To improve your search experience and gain access to advanced features, always begin by clicking the Sign In button pictured below. 

Once you have signed in to LibrarySearch you can: 

• Update your profile to be sure you will receive important library notifications
• Check due dates, place holds, review item requests, and pay fines
• Renew your borrowed items 
• View your search history
• Access saved search results and citations
• Create alerts to keep up to date on new publications

Please note: LibrarySearch times out after 30 minutes of inactivity, automatically signing you out and resetting itself to the default search page.

If searching with quotations around your title phrase is not successful, try using Advanced Search with the following settings:

• Select "Title" from the first drop-down menu
• Choose "is (exact)" from the next drop-down menu
• Enter your title phrase without quotations
• Select your preferred item format

Primary sources are:

• first-hand accounts of events
• materials created by participants or witnesses of the event/s under study
• original records created at the time that events occurred
• raw data

Examples include:

• periodical articles reporting original research
• letters
• government documents
• public records
• newspaper clipping

Secondary sources are:

• works that discuss a subject, but which are written after the time that the event/s occurred (by someone other than an eyewitness)

Examples include:

• a review
• critical analysis

To find primary sources @ U of T or online visit the "How to Find Primary Sources" Page for more information

What are course reserves?

• Professors will put a variety of class materials on short-term loan (STL)—these are course reserves.
• The majority of course reserves for Ecology and Evolutionary Biology courses will be held at the Earth Sciences (Noranda) Library. 
• Your professors should tell you in the course syllabus and/or at the beginning of the term if they have put any material on STL.
• Typical examples of STL material include course textbooks and other required/optional reading. 

If you are unsure if the required readings for your course are held at the Earth Sciences Library or if you are looking for reserves for other courses, you can search for STL material in the UTL Catalogue by title. STL materials will be listed under their regular titles, but the location of the item should read "Course Reserves." 

At the Earth Sciences Library, STL materials are kept at the circulation desk, where students may sign them out:

• The material is on loan for either 2 hours, 3 hours, overnight, or 2 days.
• Some material cannot be taken out of the library and is for in-house use only.
• The fine for late returns is 50 cents per hour.

Here is an example of what short-term material might look like in the UTL Catalogue.

Request an Article or Book via Interlibrary Loan (ILL)

If the library does not have the resource you need electronically or in print, you can request a specific article from another institution through our interlibrary loan (ILL) service. Note that you should only request an article or book through ILL if it is not available electronically or in print through U of T.

Current U of T students, faculty and staff can place a free request on the UTL ILL page. Research Readers, Alumni Research Readers, and Associate Member organizations may place ILL requests for a fee.