Reference Materials at NYU Libraries

You can search for reference entries (articles) or reference sources (books, book series) with a single search in the NYU Libraries Catalog Search. To find only reference sources, perform a search with keywords or citation information; then, apply filters to narrow by “NYU Libraries,” “Library Collections,” or “Resource Type.”

To filter your results:

1. Go to library.nyu.edu
2. Perform a search, either with the simple search box on the homepage or in the advanced search.
3. Navigate to the left hand menu of the results page. Here, you will find the filters available for your results.
4. Apply filters by clicking the checkbox to the left of the option you want to include. 
5. If you want to exclude an option, hover over the text of the option and then click the red checkbox with a line through it that appears to the right.
6. Click the green “Apply Filters” button at the bottom of the filter menu in order to apply filters. Your results will refresh and appear in the same tab.
7. Your filters will now appear in bubbles at the top of the filter menu. You can clear a filter by clicking the x in the bubble, or reset all filters by clicking on the “Reset filters” button with the rewind arrow. 
8. You can save the filters that you apply for all subsequent searches during your session by clicking the “Remember all filters” button with the lock symbol, which appears below the active filter bubbles in the menu. 

Refine your results

The toggle under this option is automatically set to off. You can toggle it on to expand the search results beyond NYU and Consortium collections. This means that citations to resources that our library does not currently have access to will appear in the results. You can request these materials through interlibrary loan. This is useful if you are doing research on a little-known topic that does not appear in our current holdings, or if you are trying to exhaustively explore all items available on a given topic. 

Sort by

This will reorder your results based on relevance, date of publication (oldest or newest), title (alphabetical), or author (alphabetical by last name).

Show only

This filters results by four major categories: available online, peer-reviewed status, open access status, and physical collection status. 

Resource Type

This filters results by resource type, including book, book chapter, article, journal, magazine, newspaper, dissertation, and more… 

NYU Libraries

This filters results by which library location the item is associated with, including Bobst, Dibner, the Institute for the Fine Arts, and more... 

Library Collection

This filters results by which library collection the item belongs to, including the Main Collection (circulating), Reserves Collection (4-hour loan), Reference Collection (library use only), and more… 

Subject

This filters results by the subject headings that have been applied. Subject headings describe the major topics, people, places, or formats contained in a resource. 

Author/Creator

This filters results by the author or creator’s name.

Publication Date

This filters results by a range of years, months, or days. 

Genre

This filters results by the general class of works that an item falls into, such as an encyclopedia, a handbook, or a guide.

Language

This filters results by the language the item is in. The results are derived from the languages of the items on the results page. 

Journal Title

This filters results by the titles of the journals in the results.

E-Resource Collection 

This filters records by the e-resources collection that the digital items in the results are hosted in. 

New Records

This filters for new records from the last month or last three months. 

• Use the Advanced Search feature of the library catalog
• Set the “Any Field” dropdown menu to “Subject.” This will tell the catalog to search for your keyword(s) within the subject heading field of the catalog records.
• Use keywords like dictionaries, thesauri, biographies, etc., in their plural form. Additional keywords can be added to the next search line to specify languages, themes, locations, etc.

NYU Libraries subscribes to many databases that include full-text digital reference sources. On the Databases page, you can use the Types filters to locate databases that contain reference sources. For example, “Abstracts & Indices” or “Encyclopedias & Dictionaries” will retrieve reference sources. These filters can be used alone or combined for a more specific or extensive search.