The Online Catalogue contains all books, unpublished memoirs and pamphlets held by the Library. Below are some general comments which will help you search the database.

While searching the catalogue, please keep in mind:

Across all subjects there are items which have not yet been indexed, in particular, most of our material on Palestine, Zionism and the founding of Israel. If you cannot find what you are looking for by subject term, please enter a relevant term in the title field.

We are in the process of refining the indexing terms for the various camps. If you are doing a subject search for a particular camp, please search both by the name of the camp e.g. Buchenwald, and by the name plus camp type e.g. Buchenwald (concentration camp) or Buchenwald (special camp).

Authors, publishers or keywords may appear in upper or lower case. This does not affect your search results. We hope to rationalise this in the near future.

International Characters
No international characters are used in the online catalogue, apart from umlauts. For your searches you may omit the umlauts.
For example:

A search for Low will bring up records with author names Low & Löw

A search for Löw will also bring up Low & Löw

A search for Loew will only bring up records for Loew

Only Roman characters are used in the catalogue. If you are seaching for Hebrew words, for example, please use the transliterated equivalent.

In preparation for cataloguing our periodical collection we created special subject terms. These are marked with an [s], for example “German-Jewish press [s]”. These terms are not in use until autumn 2005.

Truncation
Automatic truncation of all search terms is a feature of the online catalogue. This option can be turned off when using the advanced search form. For more details click on the word "Truncation" in the Advanced search form.

Help
The catalogue is still being edited and improved. If you do not find what you are looking for, please submit a request to the Library desk.


Frequently Asked Questions

I can’t see any place names in the subject list.
They are there and can be used in the Subject term fields even though they are not visible on the list.

I’m not looking for a subject but a person.
They are there and can be used in the Subject term fields even though they are not visible on the list.
Searches for persons in the Subject field will lead to records about these persons.
Searches for persons in the Author field will lead to records written or edited by these persons.

I can’t come up with any hits.
Check your spelling.
Are you using the subject term, author or language field? Then use only terms from the lists.
Are you searching for names? Make sure you type in the last name first.
Still no results? Ask a librarian.

I’m getting too many hits.
Use a more specific search term.

I don’t know the correct spelling of a word in the title.
Do you know at least the first three letters? Then just use them – truncation is default.

I’m looking for books published between 1933-45.
Use the Advanced search. Change one field to Year, so that you can combine two Year fields. Change the equals [=] signs to >= and <=
Year >= 1933 [AND]
Year <= 1945.

I am looking for books published at any time in the thirties.
Use the Year field in the Advanced search.
Type in the first three digits of the period only: 193
As the search is truncated, you will get all records published 1930-1939.

I am looking for unpublished material.
Use the subject term Unpublished Memoirs in the Books database.
Search the documents catalogue.
Come to the library and search the Eyewitness accounts on the Testaments of the Holocaust database.

I am looking for memoirs and diaries, no matter whether published or unpublished.
Use the subject term Personal narratives in the Advanced Search and change [=] to [narrower].

I can not find my question on this list.
Ask a librarian!

How to ask a librarian your questions?
Please telephone us on 020 7636 7247 or email us using the contact form.