Browsing

Browsing is a useful way to find general information on a topic, or to locate resources to provide a starting point for your research.

If you are visiting the Library onsite, a good starting point for many people is to browse material on the shelves in the Library's reading rooms for anything interesting and relevant that catches your eye.

The following reading rooms have items to browse on shelves: Information Centre, Journals & Magazines, Redmond Barry Reading Room, La Trobe Reading Room, Newspapers and Genealogy. In the Arts Reading Room you can drop in and listen to a wide and eclectic selection of music in the listening lounge.

Why browse?

In the process of browsing, you can learn more about a subject area and decide what it is you are really looking for. However, browsing can become time consuming and does not necessarily allow you to locate specific items or yield the most relevant materials on your research.

In fact, only about 10 percent of the Library's collection is available for browsing. The sheer size of our collection means that it simply cannot all be made available to the public on open shelves. The bulk has to be stored in closed-access, high-density storage areas at the Library or offsite in special warehouses.

When is it good to browse?

This ultimately depends on the task you are engaged in, and your own skills and abilities. Browsing is good for:

• getting an overview of a subject area
• getting information when you don’t feel confident about searching an information database or the catalogue
• staying up-to-date in a field
• beginning a literature review in a new subject area
• discovering interesting items by chance.

Browsing online

Via our website, you can scan through the list of information databases, to see what is broadly available or do a simple search of the Library’s catalogue on your area of interest. The Library’s collection of items is enormous, and you may find yourself overwhelmed by the amount of information available.

Once you have narrowed your area of interest and can define in a phrase, or set of ‘keywords’ what you are looking for, you may find that searching becomes a more efficient way to find information.