you will find a handle, which is the permanent link to the Orbis entry (ex: http://hdl.handle.net/….). Below is an example Orbis entry.

Orbis Entries FAQs

What does it mean if an item on Orbis is in “LSF”? 

An item that is in LSF is in a storage facility off-campus. However, you can request this item by clicking the “request delivery” button in the Orbis entry of the item you want to use. It should take about one business day for the book to be delivered to a Yale library and be ready for pickup.

What does it mean if an item on Orbis says “in transit”?

An item that is “in transit” has been requested for delivery by a patron and is on its way to one of the Yale libraries.

What does it mean if an item on Orbis is "oversized"?

An oversized item is larger than a standard book, so it is shelved in a different place in the Sterling stacks. If an item has a plus sign after its call number (i.e. G1201 P2 R35 1969 (LC)+ Oversize), the item is shelved separately, where a label with the call number followed by plus sign is.  For more help, check out the Sterling Memorial Library Stack guide.

Citation Tools

There are many popular citation tools, including EndNote, RefWorks and Zotero. For help on creating citations and to compare the different tools, visit the Citation Management library guide or the Yale College Writing Center's website.

Accessing Tools Off-Campus

When you are off campus, you will use Virtual Private Network (VPN), a free program on your laptop or desktop computer that connects to the Yale network. This way, you will still have access to databases and journals Yale is subscribed to. To download VPN, visit this website.
1.     Download and install the VPN client software, called AnyConnect.
2.     Each time you want to use Yale resources, e.g.  library e-journals or databases, start the AnyConnect program.
3.     Login using your NetID and password in the AnyConnect window and click "connect."

Full instructions here, visit this website.

If you have any questions, contact the Help Desk at 203-432-9000 or email helpdesk@yale.edu or contact your local support person.

Apps on the Go

Yale University Library – Mobile Apps For Research on the Go!

Most of these will require the VPN app to gain access to the databases. Download the VPN below and see your personal librarian for help with authentication keys for apps like EBSCOhost and Gale/Access My Library!

 

VPN (To Access Content Yale Is Subscribed To) 

VPN (Cisco AnyConnect)

Arts and Humanities

ARTstor  

 

NAXOS Music Library 


Smithsonian Global Sound Create an account with your Yale email – you can create playlists and send them to your mobile device or send individual songs

 

General Category (useful for everyone)

Annual Reviews Mobile (Science and Social Science) 

BluePrint – release jobs from IOS device (must be connected to YaleSecure wireless network) 
 
BrowZine 

Cambridge Journals  
Ebrary on Bluefire Reader 
EBSCO Host


Encyclopedia Britannica  
EndNote Mobile  
Gale

Hathi Trust Digital Library Mobile Site  
JSTOR Mobile site  
LexisNexis Academic 
Lynda 

MIT Press Journals  
PressReader – app for news subscriptions

RefScan
Refworks Mobile 
WorldCat 

 

Social Science

HEIN 
Library of Congress – Congressional Record
Psychiatry Online
Social Science Research Network 
The Chronicle of Higher Education (iPad only

 

Science and Medicine

 

American Chemical Society (peer-reviewed journals, etc.)

American Psychological Association 

American Psychological AssociationPsychotherapy Journal 

Arxiv Mobile (Open-access pre-prints in physics, mathematics, non-linear science, computer science, and quantitative biology)
BioOne
IEEE Xplore
GeoScienceWorld Mobile 
iResearch American Institute of Physics
Medline University 
Mendeley
Nature Mobile
Proquest
PubMed Mobile Android App (biomedical articles and life science journals) 
Royal Society of Chemistry 

Safari Books Online (Java/Web Development, Game Programming, etc.)
Science360 for iPad (National Science Foundation) 
SciFinder (Part of American Chemical Society) 
SpringerLink (Scientific database for EBooks and journals)