Online catalogue
The catalogue of the Society's library is now available here.
Those who are familiar with web-based databases and/or library catalogues in general will, we hope, find that most of the online catalgue's functions are familiar to them. However, in order to get the most from the catalogue you may find it useful to read the guidance notes below, which explain some of its more distinctive features.
Details of all the books, periodicals and pamphlets (though not slides) in the library have now been entered into the database. The database allows you to search for items using a wide variety or terms including author, title, series etc.
How to begin searching
To search for items using either the author's name or a "keyword" from the title of the publication, simply type in your "search term" and click "go". This will generate a list of all items including your term as part either of the title or the author's name. For example, if you are looking for a book by Barry Kemp, you would type "Kemp".
Tip: When searching for specific items it is important to refine your search as much possible so as not to have to search through very long list of "matches", which might include lots of items that are of no interest to you. For example if you were looking Flinders Petrie's book Naqada and Ballas, you would be best advised to type "Naqada" or "Ballas", as the database will only find a few matches for these terms. If you were to type "Petrie" the database returns many more hits (100+) for you then to search through. It is important therefore to try to identify an element of the publication's details that will yield only a few "matches". An author's name is usually best, except in cases where an author has written very many things that are kept in the library. To use another example, in the case of Barry Kemp's A Survey of the Ancient City of el-Amarna, typing "Amarn" would yield many "hits", whereas typing in the author's name yields far fewer.
In cases where the database returns more than eleven or more matches you will see that the first ten items only are displayed on the first page; you can browse further "matches" by clicking the tabs at left (1-, 11-, 21- etc.).
The location of each item - its 'shelfmark' - is shown at left, for example 'LIB KF FAK' for Fakhry, A, The Pyramids. The first element of the shelfmark tells you whether the book is in the main (Caminos) Library (= LIB) or in the "Old Library" (= "OLD", now housed in the Committee Room). The second element is the shelf mark - these are explained in greater detail here. The third element is formed of the first three letters of the author's surname but is of no relevance.
You will notice that beside each item there is either a green tick or a red cross. These are to indicate whether a book is available in the library or on loan, however, the catalogue is not "live" and the information not necessarily current, therefore they should be ignored. If you are intending to visit the library to consult/borrow specific items you are advised to contact the librarian; only a relatively small proportion of material available is on loan at any one time however and all pamphlets, journals and other multi-author works are available for reference only and do not leave the premises.
Anything underlined is "clickable" and will lead you to further information of one kind or another. For example, clicking on the author/title of a publication leads to a screen with further details on the publication as we have seen, and in this "new" window clicking on the name of the author brings up a list of all titles written by that author.
Further information
The titles of articles are NOT listed on the catalogue. It is possible only to search for their place of publication, i.e. the periodical or journal etc. in which they appeared. So for example, if you are looking for an article by published by Barry Kemp in the Journal of Egyptian Archaeology, you would need to look for "Journal of Egyptian Archaeology". Unfortunately, the database does not list the individual issues of periodicals in stock; to check if a particular issue is available please contact the librarian.
The pamphlet collection provides an exception to this rule. These are, in the main, offprinted and photocopied articles from periodicals the Society does not regularly take; they are kept in boxes in the main library and arranged alphabetically by author. All have been entered onto the database thus it is possible to search for them by author, keyword etc. as with other items. When searching for individual articles then it is best to search first for their place of publication e.g. the journal in which the article appeared; if you do not find the publication at this point it is worth then searching by author or keyword, as the article may be kept separately, with the pamphlets.
In addition guides to the library, the system of classification etc. and Egyptological literature in general, are available here.